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diff --git a/42133-0.txt b/42133-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..78f07c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/42133-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5010 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42133 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 42133-h.htm or 42133-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42133/42133-h/42133-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42133/42133-h.zip) + + + + + +[Illustration: _During his absence she went back of the counter._ +(frontispiece)] + + +BOBS, A GIRL DETECTIVE + +by + +CAROL NORTON + + + + + + + +The Saalfield Publishing Company +Akron, Ohio New York + +Copyright MCMXXVIII +By the Saalfield Publishing Co. +Printed in U.S.A. + + + + +BOBS, A GIRL DETECTIVE + + + + + CHAPTER I + FOUR GIRLS FACE A PROBLEM + + +"Now that the crash is over and the last echo has ceased to reverberate +through our ancestral halls, the problem before the house is what shall +the family of Vandergrifts do next?" + +"Gloria, I do wish you wouldn't stand there grinning like a Cheshire cat. +There certainly is nothing amusing about the whirlwind of a catastrophe +that we have just been through and are still in, for that matter." +Gwendolyn tapped her bronze-slippered toe impatiently as she sat in a +luxuriously upholstered chair in what, until this past week, had been the +library in the Long Island home of the proud family of Vandergrifts. + +Gloria, the oldest of the four girls, ceased to smile but the pleasant +expression, which was habitual to the blue eyes, did not entirely vanish +as she inquired, "What would you have me do, Gwen? Fret and fume as you +are doing? That is no way to readjust your life to new and changed +conditions. Face the facts squarely, say I, and then try to find some way +to surmount your difficulties. Now first of all, we ought----" + +The dark, handsome Gwendolyn, whose natural selfishness was plainly +portrayed in a drooping mouth and petulant expression, put her fingers in +her ears, saying: "If you are going to preach, I can assure you that I am +not going to listen; so you might as well save your breath until----" + +"Hush. Here comes Lena May in from the garden. Don't let her hear us +scrapping. It effects her sensitive soul as discord effects a true +musician." + +Lena May entered through the porch door, her arms filled with blossoming +branches. + +"Look, sisters, aren't apple blossoms even sweeter than usual this year?" +the slip of a girl began, then paused and glanced from one face to the +other. "Gwen, what is wrong?" she asked anxiously. + +But it was Gloria who replied, "Nothing at all, Pet. That is, nothing +'wronger' than usual, if you will permit my lapse of grammar." + +But the dark-eyed sister threw down the book which she had been trying to +read, as she exclaimed, "You both know perfectly well than nothing could +be in more of a muddle than our lives are at the present moment and your +'look for the silver lining,' philosophy, Gloria Vandergrift, doesn't +help _me_ in the least." + +The fawn-like eyes of the frail, youngest sister turned inquiringly +toward the oldest. "Has anything more happened, I mean, anything new?" +she asked. + +"Yes, dear, we had a letter from Father's lawyer and he states than +beyond a doubt our place here on Long Island does not belong to us and, +for that matter, it never did really. Grandfather bought it in good +faith, I am sure, but he did not receive a clear title." + +"Then why doesn't our lawyer clear it up? That's what I'd like to know," +Gwen said, throwing herself petulantly into another position. "Why did +Father employ him, if he cannot attend to our legal matters?" + +"But, Gwen, dear, can't you understand?" Gloria began to explain with +infinite patience. "When Father died, leaving four orphaned daughters, we +knew that the fortune he had inherited had been lost through unwise +investments, but we did think that the income from this vast acreage and +the tenants would be sufficient to permit us to live in about the same +comfortable way that we always have, but now we find that even this place +is not ours and that we are--well, up against it, as Bobs would say." + +"Where is Bobs?" This from Lena May, who was arranging the sprays of +apple blossoms in a large pale-green bowl on a low wicker stand. + +"Look out of yonder window and you will see the object of your inquiry," +Gloria laughed as she pointed toward the park-like grounds where a +hoidenish young girl of 17 could be seen riding astride a slender +high-spirited black horse with a white star in his forehead. + +"I do wish Roberta wouldn't wear that outlandish costume," Gwendolyn +began, "and what's more I can't see why she wants to be galloping around +the country in that fashion when a calamity like this is staring us in +the face." + +The horse had disappeared beyond the shrubbery. The sisters supposed that +the young rider would go down to the stables and so they were somewhat +startled, a second later, by seeing Bobs vault over the sill of an open +window and land in their midst. + +Gwendolyn, of course, rebuked her. "Roberta Vandergrift, aren't you ever +going to become ladylike?" she admonished. + +The newcomer was about to retort that she hoped not if Gwen was a sample, +but Gloria intervened. "Don't be ladylike, Bobs," she said. "Now, more +than ever, we need a man in the family. But come, let's talk peaceably +together and decide what we are to do." + +"All right," Roberta tossed her hat to one side and sat tailor-wise on +the floor, adding: "Fire ahead, I'm present." + +"Such language," was what Gwendolyn refrained from saying, but Bobs +chuckled in wicked glee. She thought it jolly fun to shock "Miss Prunes +and Prisms," as she called the sister but one year her senior. + +"Gloria, whatever you suggest, I know will be best," little Lena May +said, as she slipped a trusting hand into that of the oldest sister. +"Now, tell us, what is your plan?" + +The oldest girl was thoughtful for a moment, then said: "Honestly, I +don't know that I have made one very far ahead, but of course we must +leave here. That is the inevitable, and, equally of course, we must find +some way of earning our daily bread." + +"Bread, indeed," sniffed the disdainful Gwendolyn. "You know that I never +eat such a plebian thing as bread." + +"Well, you may work to earn cake if you prefer," Bobs told her, then +leaning forward she added eagerly: "I say, Gloria, it's going to be a +great adventure, isn't it? I've always been so envious of people who +actually earned their own way in the world. It shows there is something +in them. Anyone can be a parasite, but the person who is worth while +isn't contented to be one. Ever since Kathryn De Laney went to little old +New York town to take a course in nursing that she might do something big +in the world, I've had the itch to do likewise. Getting up at noon and +then dwaddling away the hours until midnight is all very well for those +who like it, but not for mine! I've been wishing that something would jar +us out of the rut we're in, and I, for one, am glad that it has come." + +"Kathryn De Laney is a disgrace to her family." This, scornfully, from +Gwen. "A girl with a million in her own name could hire people to do all +the nursing she wished done without going into dirty, slummy places +herself, and actually waiting on immigrants, the very sight of whom would +make me feel ill. I never even permit Hawkins to drive me through the +poorer sections of the city and, if I am obliged to pass through the +tenement district, I close the windows that I need not breath the +polluted air; and I also draw the curtains." + +"I've no doubt that you do," Bobs said, eyeing her sister almost coldly. +"I sometimes wonder where our mother got you, anyway. You haven't one +resemblance to that dear little woman who, when the squalid hamlet down +by the sound was burned, opened her home and took them all in. We were +too small to remember it ourselves, but I've heard Father tell about it +time and again, and he would always end the story by saying, 'My dearest +wish is that my four girls each grow up to be just such an angel woman as +their mother was.'" + +"Nor was that all," Lena May put in, a tender light glowing in her soft +brown eyes. "Mother herself superintended the rebuilding of the hamlet +which has now grown to be the model town along the sound." Then, looking +lovingly up at the oldest sister, she continued: "I'm glad, Gloria, that +you are so like our mother. But you haven't as yet told me your plan and +I am sure that you must at least have the beginning of one." + +"Well, as I said before, we must leave here and go to work," Gloria +replied. "I suppose the best thing would be for us to go to New York, +where so many varieties of endeavor await us. Mr. Corey thinks that there +will be about one hundred dollars a month for us to live on. That will be +twenty-five dollars for each of us, and----" + +"Twenty-five dollars, indeed? I can't even get a hat for that, and I +certainly shall need one to wear to Phyllis De Laney's lawn party on the +18th of June if----" + +"But you won't be here then, Gwen, so you might as well not plan to +attend," Gloria said seriously. "We are obliged to vacate this place by +the first of June. The Grabbersteins, who claim their ancestors were the +original owners, will move in on that day, bag and baggage, and so my +suggestion is that we leave the week previous, that we need not meet +them." + +"Have you thought what you will do to earn money?" Lena May asked Gloria. + +"Yes. Miss Lovejoy of the East Seventy-seventh Street Settlement has +asked me to take charge of the girls' clubs and I have accepted." + +"Gloria Vandergrift; you, a daughter of one of the very oldest families +in this country, to work, actually work in those dreadful smelling +slums." + +Gloria looked almost with pity at the speaker, who, of course, was +Gwendolyn, as she said: "Do you realize that being born an aristocrat is +merely an accident? You might have been born in the slums, Gwen, and if +you had been, wouldn't you be glad to have someone come to you and give +you a chance?" + +There being no reply, Gloria continued: "I take no credit to myself +because I happened to be born in luxury and not in poverty, but we'll +have to postpone this conversation, for our neighbors are evidently +coming to call." + +Bobs sprang to her feet and leaped to the open window. "Hello there, Phyl +and Dick! Come around this way and I'll open the porch door." + +Gwendolyn shrugged her shoulders. "Why doesn't Roberta allow Peter to +admit our visitors," she began, but Gloria interrupted: "One excellent +reason, perhaps, is that all our servants except the cook left this +morning. You, of course, were still asleep and did not know of the +exodus." + +The sharp retort on the tongue of Gwendolyn was not uttered, for Phyllis +De Laney and her big, good-looking brother, Richard, were entering the +library. + +"You poor dear girls! Just as soon as I heard the news I came right +over," Phyllis De Laney exclaimed as she sank down in a deep, comfortable +chair and looked about at her friends with an expression of frank +curiosity on her doll-pretty face. "However, I told Ma Mere that I knew +there wasn't a word of truth in the scandalous gossip, and so I came to +hear how it all started that I may be able to contradict it." Phyllis +took a breath and then continued her chatter: "Your maid, Gwen, told my +Fanchon, and she said that every servant in your employ had been +dismissed with two weeks' advance pay; and she said a good deal more than +that too, which, of course, isn't true. Just listen to this and then tell +me if it isn't simply scandalous. That maid declared that you girls are +going to work, actually work, to earn your own living." + +"I'll say it's true!" Roberta put in, grinning with wicked glee. Her good +pal, Dick, smiled over at her as he remarked with evident amusement: "You +don't look very miserable about it, Bobs. In fact, quite the contrary, +you appear pleased. If the truth were known, I envy you, honestly I do! +I'd much rather go to work than go to college. I'm no good at Latin or +Greek. If languages are dead, bury them, I say. I'm not a student by +nature, so what's the use pretending; but the pater won't hear to it. +Just because our grandfather left us each a million, we've got to dwaddle +away our lives spending it. Of course I'm nineteen now, but you wait +until I'm twenty-one years old and see what will happen." + +His sister Phyllis lifted her eyebrows ever so slightly and looked her +disapproval. "In that time you will have changed your mind," she +remarked. Then turning to her particular friend, she added: "But, Gwen, +you aren't going to work, are you? Pray, what could you do?" + +Gwendolyn was in no pleasant frame of mind as her sisters well knew, and +her reply was most ungraciously given. Curtly she stated that she did not +care to discuss her personal affairs with anyone. + +Phyllis flushed and rose at once, saying coldly: "Indeed? Since when have +you become so secretive? You always tell me everything you do and so I +had no reason to suppose that you would object to my friendly inquiry; +but you need have no fear, I shall never again intrude upon your privacy. +I will bid you all good afternoon and good-bye, for, of course, since you +are going to New York to work, I suppose as clerks in the shops, we will +not likely meet again." + +"Aw, I say, Sis, cut it out! What's the big idea, anyway? A friend is a +friend, isn't he, whether he wears broadcloth or overalls?" Then as his +sister continued to sweep out of the room, the lad crossed to the oldest +sister and held out his hand, saying, with sincere boyish sympathy, +"Gloria, I'm mighty sorry about this--er--this--well, whatever it is, and +please let me know where you go, and as soon as you're settled I'll run +over and play the big brother act, if you'll let me." + +Then, turning to Bobs, he said: "Go riding with me at sunrise tomorrow +morning, will you, like we used to do before I went away to school. +There's a lot I want to say, and the day after I'm going to be packed off +to the academy again to be tortured for another month; then, thanks be, +vacation will let me out of that prison for a while." Roberta hesitated, +and Dick urged: "Go on, Bob! Be a sport. Say yes." + +"All right. I'll be at the Twin Oaks, where we've met ever since we were +little shavers." + +When the door closed behind the departing guests Gloria turned to the +sister, who was but one year her junior, and said: "Gwendolyn, I am sorry +to say this, but the good of the larger number requires it. If you cannot +face the changed conditions cheerfully with us, I shall have to ask you +to make your plans independent of us. We three have decided to be brave +and courageous, and try to find joy and happiness in whatever may present +itself, just as our mother and father would wish us to do, and just as +they would have done had similar circumstances overtaken them." + +Gwendolyn rose and walked toward the door, but turned to say, "You need +not concern yourselves about me in the least. I shall not go with you to +New York. I shall visit my dear friend Eloise Rochester in Newport, as +she has often begged me to do." + +"An excellent plan, if----" Gloria began, then paused. + +Gwendolyn turned and inquired haughtily, "If what?" + +"If Eloise wants you when she hears that you have neither home nor +wealth. If I am anything of a character reader, I should say that the +invitation about which you have just told was merely a bait, so to speak, +for a return invitation. It is quite evident that Eloise has decided to +marry Richard De Laney's million-dollar inheritance, and since Phyllis +will not invite her to their home you, as a next-door neighbor, can be +used to advantage." + +"Indeed? Well, luckily Miss Vandergrift, you are _not_ a character +reader, as you will learn in the near future. You three make whatever +plans you wish, but do not include me." So saying, Gwendolyn left the +room and a few moments later the three sisters heard her moving about in +the apartment overhead, and they correctly assumed that she was packing, +preparatory for her departure to Newport. + +Gloria sighed: "I wonder why Gwen is so unlike our mother and father?" +she said. + +"I have it," Bobs cried, whirling about with eyes laughingly aglow. +"She's a changeling! A discontented nurse girl wished to wreak vengeance +upon Mother for having discharged her, or something like that, and so she +stole the child who really was our sister and left this----" + +"Don't, Bobsie!" Lena May protested. "Even if Gwen is selfish, maybe we +are to blame. She was ill for so long after Mother died that we couldn't +bear the thought of having two deaths, and so we rather spoiled her. I +believe that if we meet her contrariness with love and are very patient +we may find the gold that must be in her nature, since she _is_ our +mother's child." + +"You can do it, if it's do-able, Lena May," Bobs declared. "Now, Gloria, +break the glad news! When do we hit the trail for the big town?" + +"I'm going in tomorrow to find a place for us to live. If you girls wish, +you may accompany me." + +"Wish? Why, all the king's oxen and all the king's men couldn't keep me +from going." + +Gloria smiled at her hoidenish sister but refrained from commenting on +her language. She was so thankful that there was only one Gwen in the +family that she could overlook lesser failings. Bobs was taking the +mishap that had befallen them as a great adventure, but even she did not +dream of the truly exciting adventures that lay before them. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + A PROPOSAL + + +Soon after daybreak the next morning, down a deserted country road, two +thoroughbred horses were galloping neck and neck. + +"Gee along, Star," Bobs was shouting. She had lost her hat a mile back +and her short hair, which would ripple, though she tried hard to brush +out the natural curls, was tossed about her head, making her look more +hoidenish than ever. + +Dick, on his slender brown horse, gradually won a lead and was a length +ahead when they reached the Twin Oaks, which for many years had been +their trysting place. Roberta and Dick had been playmates and then pals, +squabbling and making up, ever since the pinafore days, more, however, +like two boys than a boy and a girl. Bobs, in fact, never thought of +herself as a young person who in due time would become a marriageable +young lady, and so it was with rather a shock of surprise that she heard +Dick say, when they had drawn their horses to a standstill in the shade +of the wide-spreading trees: "I say, Roberta, couldn't you cut out this +going to work stuff and marry me?" + +"Ye gods and little fishes! _Me_ marry you?" Bobs' remark and the +accompanying expression in her round, sunburned face, with its pertly +tilting freckled nose, were none too complimentary. + +Dick flushed. "Well, I say! What's the matter with me, anyhow? Anyone +might think, by the way you're staring, that I had said something +dreadful. I'm not deformed, am I? And I've got money enough so you +wouldn't have to work ever and----" + +Roberta became a girl at once, a girl with a sincere nature and a tender +heart. Reaching out a strong brown hand, she placed it kindly on the arm +of her friend. "Dicky, boy, forgive me, if--if I was a little astonished +and showed it. Truth is, for so many years I've thought of you as the +playmate I could always count on to fight my battles, that I'd sort of +forgotten that we were grown up enough to even think of marrying. Of +course we aren't grown up enough yet to really marry, for you are only +nineteen, and I'm worse than that, being not yet seventeen. And as for +money, Dick, I'd like you heaps better if you were poor and working your +way, but I know that you meant what you said most kindly. You wanted to +save me from hard knocks, but, Dick, honest Injun, I revel in them. That +is, I suppose I will. Never having had one as yet, I can't speak from +past experience." + +Then they rode slowly back to find the hat that had blown off into the +bushes. Dick rescued it, and when he returned it he handed her a spray +from a blossoming wild rose vine. + +The lad did not again refer to his offer, and the girl, he noted with an +inward sigh, had evidently forgotten all about it. She was gazing about +her appreciatively. "Dicky boy," she exclaimed, "there's nothing much +prettier than early morning in the country, is there, with the dew still +sparkling--and a meadow lark singing," she added, for at that moment a +joyous song arose from a near-by thicket. + +For a time they were silent as they rode slowly back by the way they had +come. Then Dick said, "Bobs, since you love the country so dearly, aren't +you afraid you'll be homesick in that human whirlpool, New York?" + +The girl turned toward him brightly. "Perhaps, sometimes," she replied. +"But it isn't far to the country when I feel the need of a deep breath of +fresh air." Then her face saddened as she continued: "Of course we won't +be coming out here any more." She waved toward the vast estate which for +many years had been the home of Vandergrifts. "We couldn't stand it, not +one of us could, to see strangers living where Mother and Father were so +happy. They'll probably change things a lot." Then she added almost +passionately: "I hope they will. Then, if ever I _do_ see it again, it +will not look like the same place." + +Dick did not say what was in his heart, but gloomily he realized that if +the girl at his side did not expect ever to return to that neighborhood, +it was quite evident that she would not be his wife, for his home +adjoined that of the Vandergrifts. + +When he spoke, his words in no way betrayed his thoughts. "Have you any +idea, Bobs, what you'd like to do, over there in the big city; I mean to +make a living?" + +The girl laughed; then sent a merry side glance toward her companion. +"You never could guess in a thousand years," she flung at him, then +challenged; "Try!" + +The boy flicked his quirt at the drooping branches of a willow they were +passing, then frankly confessed that he couldn't picture Roberta in any +of the occupations for women of which he had ever heard. Mischievously +she queried, "Wouldn't I make a nice demure saleswoman for ladies' +dresses or----" + +"Great guns, _No_!" was the explosive interruption. "Don't put such a +strain on my imagination." Then he laughed gaily, for he was evidently +trying to picture the hoidenish girl mincing up and down in some +fashionable emporium dressed in the latest styles, while women peered at +her through lorgnettes. Bobs laughed with him when he told his thoughts, +then said: + +"I'll agree, as a model, I won't do." Then with pretended thoughtfulness +she flicked a fly from her horse's ear. "Would I make a good actress, +Dicky, do you think?" + +"You'd make a better circus performer," the boy told her. "I'll never +forget the antics we used to pull, before----" + +"Before I realized that I was a girl and _had_ to be ladylike." Bobs +laughed with him, then added merrily, "If it hadn't been for my prunes +and prisms, Sister Gwendolyn, I might _never_ have ceased to be a +tom-boy." + +"I hope you never will become like Gwen," Dick said almost fiercely, "or +like my sister Phyllis, either. They're not _our kind_, though I'm sorry +to say it." Then noting a far-away, thoughtful expression which had crept +into the girl's eyes, the lad inquired: "Say, Bobs, have you any idea +_how_ Gwyn _can_ earn a living? You're the sort who can hold your own +anywhere. You'd be willing to work, but Gwyn--well, I can't picture her +as a daily-bread earner." + +His companion shook her head; then quite unexpectedly she said: "Dick, +why _didn't_ you fall in love with Gwen? It would have solved her problem +to have had someone nice and rich to take care of her." + +"Well, of all the unheard of preposterous suggestions!" The amazed youth +was so astonished that he unconsciously drew rein and stared at the girl. +He knew by her merry laugh that she had said it but to tease, and so he +rode on again at her side. Bobs feared that she had hurt her friend, for +his face was still flushed and he did not speak. Reining her horse close +to his, she again put a hand on his arm, saying with sincere earnestness: +"Forgive me, pal of mine, if I seemed to speak lightly. Honestly, I +didn't mean it--that is, not as it sounded. But I _do_ wish that someone +as nice and--yes, I'll say as rich as you are, _would_ propose to poor +Gwen. You don't know how sorry Gloria and I feel because Gwen has to be +poor with the rest of us." The boy had placed his hand over the one +resting on his arm, but only for a moment. "You see," Bobs explained, +"Glow and I honestly feel that an adventure of a new and interesting kind +awaits us, and, as for little Lena May, money means nothing to her. If +she can just be with Gloria, that is all she asks of Fate." + +They had reached the Vandergrift gate and Bobs, drawing rein, reached out +her hand, saying: "Goodbye, Dick." Then, after a hesitating moment, she +added sincerely, "I'm sorry, old pal. I wish I could have said yes--that +is, if it means a lot to you." + +The boy held her hand in a firm clasp as he replied earnestly, "I'm not +going to give up hoping, Bobsie. I'll put that question on the table for +a couple of years, but, when I am twenty-one, I'm going to hit the trail +for _wherever_ you are, and ask it all over again. You see if I don't." + +"You won't if Eloise Rochester has anything to say about it," was the +girl's merry rejoinder. Then as Bobs turned her horse toward the stables, +she called over her shoulder: "O, I say, Dick, I forgot to tell you the +profession I've chosen. I'm going to a girl detective." + + + + + CHAPTER III. + VENTURING FORTH + + +When Roberta entered the breakfast room, she found Gloria and Lena May +there waiting for her. In answer to her question, the oldest sister +replied that Gwen would not unlock her door. Lena May had left her +breakfast on a tray in the hall. "We think she is packing to leave," +Gloria sighed. "The way Gwen takes our misfortune is the hardest thing +about it." + +Bobs, who was ravenously hungry after her early morning ride, was eating +her breakfast with a relish which contrasted noticeably with the evident +lack of appetite shown by her sisters. At last she said: "Glow, I'm not +so sure all this is really a misfortune. If something hadn't happened to +jolt us out of a rut, we would have settled down here and led a humdrum, +monotonous life, going to teas and receptions, bridge parties and +week-ends, played tennis and golf, married and died, and nothing real or +vital would have happened. But, now, take it from me, I, for one, am +going to really live, not stagnate or rust." + +Gloria smiled as she hastened to assure her sister: "I agree with you, +Bobs. I'm glad something _has_ happened to make it possible for me to +carry out a long-cherished desire of mine. I haven't said much about it, +but ever since Kathryn De Laney came home last summer on a vacation and +told me about the girls of the East Side who have never had a real chance +to develop the best that is in them, I have wanted to help them. I didn't +know how to go about doing it, not until the crash came. Then I wrote +Kathryn, and you know what happened next. She found a place for me in the +Settlement House to conduct social clubs for those very girls of whom she +had told me." + +Both of the listeners noted the eager, earnest expression on the truly +beautiful face of the sister who had mothered them, but almost at once it +had saddened, and they knew that again she was thinking of Gwen. Directly +after breakfast Gloria went once more to the upper hall and tapped on a +closed and locked door, but there was no response from within. However, +the breakfast tray which Lena May had left on a near table was not in +sight, and so, at least, Gwendolyn was not going hungry. + +It seemed strange to the two younger girls to be clearing away the +breakfast things and tidying up the kitchen where, for so many years, a +good-natured Chinaman had reigned supreme. + +"I'm going to miss Sing more than any servant that we ever had," Bobs was +saying when Gloria entered the kitchen. There was a serious expression on +the face of the oldest girl and Bobs refrained from uttering the +flippancy which had been on the tip of her tongue. Lena May, having put +away the dishes, turned to ask solicitously: "Wouldn't Gwen let you in, +Glow?" + +"No, I didn't hear a sound, but the tray is gone." The gentle Lena May +was pleased to hear that. + +"Poor Gwen, she is making it harder for herself and for all of us," +Gloria said; then added, "Are you girls ready to go with me? I'd like to +get over to the city early, after the first rush is over and the midday +rush has not begun." + +Exultant Bobs could not refrain from waving the dishcloth she still held. +"Hurray for us!" she sang out. "Three adventurers starting on they know +not what wild escapade. Wait until I change my togs, Glow, and I'll be +with you." Then, glancing down at her riding habit, "Unless this will +do?" she questioned her sister. + +"Of course not, dear. We'll all wear tailored suits." + +It was midmorning when three fashionably attired girls for the first time +in their lives ascended to the Third Avenue Elevated, going uptown. At +that hour there were few people traveling in that direction and they had +a car almost to themselves. As they were whirled past tenements, so close +that they could plainly see the shabby furniture in the flats beyond, the +younger girls suddenly realized how great was the contrast between the +life that was ahead of them and that which they were leaving. The +thundering of the trains, the constant rumble of traffic below, the +discordant cries of hucksters, reached them through the open windows. +"It's hard to believe that a meadow lark is singing anywhere in the +world," Bobs said, turning to Gloria. "Or that little children are +playing in those meadows," the older girl replied. She was watching the +pale, ragged children hanging to railings around fire escapes on a level +with the train windows. + +"Poor little things!" Lena May's tone was pitying, "I don't see how they +can do much playing in such cramped, crowded places." + +"I don't suppose they even know the meaning of the word," Bobs replied. + +They left the train at the station nearest the Seventy-seventh Street +Settlement. Since Gloria was to be employed there, she planned starting +from that point to search for the nearest suitable dwelling. They found +themselves in a motley crowd composed of foreign women and children, who +jostled one another in an evident effort to reach the sidewalk where, in +two-wheeled carts, venders of all kinds of things salable were calling +their wares. "They must sell everything from fish to calico," Bobs +reported after a moment's inspection from the curbing. + +The women, who wore shawls of many colors over their heads and who +carried market baskets and babies, were, some of them, Bohemians and +others Hungarian. Few words of English were heard by the interested +girls. "I see where I have to acquire a new tongue if I am to know what +our future neighbors are talking about," Bobs had just said, when, +suddenly, just ahead of them, a thin, sickly woman slipped and would have +fallen had not a laboring man who was passing caught her just in time. +The grateful woman coughed, her hand pressed to her throat, before she +could thank him. The girls saw that she had potatoes in a basket which +seemed too heavy for her. The man was apparently asking where she lived; +then he assisted her toward a near tenement. + +"Well," Bobs exclaimed, "there is evidently chivalry among working men as +well as among idlers." + +At the crossing they were caught in a jam of traffic and pedestrians. +Little Lena May clung to Gloria's arm, looking about as though terrorized +at this new and startling experience. When, after some moments' delay, +the opposite sidewalk was reached in safety, Bobs exclaimed gleefully: +"Wasn't that great?" But Lena May had not enjoyed the experience, and it +was quite evident to the other two that it was going to be very hard for +their sensitive, frail youngest sister to be transplanted from her +gardens, where she had spent long, quiet, happy hours, painting the +scenes she loved, to this maelstrom of foreign humanity. There was almost +a pang of regret in the heart of the girl who had mothered the others +when she realized fully, for the first time, what her own choice of a +home location might mean to their youngest. Perhaps she had been selfish, +because of her own great interest in Settlement Work, to plan to have +them all live on the crowded East Side, but her fears were set at rest a +moment later when they came upon a group of children, scarcely more than +babies, who were playing in a gutter. Lena May's sweet face brightened +and, smiling up at Gloria, she exclaimed: "Aren't they dears, in spite of +the rags and dirt? I'd love to do something for them." + +"I'd like to put them all in a tub of soap-suds and give them a good +scrubbing for once in their lives," the practical Bobs remarked. Then she +caught Gloria by the arm, exclaiming, as she nodded toward a crossing, +"There goes that chivalrous laboring man. He steps off with too much +agility to be a ditch-digger, or anyone who does hard work, doesn't he, +Glow?" + +The oldest sister laughed. "Bobs," she remarked, "I sometimes think that +you are a detective by nature. You are always trying to discover by the +cut of a man's hair what his profession may be." + +Bobs' hazel eyes were merry, though her face was serious. "You've hit it, +Glow!" she exclaimed. "I was going to keep it a secret a while longer, +but I might as well confess, now that the cat is out of the bag." + +"What cat?" Lena May had only heard half of this sentence; she had been +so interested in watching the excitement among the children caused by the +approach of an organ grinder. + +"My chosen profession is the cat," Bobs informed her, "and I suppose my +brain, where it has been hiding, is the bag. I'm going to be a +detective." + +Little Lena May was horrified. Detectives meant to her sleuths who +visited underground haunts of crooks of all kinds. "I'm sure Gloria will +not wish it, will you, Glow?" + +Appealingly the soft brown eyes were lifted and met the smiling gaze of +the oldest sister. "We are each to do the work for which we are best +fitted," she replied. "You are to be our little housekeeper and that will +give you time to go on with your painting. I was just wondering a moment +ago if you might not like to put some of these black-eyed Hungarian +babies into a picture. If they are clean, they would be unusually +beautiful." + +Lena May was interested at once and glanced about for possible subjects, +and so for the time being the startling statement of Bobs' chosen +profession was dropped. They were nearing the East River, very close to +which stood a large, plain brick building containing many windows. "I +believe that is the Settlement House," Gloria had just said, when Bobs, +discovering the name over the door, verified the statement. + +A pretty Hungarian girl of about their own age answered their ring and +admitted them to a big cheerful clubroom. Another girl was practicing on +a piano in a far corner. The three newcomers seated themselves near the +door and looked about with great interest. Just beyond were shelves of +books. Bobs sauntered over to look at the titles. "It's a dandy +collection for girls," she reported as she again took her seat. + +It was not long before Miss Lovejoy, the matron entered the room and +advanced toward them. The three girls rose to greet her. + +Miss Lovejoy smilingly held out a hand to the tallest, saying in her +pleasant, friendly voice, "I wonder if I am right in believing that _you_ +are the Miss Gloria Vandergrift who is coming to assist me." + +"Yes, Miss Lovejoy, I am, and these are my younger sisters, Roberta and +little Lena May." Then she explained: "We haven't moved into town as yet. +I thought best to come over this morning and find a place for us to live; +then we will have our trunks sent and our personal possessions." + +"That is a good idea," the matron said, then asked: "Have you found +anything as yet?" + +"We thought, since we are strangers in the neighborhood, that you might +be able to suggest some place for us," Gloria told the matron. + +After a thoughtful moment Miss Lovejoy replied: "The tenement houses in +this immediate neighborhood are most certainly not desirable for one used +to comforts. However, on Seventy-eighth Street, there is a new model +tenement built by some wealthy women and it is just possible that there +may be a vacant flat. You might inquire at the office there. You can take +the short-cut path across the playground and it will lead you directly to +the model tenement." + +"Thank you, Miss Lovejoy," Gloria said. "We will let you know the result +of our search." + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + A HAUNTED HOUSE + + +The model tenement which Miss Lovejoy had pointed out to them was soon +reached. A door on the ground floor was labeled "Office," and so Gloria +pushed the electric button. + +A trim young woman whose long-lashed, dark eyes suggested her +nationality, received them, but regretted to have to tell them that every +flat in the model tenement was occupied. She looked, with but slightly +concealed curiosity, at these three applicants who, as was quite evident, +were from other environments. + +Gloria glanced about the neat courtyard and up at windows where flowers +were blossoming in bright window boxes, then glowingly she turned back to +the girl: "It was a splendid thing for those wealthy society women to do, +wasn't it," she said, "erecting this really handsome yellow brick +building in the midst of so much poverty and squalor. It must have a most +uplifting effect on the lives of the poor people to be able to live here +where everything is so sweet and clean, rather than there," nodding, as +she spoke, at a building across the street which looked gloomy, +crumbling, unsafe and unsanitary. + +The office attendant spoke with enthusiasm. "No one knows better than I, +for I used to live in the other kind of tenement when I was a child, but +Miss Lovejoy's club for factory girls gave me my chance to learn +bookkeeping, and now I am agent here. My name is Miss Selenski. Would you +like to see the model apartment?" + +"Thank you. Indeed we would," Gloria replied with enthusiasm; then she +added, "Miss Selenski, I am Miss Vandergrift, and these are my sisters, +Roberta and Lena May. We hope to be your neighbors soon." + +If there was a natural curiosity in the heart of the dark-eyed girl, she +said nothing of it, and at once led the way through the neatly tiled +halls and soon opened a door admitting them to a small flat of three +rooms, which was clean and attractively furnished. The windows, flooded +with sunlight, overlooked the East River. + +"This is the apartment that we show," Miss Selenski explained. "The +others are just like it, or were, before tenants moved in," she +corrected. + +"Say, this _is_ sure cosy! Who lives in this one?" Bobs inquired. + +"I do," Miss Selenski replied, hurrying to add, "But I did not fit it up. +The ladies did that. It has all the modern appliances that help to make +housekeeping easy, and once every week a teacher comes here to instruct +the neighborhood women how to cook, clean and sew; in fact, how to live. +And the lessons and demonstrations are given in this apartment." + +When the girls were again in the office, Gloria turned to their new +acquaintance, saying, "Do you happen to know of any place around here +that is vacant where we might like to live?" + +At first Miss Selenski shook her head. Then she added, with a queer +little smile, "Not unless you're willing to live in the old Pensinger +mansion." + +Then she went on to explain: "Long, long ago, when New York was little +more than a village, and Seventy-eighth Street was country, all along the +East River there were, here and there, handsome mansion-like homes and +vast grounds. Oh, so different from what it is now! Every once in a while +you find one of these old dwellings still standing. + +"Some of them house many poor families, but the Pensinger mansion is +seldom occupied. If a family is brave enough to move in, before many +weeks the 'for rent' sign is again at the door. The rent is almost +nothing, but--" the girl hesitated, then went on to say, "Maybe I ought +not to tell you the story about the old place if you have any thought of +living there." + +"Oh, please tell it! Is it a ghost story?" Bobs begged, and Gloria added, +"Yes, do tell it, Miss Selenski. We are none of us afraid of ghosts." + +"Of course you aren't," Miss Selenski agreed, "and, for that matter, +neither am I. But nearly all of our neighbors are superstitious. Mr. +Tenowitz, the grocer at the corner of First and Seventy-ninth has the +renting of the place, and he declares that the last tenant rushed into +his store early one morning, paid his bill and departed without a word of +explanation, but he looked, Mr. Tenowitz told me, as though he _had_ seen +a ghost. I don't think there is anything the matter with the old house," +their informant continued, "except just loneliness. + +"Of course, big, barnlike rooms, when they are empty, echo every sound in +a mournful manner without supernatural aid." + +"But how did it all start?" Bobs inquired. "Did anything of an unusual +nature ever happen there?" + +Miss Selenski nodded, and then continued: "The story is that the only +daughter of the last of the Pensingers who lived there disappeared one +night and was never again seen. Her mother, so the tale goes, wished her +to marry an elderly English nobleman, but she loved a poor Hungarian +violinist whom she was forbidden to see. Because of her grief, she did +many strange things, and one of them was to walk at midnight, dressed all +in white, along the brink of the dark swirling river which edged the wide +lawn in front of her home. Her white silk shawl was found on the bank one +morning and the lovely Marilyn Pensinger was never seen again. + +"Her father, however, was convinced that his daughter was not drowned, +but that she had married the man she loved and returned with him to his +native land, Hungary. So great was his faith in his own theory that, in +his will, he stated that the taxes on the old Pensinger mansion should be +paid for one hundred years and that it should become the property of any +descendant of his daughter, Marilyn, who could be found within that time. + +"I believe that will was made about seventy-five years ago and so, you +see, there are twenty-five years remaining for an heir to turn up." + +"What will happen if no one claims the old place?" Gloria inquired. + +"It is to be sold and the money devoted to charity," Miss Selenski told +them. + +"That certainly is an interesting yarn," Bobs declared; then added +gleefully, "I suppose the people around here think that the fair Marilyn +returns at midnight, prowling along the shores of the river looking for +her white silk shawl." + +Miss Selenski nodded. "That's about it, I believe." Then she added +brightly, "I'll tell you what, I'm not busy at this hour and if you wish +I'll take you over to see the old place. Mr. Tenowitz will give me the +keys." + +"Thank you, Miss Selenski," Gloria said. "We would be glad to have you +show us the place. There seems to be nothing else around here to rent and +we might remain in the Pensinger mansion until you have a model flat +unoccupied." + +"That will not be soon," they were told, "as there is a long waiting +list." + +Then, after hanging a sign on the door which stated that she would be +gone for half an hour, Miss Selenski and the three interested young +people went down Seventy-eighth Street and toward the East River. + +Bobs was hilariously excited. Perhaps, after all, she was going to have +an opportunity to really practice what she had, half in fun, called her +chosen profession, for was there not a mystery to be solved and an heir +to be found? + + + + + CHAPTER V. + A STRANGE NEW HOME + + +Lena May's clasp on the hand of her older sister grew unconsciously +tighter as they passed a noisy tobacco factory which faced the East River +and loomed, smoke-blackened and huge. + +The old Pensinger mansion was just beyond, set far back on what had once +been a beautiful lawn, reaching to the river's edge, but which was now +hard ground with here and there a half-dead tree struggling to live +without care. A wide road now separated it from the river, which was +lined as far up and down as one could see with wharves, to which coal and +lumber barges were tied. + +The house did indeed look as though it were a century old. The windows +had never been boarded up, and many of the panes had been broken by +stones thrown by the most daring of the street urchins, though, luckily, +few dared go near enough to further molest the place for fear of stirring +up the "haunt." + +"A noble house gone to decay," Gloria said. She had to speak louder than +usual because of the pounding and whirring of the machinery in the +neighboring factory. Lena May wondered if anywhere in all the world there +were still peaceful spaces where birds sang, or where the only sound was +the murmuring of the wind in the trees. + +"Is it never still here?" she turned big inquiring eyes toward their +guide. + +"Never," Miss Selenski told her. "That is, not for more than a minute at +a time, between shifts, for when the day work stops the night work +begins." + +"Many of the workers are women, are they not?" Gloria was looking at the +windows of the factory where many foreign women could be seen standing at +long tables. + +"They leave their children at the Settlement House. They work on the day +shift, and the men, if they can be made to work at all, go on at night." + +"Oh, Gloria!" this appealingly from the youngest, "will we ever be able +to sleep in the midst of such noise, when we have been used to such +silent nights at home?" + +"I don't much wonder that you ask," Bobs laughingly exclaimed, as she +thrust her fingers in her ears, for at that moment a tug on the river, +not a stone's throw away from them, rent the air with a shrill blast of +its whistle, which was repeated time and again. + +"You won't mind the noises when you get used to them," Miss Selenski told +them cheerfully. "I lived on Seventy-sixth Street, right under the Third +Avenue L, and the only time I woke up was when the trains stopped +running. The sudden stillness startles one, I suppose." + +Lena May said nothing, but she was remembering what Bobs had said when +they had left the Third Avenue Elevated: "Now we are to see how the +'other half' lives." + +"Poor other half!" the young girl thought. "I ought to be willing to live +here for a time and bring a little of the brightness I have known into +their lives, for they must be very drab." + +"Just wait here a minute," Miss Selenski was saying, "and I'll run over +to the grocery and get the key." + +She was back in an incredibly short time and found the three girls +examining with great interest the heavy front door, which had wide +panels, a shapely fan light over them, with beautiful emerald glass panes +on each side. + +"I simply adore this knocker," Bobs declared, jubilantly. "Hark, let's +hear the echoes." + +The knocker was lifted and dropped again, but though they all listened +intently, a sudden confusion on the river made it impossible to hear +aught else. + +"My private opinion is that Marilyn's ghost would much prefer some other +spot for midnight prowls," Bobs remarked, as the old key was being fitted +into the queerly designed lock. "Imagine a beautiful, sensitive girl of +seventy-five years ago trying to prowl down there where barges are tied +to soot-black docks and where derricks are emptying coal into waiting +trucks. No really romantic ghost, such as I am sure Marilyn Pensinger +must be, would care to prowl around here." + +Miss Selenski smiled at Bobs' nonsense. "I'm glad you feel that way," she +said, "for, of course, if you don't believe in the ghost, you won't mind +renting the house." + +At that moment the derrick of which Bobs had spoken emptied a great +bucket of coal with a deafening roar, and a wind blowing from the river +sent the cloud of black dust hurling toward them. + +"Quick! Duck inside!" Bobs cautioned, as they all leaped within and +closed the door with a bang. + +"Jimminy-crickets!" she then ejaculated, using her favorite tom-boy +expression. "The man who has this place to rent can't advertise it as +clean and quiet, a good place for nervous people to recuperate." Then +with a wry face toward her older sister. "I can't imagine Gwen in this +house, can you?" + +There was a sudden troubled expression in Gloria's eyes. "No, dear, I +can't. And I'm wondering, in fact I have often been wondering this +morning, if we ought not to select some place where Gwen and little Lena +May would be happier, for, of course, Gwen _can't_ keep on visiting her +friends forever. She will have to come home some day." The speaker felt a +hand slip into hers and, glancing down, she saw a pleading in the +uplifted eyes of their youngest. "I'd _like_ to live here, Glow, for a +while, if you would." + +"Little self-sacrificing puss that you are." Gloria smiled at Miss +Selenski, then said: "May we look over the old house and decide if we +wish to take it? Time is passing and we have much packing to do if we are +to return in another day or two." + +Although she did not say so, Bobs and Lena May knew that their mothering +sister was eager to return to their Long Island home that she might see +Gwendolyn before her departure. + +The old colonial mansion, like many others of its kind, had a wide hall +extending from the front to the back. At the extreme rear was a fireplace +with built-in seats. In fact, to the great delight of Bobs, who quite +adored them, a fireplace was found in each of the big barren rooms. Four +of these were on that floor, with the old kitchen in the basement, and +four vast silent rooms above, that had been bed chambers in the long ago. +Too, there was an attic, which they did not visit. + +When they had returned to the front hall, Bobs exclaimed: "We might rent +just one floor of this mansion and then have room to spare." + +But the oldest sister looked dubious. "I hardly think it advisable to +attempt to live in this place--" she began. "There is enough room here to +home an orphanage, and the kiddies wouldn't be crowded, either." + +Roberta was plainly disappointed. "Oh, I say, Glow, haven't you always +told us younger girls not to make hasty conclusions, and here you have +hardly more than crossed the threshold and you have decided that we +couldn't make the old house livable. Now, I think this room could be made +real cozy." + +How the others laughed. "Bobs, what a word to apply to this old +high-ceiled salon with its huge chandeliers and----" + +"Say, girls," the irrepressible interrupted, "wouldn't you like to see +all of those crystals sparkle when the room is lighted?" Then she +confessed, "Perhaps cozy isn't exactly the right word, but nevertheless I +like the place, and now, with the door closed, it isn't so noisy either. +It's keen, take it from me." + +"Roberta," Gloria sighed, "now and then I congratulate myself that you +have actually reformed in your manner of speech, when----" + +"Say, Glow, I'll make a bargain," Bobs again interrupted. "I'll talk like +the daughter of Old-dry-as-dust-Johnson, if you'll take this place. Now, +my idea is that we can just furnish up this lower floor. Make one of the +back rooms into a kitchen and dining-room, put in gas and electricity, +and presto change, there you are living in a modern up-to-date apartment. +Then we could lock up the basement and the rooms upstairs and forget they +are there." + +"If you are permitted to forget," Miss Selenski added, with her pleasant +smile. Then, for the first time, the girls remembered that the old house +was supposed to be supernaturally occupied. + +It was Bobs who exclaimed: "Well, if that poor girl, Marilyn Pensinger, +wants to come back here now and then and prowl about her very own +ancestral mansion, I, for one, think we would be greatly lacking in +hospitality if we didn't make her welcome." + +Then pleadingly to her older sister: "Glow, be a sport! Take it for a +month and give it a try-out." + +Lena May's big brown eyes wonderingly watched this enthusiastic sister, +who was but one year her senior, but whose tastes were widely different. +Her gentle heart was already desperately homesick for the old place on +Long Island, for the gardens that were a riot of flowers from spring +until late fall. + +Gloria walked to one of the windows and looked out meditatively. "If this +is the only place in the neighborhood in which we can live," she was +thinking, "perhaps we would better take it, and, after all, Bobs may be +right: this one floor can be made real homelike with the furniture that +we will bring, and what we do not need can be stored in the rooms +overhead." + +Bobs was eagerly awaiting her older sister's decision, and when it was +given, that hoidenish girl leaped about the room, staging a sort of wild +Indian dance that must have amazed the two chandeliers which had in the +long ago looked down upon dignified young ladies who solemnly danced the +minuet, and yet, perhaps the lonely old house was glad and proud to think +that it had been chosen as a residence for three girls, and that once +again its walls would reverberate with laughter and song. + +"We must start for home at once," Gloria said. Then, to Miss Selenski, +"We will stop on our way to the elevated and tell Mr. Tenowitz that we +will take the place for a time; and thank you so much for having helped +us find something. We shall want you to come often to see us." + +Bobs was the last one to leave, and before she closed the heavy +old-fashioned door, she peered back into the musty dimness and called, +"Good-bye, old house, we're going to have jolly good times, all of us +together." + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + A LOST SISTER + + +Two weeks later many changes had taken place. Mr. Tenowitz had agreed to +have one of the two large back rooms transformed into a modern kitchen at +one end, and the other end arranged so that it might be used as a +dining-room. In that room the early morning sun found its way, and when +Lena May had filled the windows with boxes containing the flowering +plants brought from the home gardens, it assumed a cheerfulness that +delighted the heart of the little housekeeper. + +Too, the huge chandeliers in the salon had been wired with electricity, +and great was the joy in the heart of Bobs on the night when they were +first lighted. The rich furnishings from their own drawing-room were in +place and the effect was far more homelike than Gloria had supposed +possible. + +The two large rooms on the other side of the wide dividing hall had been +fitted up as bed chambers and the furniture that they did not need had +been stored in the large room over the kitchen. + +How Lena May had dreaded that first night they had spent in the old +house, not because she believed it to be haunted. Gloria had convinced +her that that could not possibly be so, but because of the unusual +noises, she knew that she would not be able to sleep a wink. Nor was she, +for each time that she fell into a light slumber, a shriek from some +passing tug awakened her, and a dozen times at least she seized her +roommate, exclaiming, "Glow, what was that?" Sometimes it was a band of +hoodlums passing, or again an early milk wagon, or some of the many +noises which accompanied the night activities of the factory that was +their next-door neighbor. + +It was a very pale, sleepy-eyed Lena May who set about getting breakfast +the next morning, with Gloria helping, but Bobs looked as refreshed as +though she had spent the night in her own room on Long Island, where the +whippoorwill was the only disturber of the peace. + +"You'll get used to it soon," that beaming maiden told Lena May, and +then, when the youngest girl had gone with a small watering pot to attend +to the needs of her flower gardens at the front of the house, Bobs added +softly: "Glow, how have you planned things? It never would do to leave +Lena May all alone in the house, would it? And yet you and I must go out +and earn our daily bread." + +"I shall take Lena May with me wherever I go; that is, I will at first, +until we have things adjusted," the older sister replied. Then she +inquired: "What do you intend to do, Bobsie, or is it a secret as yet?" + +"It sure is," was the laughing reply, "a secret from myself, as well as +from everyone else, but I'm going to start out all alone into the great +city of New York this morning and give it the once over." + +"Roberta Vandergrift, didn't you promise me that you would talk like a +Johnsonian if we would rent this house?" Gloria reprimanded. + +The irrepressible younger girl's eyes twinkled. "My revered sister," she +said, solemnly, "my plans for the day are as yet veiled in mystery, but, +with your kind permission, I will endeavor to discover in this vast +metropolis some refined occupation, the doing of which will prove +sufficiently remunerative to enable me to at least assist in the +recuperation of our fallen fortunes." Then rising and making a deep bow, +her right hand on her heart, that mischievous girl inquired: "Miss +Vandergrift, shall I continue conversing in that way during our sojourn +in this ancient mansion, or shall I be--just natural?" + +Lena May, who had returned, joined in the laughter, and begged, "Do be +natural, Bobs, please, but not too natural." + +"Thank you, mademoiselles, for your kind permission, and now I believe I +will don my outdoor apparel and go in search of a profession." + +Gloria looked anxiously at the young girl before her, who was of such a +splendid athletic physique, whose cheeks were ruddy with health, and +whose eyes were glowing with enthusiasm. Ought she to permit Bobs to go +alone into the great surging mass of humanity so unprotected? + +"Roberta," she began, "do not be too trusting, dear. Remember that the +city is full of dangers that lurk in out-of-the-way places." + +The younger girl put both hands on the shoulders of the oldest sister +and, looking steadily into her eyes, she said seriously: "Glow, dear, you +have taught us that the greatest thing a parent can do for her daughter +is to teach her to be self-reliant that she may stand alone as, sooner or +later, she will have to do. I shall be careful, as I do not wish to cause +my sisters needless worry or anxiety, but I _must_ begin to live my own +life. You really wish me to do this, do you not, Gloria?" + +"Yes, dear," was the reply, "and I am sure the love of our mother will +guide and guard you. Good-bye and good luck." + +When Bobs was gone, Lena May slipped up to the older sister, who had +remained seated, and, putting a loving arm over the strong shoulders, she +said tenderly: "Glow, there are tears in your eyes. Why? Do you mind +Bobs' going alone out into the world?" + +"I was thinking of Mother, dear, and wishing I could better take her +place to you younger girls, and too, I am worried, just a little, because +Gwendolyn does not write. It was a great sorrow to me, Pet, to find that +she had left without saying good-bye, and I can't help but fear that I +was hasty when I told her that she must plan her life apart from us if +she could not be more harmonious." + +Then, rising, she added: "Ah, well, things will surely turn out for the +best, little girl. Come now, let us do our bit of tidying and then go +over to the Settlement House and find out what my hours are to be." + +But all that day, try as she might to be cheerful, the mothering heart of +Gloria was filled with anxiety concerning her two charges. Would all be +well with the venturous Bobs, and why didn't Gwen write? + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + BOBS SEEKS A PROFESSION + + +There was no anxiety in the heart of Roberta. In her short walking suit +of blue tweed, with a jaunty hat atop of her waving brown hair, she was +walking a brisk pace down Third Avenue. Even at that early hour foreign +women with shawls over their heads and baskets on their arms were going +to market. It was a new experience to Roberta to be elbowed aside as +though she were not a descendant of a long line of aristocratic +Vandergrifts. The fact that she was among them, made her one of them, was +probably their reasoning, if, indeed, they noticed her at all, which she +doubted. Gwen would have drawn her skirts close, fearing contamination, +but not so Bobs. She reveled in the new experience, feeling almost as +though she were abroad in Bohemia, Hungary or even Italy, for the +dominant nationality of the crowd changed noticeably before she had gone +many blocks. How wonderfully beautiful were some of the young Italian +matrons, Bobs thought; their dark eyes shaded with long lashes, their +natural grace but little concealed by bright-colored shawls. + +At one corner where the traffic held her up, the girl turned and looked +at the store nearest, her attention being attracted by a spray of lilacs +that stood within among piles of dusty old books. It seemed strange to +see that fragrant bit of springtime in a gloomy second-hand shop so far +from the country where it might have blossomed. As Bobs gazed into the +shop, she was suddenly conscious of a movement within, and then, out of +the shadows, she saw forms emerging. An old man with a long flowing beard +and the tight black skull cap so often worn by elderly men of the East +Side was pushing a wheeled chair in which reclined a frail old woman, +evidently his wife. In her face there was an expression of suffering +patiently borne which touched the heart of the young girl. + +The chair was placed close to the window that the invalid might look out +at the street if she wished and watch the panorama passing by. + +Instantly Bobs knew the meaning of the lilac, or thought that she did, +and, also, she at once decided that she wished to purchase a book, and +she groped about in her memory trying to recall a title for which she +might inquire. A detective story, of course, that was what she wanted. +Since it was to be her chosen profession, she could not read too many of +them. + +The old man had disappeared by this time, but when Bobs entered the dingy +shop the woman smiled up at her, and, to Roberta's surprise, she heard +herself saying, "Oh, may I have just one little sniff of your lilac? I +adore them, don't you?" + +The woman in the chair nodded, and her reply was in broken English, which +charmed her listener. She said that her "good man" bought her a "blossom +by the flower shop" every day, though she did tell him he shouldn't, she +knowing that to do it he had to go without himself, but it's the only +"bit of brightness he can be giving me," my good man says. + +Then she was silent, for from a little dark room at the back of the shop +the old man, bent with years, shuffled forward. Looking at him, Roberta +knew at once why he bought flowers and went without to do it, for there +was infinite tenderness in the eyes that turned first of all to the +occupant of the wheeled chair. + +Then he inquired what the customer might wish. Roberta knew that she had +a very small sum in her pocket and that as yet she had not obtained work, +but buy something she surely must, so she asked for detective stories. + +The old man led her to a musty, dusty shelf and there she selected +several titles, paid the small sum asked and inquired if he would keep +the parcel for her until she returned later in the day. + +Then, with another bright word to the little old woman, the girl was +gone, looking back at the corner to smile and nod, and the last thing +that she saw was the spray of lilacs that symbolized unselfish love. + +With no definite destination in mind, Roberta crossed Third Avenue and +walked as briskly as the throngs would permit in the direction of Fourth. +In a mood, half amused, half serious, she began to soliloquize: "Now, +Miss Roberta Vandergrift, it is high time that you were attempting to +obtain employment in this great city. Suppose you go over to Fifth Avenue +and apply for a position as sales girl in one of the fine stores where +you used to spend money so lavishly?" + +But, when the Fourth Avenue corner was reached, Roberta stopped in the +middle of the street heedless of the seething traffic and stared at an +upper window where she saw a sign that fascinated her: + + BURNS FOURTH AVENUE BRANCH + DETECTIVE AGENCY + +The building was old and dingy, the stairway rickety and dark, but +Roberta in the spirit of adventure climbed to the second floor without a +thought of fear. A moment later she was obeying a message printed on a +card that hung on the first door in the unlighted hall which bade her +enter and be seated. + +This she did and admitted herself into a small waiting room beyond which +were the private offices, as the black letters on the frosted glass of a +swinging door informed her. Roberta sat down feeling unreal, as though +she were living in a story book. She could hear voices beyond the door; +one was quiet and calm, the other high pitched and excited. + +The latter was saying: "I tell you I don't want no regular detective that +any crook could get wise to, I want someone so sort of stupid-looking +that a thief would think she wouldn't get on to it if he lifted something +right before her eyes." + +It was harder for Roberta to hear the reply. However she believed that it +was: "But, Mr. Queerwitz, we only have one woman in our employ just now, +and she is engaged out of town. I----" + +The speaker paused and looked up, for surely the door to his private +office had opened just a bit. Nor was he mistaken, for Bobs, as usual, +acting upon an impulse, stood there and was saying: "Pardon me for +overhearing your conversation. I just couldn't help it. I came to apply +for a position and I wondered if I would do." There was a twinkle in her +eyes as she added: "I can look real stupid if need be." + +The good-looking young man in the neat grey tweed, arose, and his +expression was one of appreciative good humor. + +"This is not exactly according to Hoyle," he remarked in his pleasant +voice, "but perhaps under the circumstances it is excusable. May I know +your name and former occupation?" + +Roberta did a bit of quick mental gymnastics. She did not wish to give +her real name. A Vandergrift in a Fourth Avenue detective agency! Even +Gloria might not approve of that. Almost instantly and in a voice that +carried conviction, at least to the older man, the girl said: "Dora +Dolittle." + +Were the gray-blue eyes of the younger man laughing? The girl could not +tell, for his face was serious and he continued in a more business-like +manner: "Miss Dolittle, I am James Jewett. May I introduce Mr. Queerwitz, +who has a very fine shop on Fifth Avenue, where he sells antiques of +great value? Although he has lost nothing as yet, he reports that +neighboring shops have been visited, presumably by a woman, who departs +with something of value, and he wishes to be prepared by having in his +employ a clerk whose business it shall be to discover the possible thief. +Are you willing to undertake this bit of detective work? If, at the end +of one week you have proved your ability in this line, I will take you on +our staff, as we are often in need of a wide-awake young lady." + +It was difficult for Roberta not to shout for joy. + +"Thank you, Mr. Jewett," she replied as demurely as a gladly pounding +heart would permit. "Shall I go with Mr. Queerwitz now?" + +"Yes, and report to me each morning at eight o'clock." + +The two departed, although it was quite evident that the merchant was not +entirely pleased with the arrangement. + +"Mr. Queerwitz! What a name!" Bobs was soliloquizing as she sat on the +back seat of the big, comfortable limousine, and now and then glanced at +her preoccupied companion. He was very rich, she decided, but not +refined, and yet how strange that a man with unrefined tastes should wish +to sell rarely beautiful things and antiques. Mr. Queerwitz was not +communicative. In fact, he had tried to protest at the suddenly made +arrangement and had declared to Mr. Jewett, in a brief moment when they +were alone, that he shouldn't pay a cent of salary to that "upstart of a +girl" unless she did something to really earn it. Mr. Jewett had agreed, +saying that he would assume the responsibility; but of this Roberta knew +nothing. + +They were soon riding down Fifth Avenue in the throng of fine equipages +with which she was most familiar, as often the handsome Vandergrift car +had been one of the procession. + +Bobs felt that she would have to pinch herself as she followed her portly +employer into an exclusive art shop to be sure that she was that same +Roberta Vandergrift. Then she reminded herself that she must entirely +forget her own name if she were to be consistently Dora Dolittle. + +How Bobs hoped that she would be successful on this, her first case, that +she might be permanently engaged by that interesting looking young man +who called himself James Jewett. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + A NEW FRIEND + + +At that early hour there were no customers in the shop, but Roberta saw +three young women of widely varying ages who were dusting and putting +things in order for the business of the day. Mr. Queerwitz went at once +to a tall, spare woman of about fifty whose light, reddish hair suggested +that the color had been applied from without. + +"Miss Peerwinkle," he said rather abruptly, "here's the new clerk I was +telling you about. You'd better show her the lay of things before it gets +busy." + +Miss Peerwinkle turned, and her washed-out blue eyes seemed to look down +at Roberta from the great height where, at least, she believed that her +position as head saleslady at the Queerwitz antique shop had placed her. + +"Your name, Miss?" she inquired when the proprietor had departed toward a +rear door labeled "No admittance." + +Bobs had been so amused by all that she had seen that she hardly heard +the inquiry, and when at last she did become conscious of it, for one +wild moment she couldn't recall her new name, and so she actually +hesitated. Luckily just then one of the girls called to Miss Peerwinkle +to ask her about a tag, and in that brief moment Bobs remembered. + +When the haughty "head lady" turned her coldly inquiring eyes again +toward the new clerk, Roberta was able to calmly reply, "Dora Dolittle." + +Miss Peerwinkle sniffed. Perhaps she was thinking it a poor name for an +efficient clerk to possess. Bobs' sense of humor almost made her exclaim: +"I ought to have chosen Dora Domuch." Then she laughingly assured herself +that _that_ wouldn't have done at all, as she did not believe that there +_was_ such a name and surely she _had_ heard of Dolittle. + +Bobs' soliloquy was broken in upon by a strident voice calling: "Miss +Dolittle, you're not paying any attention to what I am saying. Right here +and now, let me tell you day-dreaming isn't permitted in this shop. I was +telling you to go with Nell Wiggin to the cloakroom, and don't be gone +more'n five minutes. Mr. Queerwitz don't pay salaries for prinking." + +Bobs was desperately afraid that she wouldn't be able to get through the +morning without laughing, and yet there was something tragic about the +haughtiness of this poor Miss Peerwinkle. + +Meekly she followed a thin, pale girl of perhaps twenty-three. The two +who were left in the shop at once began to express their indignation +because a new clerk had been brought in for them to train. + +"If ever anybody looked the greenhorn, it's her," Miss Peerwinkle +exclaimed disdainfully, and Miss Harriet Dingley agreed. + +They said no more, for the new clerk, returning, said, "What am I to do +first?" Unfortunately Roberta asked this of the one nearest, who happened +to be Miss Harriet Dingley. That woman actually looked frightened as she +said, nodding toward her companion, "Don't ask me. I'm not head lady. She +is." + +Again Bobs found it hard not to laugh, for Miss Peerwinkle perceptibly +stiffened and her manner seemed to say, "You evidently aren't used to +class if you can't tell which folks are head and which aren't." But what +she really said was: "Nell Wiggin will show you around, and do be careful +you don't knock anything over. If you do, your salary's docked." + +"I'll be very careful, Miss Peerwinkle," the new clerk said, but she was +thinking, "Docked! My salary docked. I know what it is to dock a coal +barge, for I have one in front of my home, but----" + +"Oh, Miss Dolittle, please do watch where you go. You almost ran into +that Venetian vase." There was real kindness and concern in the voice of +the pale, very weary-looking young girl at her side, and in that moment +Bobs knew that she was going to like her. "Poor little thing," Bobs +thought. "She looks as though some unkind Fate had put out the light that +ought to be shining in her heart. I wish that I might find a way to +rekindle it." + +Very patiently Miss Nell Wiggin explained the different departments in +the antique shop. Suddenly she began to cough and sent a frightened +glance toward the closed door that bore the sign "No Admittance," then +stifled the sound in her handkerchief. Nothing was said, but Roberta +understood. + +The old furniture greatly interested Bobs. In her own home there were +many beautiful antiques. Casually she inquired, "How does Mr. Queerwitz +manage to obtain so much rare old furniture?" + +To her surprise, Nell Wiggin looked quickly around to be sure that no one +was near, then she said: "I'd ought not to tell you, but I will if you'll +keep it dark." + +"Dark as the deepest dungeon," Roberta replied, much puzzled by her +comrade's mysterious manner. The slight girl drew close. "He makes it +behind that door that nobody's allowed to go through," she said in a low +voice; then added, evidently wishing to be fair, "but that's nothing +unusual. Lots of dealers make their antiques and the public goes on +buying them knowing they may not be as old as the tags say. Here, now, +are the old books, and at least they are honest." + +Bobs uttered a cry of joy. "Oh, how I do wish I could have charge of this +department," she said. "I adore old books." + +There was a light in the pale face of little Miss Wiggin. "I do, too," +she said. "That is, I love Dickens; I never read much else." Then, almost +wistfully, she added: "I didn't have much chance to go to school, but +once, where I went to live, I found an old set of Dickens' books that +someone had left, and I've just read them over and over. I never go out +nights and the people living in those books are such a lot of company for +me." + +Again Bobs felt a yearning tenderness for this frail girl, who was +saying, "They're all the friends I've ever had, I guess." + +Impulsively the new clerk exclaimed, "I'll be your friend, if you'll let +me." Just then a strident voice called, "Miss Wiggin, forward!" + +"You stay with the books," Nell said softly, "and I'll do the china." + +Bobs watched the slight figure that was hurrying toward the front, and +she sighed, with tears close to the hazel eyes, and in her heart was a +prayer, "May I be forgiven for the selfish, heedless years I have lived. +But perhaps now I can make up for it. Surely I shall try." + +Roberta had been told by Mr. Jewett that she must not reveal to anyone +her real reason for being at the antique shop, and, as Mr. Queerwitz had +no faith in the girl's ability to waylay a pilferer, he did not care to +have Miss Nell Wiggin devote more time to teaching her the business of +selling antiques. This information was conveyed by Miss Peerwinkle to +Nell, who was told to stay away from the new clerk, with the added +remark: "If she didn't get on to the ropes with one hour's showing, she's +too stupid for this business, anyhow." + +Why the head lady had taken such a very evident dislike to her, Bobs +could not understand, for surely she was willing to do whatever she was +told. Ah, well, she wasn't going to worry. "Worrying is what makes one +old," she thought, as she mounted a small step-ladder on casters that one +could push along the shelves. From the top of it she examined the books +that were highest. Suddenly she uttered an exclamation of delight, then +looked about quickly to be sure that she had not been heard. Customers in +the front part of the store occupied the attention of the three clerks, +so Roberta reached for a volume that had attracted her attention. It was +indeed rare and old, so very old that she wondered that the covers did +not crumble, and it had illumined letters. "Perhaps they were made by +early monks," Bobs was thinking. She sat down on the ladder and began +turning the fascinating pages that were yellow with age. Suddenly she was +conscious that someone stood near her. She looked up to find the accusing +gaze of the head clerk fixed upon her. + +Bobs was startled into exclaiming: "Say, Miss Peerwinkle, a cat has +nothing on you when it comes to walking softly, has it?" + +The reply was frigidly given: "Miss Do-little," with emphasis, "you are +supposed to dust the books, not read them; and what's more, that +particular book is the rarest one in the whole collection. There's a mate +to it somewhere, and when Mr. Queerwitz finds it, he can sell the two of +them to Mr. Leonel Van Loon for one thousand dollars in cool cash." + +Roberta was properly impressed, and replaced the book; then, taking a +duster, she proceeded to tidy her department. + +At eleven o'clock Bobs wondered if she ought to wander about the shop and +watch the occasional customer. This she did, and was soon in the +neighborhood of Miss Wiggin. "You're to go out to eat when I do," Nell +told her. + +"I'm glad to hear it," was the reply. + +Promptly at noon Miss Wiggin beckoned and said: "Come, Miss Dolittle, be +as quick as you can. We only have half an hour nooning, and every minute +counts. I go around to my room. You might buy something, then come with +me and eat it." + +Roberta could hardly believe what she had heard. "Only half an hour to +wash, go somewhere, eat your lunch and get back? + +"Why the mad rush?" she exclaimed. "Doesn't Mr. Queerwitz know there's +all eternity ahead of us?" + +A wan smile was the only answer. Miss Nell Wiggin was not wasting time. +She led the way to the cloakroom, donned her outdoor garments, and then, +taking her new friend by the hand, she said: "Hold fast to me. We'll take +a short cut through the back stockroom. It's black as soot in there when +it isn't lit up. Mr. Queerwitz won't let us burn lights except for +business reasons." + +Bobs found herself being led through a room so dark that she could barely +see the two walls of boxes that were piled high on either side, with a +narrow path between. + +They soon emerged upon a back alley, where huge cans of refuse stood, and +where trucks were continually passing up and down or standing at the back +entrances of stores loading and unloading. + +"Now walk as fast as you can," little Miss Wiggin said, as away she went +toward Fourth Avenue, with Roberta close behind her. If Bobs had known +what was going to happen that noon, she would not have left the shop. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + A HURRIED LUNCH + + +Fourth Avenue having been reached, Miss Wiggin darted into a corner +delicatessen store. "What will you have for your lunch?" she turned to +ask of her companion. "I'm going to get five cents' worth of hot macaroni +and a dill pickle." + +"Double the order," Bobs said, and then she added to the man who stood +behind the counter: "I'll also take two ham sandwiches and two chocolate +eclairs." + +"Oh, Miss Dolittle, isn't that too much for you to spend at noon?" This +anxiously from pale, starved-looking little Miss Wiggin. + +At the Vandergrift table there had always been many courses with a butler +to serve, and in her heedless, thoughtless way, Bobs had supposed that +everyone, everywhere, had enough to eat. + +It was a queer little smile that she turned toward her new friend as she +replied: "This being our first lunch together, let's have a spread." Then +she paid the entire bill, which came to forty cents. "No," she assured +the protesting Nell Wiggin, "I won't offer to treat every day. After this +we'll go Dutch, honest we will! Now lead the way." + +Again in the thronged street, little Miss Wiggin turned with an apology: +"Maybe I oughtn't to've asked you to come to my room. Probably you're +used to something better." + +"Don't you believe it!" Bobs replied cheerily. "I live in the shabbiest +kind of a dump." She did not add that she had not as yet resided on New +York's East Side for more than twenty-four hours, at the longest, and +that prior to that her home on Long Island had been palatial. She was +eager to know how girls who had never had a chance were forced to live. +Miss Wiggin was descending rather rickety steps below the street level. +"Is your room in the basement?" Bobs asked, trying to keep from her voice +the shock that this revelation brought to her. No wonder there were no +roses in the wan cheeks of little Miss Wiggin. + +"Yes," was the reply, "the caretakers of the buildings all live in the +basements, you know, and Mrs. O'Malley, the janitor of this one, is a +widow with two little boys. She had a room to rent cheap and so I took +it." + +Then she led the way through a long, narrow, dark hall. Once Bobs touched +the wall and she drew back shuddering, for the stones were cold and +clammy. + +The little room to which Bobs was admitted opened only on an air shaft, +but there was sunlight entering its one small window; too, there were +white curtains and a geranium in bloom on the sill. + +"It's always pleasantest at noon, for that's the only time that the sun +reaches my window," the little hostess said, as she hurriedly drew a +sewing table out from behind the small cot bed, unfolded it and placed +the lunch thereon. Bobs' gaze wandered about the room, which was so small +that its three pieces of furniture seemed to crowd it. In one corner was +a bamboo bookcase which held the real treasure of Miss Wiggin. Row after +row of books in uniform dark red binding. They were all there--Oliver +Twist, David Copperfield, Old Curiosity Shop and the rest of them. + +"Nights it would be sort of dismal sitting in here alone if 'twasn't for +those books," the little hostess confessed. "That's a real good kerosene +lamp I have. It makes a bright light. I curl up on the couch as soon as +my supper's eaten, and then I forget where I really am, for I go wherever +the story takes me. Come, everything is ready," she added, "and since +fifteen minutes of our time is gone already, we'd better eat without +talking." + +This they did, and Gloria would have said that they gulped their food, +but what can one do with but half an hour for nooning? + +They didn't even stop to put away the table. "I'll leave it ready for my +supper tonight," Miss Wiggin said, as she fairly flew down the dark, damp +basement hall. + +Five minutes later they were entering the alley door of the antique shop +which had so fine an entrance on Fifth Avenue. + +"May the Fates save us!" Bobs exclaimed. "I do believe we are one minute +late. Are we in for execution or dismissal?" + +But that one minute had evidently escaped the watchful eye of Miss +Peerwinkle, for, when Nell Wiggin and Roberta entered the shop, they saw +the portly Mr. Queerwitz pacing up and down and in tragic tones he was +exclaiming: "Gone! Gone! I should have locked it up, but I didn't think +anyone else knew the value of it." Then, wheeling around, he demanded of +Bobs: "What good are you, anyway, in the book department? One of the +rarest books I possess was stolen this morning right beneath your very +eyes, and----" + +Little Nell Wiggin, usually so timid, stepped forward and said: "It must +have happened while we were out at lunch. It couldn't have been while we +were here, for nobody at all went down to the books." + +Mr. Queerwitz paid no more attention to the words of little Miss Wiggin +than he would at that moment to the buzzing of a fly. + +"Dolittle, well-named, I should say," he remarked scathingly. How Roberta +wished that she had chosen a busier sounding name, but the deed was done. +One couldn't be changing one's name every few hours, but---- + +Her revery was interrupted by: "What have you to say for yourself?" + +"Nothing," was the honest reply. + +"You are discharged," came the ultimatum. + +Bobs was almost glad. "Very well, Mr. Queerwitz," she replied, and +turning, she walked briskly toward the cloakroom. + +When Bobs returned from the cloakroom, having donned her hat and jacket, +she was informed that Mr. Queerwitz had just driven away, but that he +hadn't said where he was going. Bobs believed that he was going to report +her uselessness as a detective to her employer, James Jewett. Ah, well, +let him go. Perhaps after all she had made a mistake in her choice of a +profession. As she was passing she heard the older women talking. + +Miss Harriet Dingley was saying, "Now I come to think of it, just after +the girls went out to lunch, I did see a man come in, but I thought he +was looking at china." + +The head lady shot a none too pleasant glance at the other clerk as she +said coldly, "Well, you aren't giving me any information. Didn't I watch +every move he made like a cat watches a mouse hole? Just tell me that!" + +"Oh, yes, Miss Peerwinkle. I'm not criticizing anything you did. But you +remember when a boy ran by shouting fire, we did go to the door to see +where the fire was and a minute later the man went out and----" + +"He went empty-handed," the head-woman said self-defendingly. + +"I know he did. Now please don't think I'm criticizing you, but when he +went out I noticed that he was a hunch-back, and I'm certain that he +didn't have a hump when he came in." + +"We'll not discuss the matter further," was said in a tone of finality as +Miss Peerwinkle walked away with an air of offended dignity. + +Bobs looked about for Nell, to whom she wished to say good-bye. She was +glad that the youngest clerk was beyond the book shelves as Roberta was +curious to know which book had been taken. A gap on the top shelf told +the story. It was a rare old book for which one thousand dollars had been +offered if its mate could be found. + +"Whoever has taken the book has the other volume. I'm detective enough to +know that," Roberta declared. Then she turned to find little Miss Wiggin +standing at her side looking as sad as though something very precious was +being taken away from her. + +Impulsively Bobs held out both hands. + +"Don't forget, Nell Wiggin, that you and I are to be friends, and what's +more, next Sunday morning at ten o'clock sharp I'm coming down to get you +and take you to my home for dinner. How would you like that?" + +"Like it?" The dark eyes in the pale, wan face were like stars. "O, Miss +Dolittle, what it will mean to me!" + +Miss Harriet Dingley did nod when she heard Bobs singing out "Good-bye," +but Miss Peerwinkle seemed to be as deaf as a statue. + +"I could laugh," Bobs said to herself as she joined the throng on Fifth +Avenue, "if my heart wasn't so full of tears. I don't know as I can stand +much more of seeing how the other half lives without having a good cry +over it. Dickens, the only friend and comforter of that frail little mite +of humanity!" + +Then, as she turned again toward Avenue A, she suddenly remembered the +package of detective stories for which she had promised to call at the +shop where there was a spray of lilacs and a much-loved invalid woman. + +"I guess I'll give up the detective game," she thought, as she hurried +along, "but I'll enjoy reading the stories just the same." + +Half an hour later she had changed her mind and had decided that she +really was a very fine detective indeed. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + BOBS AS BOOKSELLER + + +It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Bobs entered the musty book +shop on the East Side and found the place unoccupied. However, the +tinkling of a bell sounded in the back room and the little old man +shuffled in. His expression was troubled, and when Roberta inquired for +his invalid wife, he replied that she wasn't so well. "Poor Marlitta," he +said, and there was infinite tenderness in his voice, "she's yearning to +go back to the home country where our children are and their children, +and the doctor thinks it might make her strong once again to be there, +but the voyage costs money, and Marlitta would rather die here than not +go honest." + +The old man seemed to be overcome with emotion, then suddenly recalling +his customer's errand, he shuffled away to procure the package of +detective stories for which she had called. During his absence Roberta +went back of the counter, reached for a book on an upper shelf and, while +so doing, dislodged several others that tumbled about her, revealing, as +though it had been hidden in the dark recess back of them, the rare book +which that morning had been taken from the Queerwitz Antique Shop. + +That, then, was what the old man meant when he said that his Marlitta +would not go unless she could "go honest." + +The girl quickly replaced the books and then stood deep in thought. What +could she do? What should she do? She knew that the gentle bookseller had +taken the rare volume merely to try to save the life of the one dearest +to him. When he returned with the package the girl heard herself asking: + +"But you, if your Marlitta went to the home country, would you not be +very lonely?" + +There was infinite sadness in the faded eyes and yet, too, there was +something else, a light from the soul that true sacrifice brings. + +"Ah, that I also might go," he said; then with a gesture that included +all of the small dark shop, he added, "but these old books are all I have +and they do not sell." + +At that moment Roberta recalled the name of Lionel Van Loon, who, as Miss +Peerwinkle had assured her, would pay one thousand dollars for the rare +book and its mate. For a thoughtful moment the girl gazed at the lilac, +then decided to tell the little old man all that she knew. + +At first she regretted this decision when she saw the frightened +expression in his gentle, child-like face, but she hastened to assure him +that she only wanted to help him, and so she was asking him to send the +stolen book back to the antique shop by mail. + +When this had been done, Roberta, returning from the corner post box, +found the old man gazing sadly at another volume which the girl instantly +knew was the prized mate of the one she had just mailed. + +"It's no use without the other," the bookseller told her, "and Mr. +Queerwitz wouldn't pay what it's worth. He never does. He crowds the poor +man to the wall and then crushes him." + +"I have a plan," the girl told him. "Will you trust me with this book for +a little while?" + +Trust her? Who would not? For reply the old man held his treasure toward +her. "Heaven bless you," was all that he said. + +It was four o'clock when Bobs descended from a taxicab and mounted the +steps of a handsome brown stone mansion on Riverside Drive. Mr. Van Loon +was at home and, being a most kindly old gentleman and accustomed to +receiving all manner of persons, he welcomed Roberta into his wonderful +library, listened courteously at first, but with growing interest, when +he realized that this radiant girl had a book to sell which she believed +to be both rare and valuable. The eyes of the cultured gentleman plainly +revealed his great joy when he actually saw the long-sought first volume. + +"My dear young lady," he said, "you cannot know what it means to me to be +able to obtain that book. I know where I can find its mate and so, I +assure you, I will purchase it, the price being?--" He paused +inquiringly. + +Roberta heard, as though it were someone else speaking, her own voice +saying: "Would one thousand dollars be too much, Mr. Van Loon?" + +To a man whose hobby was collecting books, and who was many times a +millionaire, it was not too much. "Will you have cash or a check?" he +inquired. + +"Cash, if you please." + +It was six o'clock when Bobs handed the money to the overjoyed +bookseller, who could not thank her enough. The little old woman again +was by the window and she smiled happily as she listened to the words of +the girl that fairly tumbled over each other in their eagerness to be +spoken. + +Then reaching out a frail hand to her "good man," and looking at him with +a light in her eyes that Bobs would never forget, she said: "Caleb, now +we can both go home to our children." + +Roberta promised to return the following day to help them prepare for the +voyage. She was turning away when the little woman called to her: "I want +you to have my lilac," she said, as she held the blossoming spray toward +the girl. + +It was half past six o'clock when Bobs reached home. Gloria was watching +for her rather anxiously, but it was not until they were gathered about +the fireplace for the evening that Bobs told her story. + +"Here endeth my experience as a detective," she concluded. + +But Roberta was mistaken. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + A QUEER GIFT + + +True to her promise Roberta had gone on the following afternoon to assist +her new friends to prepare for their voyage, but to her amazement she +found that they had departed, but the janitress living in the basement +was on the watch for the girl and at once she ascended the stone stairs +and inquired: "Are you Miss Dolittle?" + +Bobs replied that she was, and the large woman, in a manner which plainly +told that she had a message of importance to convey, whispered +mysteriously, "Wait here!" + +Down into the well of a stairway she disappeared, soon to return with an +envelope containing something hard, which felt as though it might be a +key. + +This it proved to be. The writing in the letter had been painstakingly +made, but the language was not English, and Bobs looked at it with so +frankly puzzled an expression that the woman, who had been standing near, +watching curiously, asked: "Can I read it for you?" + +Strange things surely had happened since the Vandergrifts had gone to the +East Side to live, but this was the strangest of all. It was hard for +Roberta to believe that she heard aright. The old man had written that +his entire stock was worth no more than five hundred dollars, and since +Roberta had procured more than that sum for him, he was making her a gift +of the books that remained, and requested that she remove them at once, +as the rent on the shop would expire the following day. + +The janitress, with an eye to business, at once said that her son, Jacob, +was idle and could truck the books for the young lady wherever she wished +them to go. It was two o'clock in the afternoon when this conversation +took place, and at five o'clock Gloria and Lena May, returning from the +Settlement House, were amazed to see a skinny horse drawing a two-wheeled +ash cart stopping at the curb in front of the Pensinger mansion. The +driver was a Hebrew lad, but at his side sat no less a personage than +Roberta, who beamed down upon her astonished sisters. + +After a moment of explanation the three girls assisted the boy Jacob to +cart all the books to one of the unoccupied upper rooms, and when he had +driven away Roberta sank down upon a kitchen chair and laughed until she +declared that she ached. Lena May, busy setting the table for supper, +merrily declared: "Bobs, what a girl you are to have adventures. Here +Glow and I have been on the East Side just as long as you have, and +nothing unusual has happened to us." + +"Give it time," Roberta remarked as she rose to wash her hands. "But now +I seem to have had a new profession thrust upon me. Glow, how would it do +to open an old book shop out on the front lawn?" + +"I'll prophesy that these books will fill a good need some day, perhaps, +when we're least expecting it," was Gloria's reply. + +Then, as they sat eating their evening meal together and watching the +afterglow of the sunset on the river, that was so near their front door, +at last Bobs said: "Do see those throngs of poor tired-out women trooping +from the factory. Now they will go to the Settlement House and get their +children, go home and cook and wash and iron and darn and--" she paused, +then added, "How did we four girls ever manage to live so near all this +and know nothing about it? I feel as though I had been the most selfish, +useless, good-for-nothing----" + +"Here, here, young lady. I won't allow you to call my sister such hard +names," Glow said merrily as she rose to replenish their cups of hot +chocolate. Then, more seriously, she added as she reseated herself: +"Losing our home seemed hard, but I do believe that we three are glad +that something happened to make us of greater use in the world." + +"I am," Lena May said, looking up brightly. She was thinking of the +sandpile at the Settlement House over which she had presided that +afternoon. + +And Gloria concluded: "I know that I would be more nearly happy than I +have been since our mother died, if only I knew where Gwendolyn is." + +And where was Gwendolyn, the proud, selfish girl who had not tried to +make the best of things? Gloria would indeed have been troubled had she +but known. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + A YOUNG MAN ENTERS + + +It was early Sunday morning. "Since we are to have your little friend, +Nell Wiggin, to dinner today," Gloria remarked as the three sat at +breakfast, "suppose we also invite Miss Selenski. It will be a nice +change for her." + +"Good!" Bobs agreed. "That's a splendid suggestion. Now what is the +program for the day?" + +"Lena May has consented to tell Bible stories to the very little children +each Sunday morning at the Settlement House," Gloria said, "and I have +asked a group of the older girls who are in one of my clubs to come over +here this afternoon for tea and a quiet hour around the fireplace. I +thought it would be a pleasant change for them, and I want you girls to +become acquainted with them so when I mention their names you will be +able to picture them. They really are such bright, attractive girls! The +Settlement House is giving them the only chance that life has to offer +them." Then, smiling lovingly at the youngest, Gloria concluded: "Lena +May has consented to pour, and you, Bobs, I shall expect to provide much +of the entertainment." + +Roberta laughed. "Me?" she asked. "What am I to do?" + +"O, just be natural." Gloria rose and began to clear the table as she +added: "Now, Bobs, since you have to go after your friend, Miss Wiggin, +Lena May and I will prepare the dinner. We have it planned, but we're +going to surprise you with our menu." + +It was nine o'clock when Roberta left the Pensinger mansion. It was the +first Sunday that the girls had spent on the East Side, and what a +different sight met the eyes of Bobs when she started down the nearly +deserted street, on one side of which were the wide docks. + +Derricks were silent and the men who lived on the barges were dressed in +whatever holiday attire they possessed. They were seated, some on +gunwales, others on rolls of tarred rope, smoking and talking, and save +for an occasional steamer loaded with folk from the city who were sailing +away for a day's outing, peace reigned on the waterfront, for even the +noise of the factory was stilled. + +Turning the corner at Seventy-eighth Street, Roberta was surprised to +find that the boys' playground was nearly deserted. She had supposed that +at this hour it would be thronged. Just as she was puzzling about it, a +lad with whom she had a speaking acquaintance emerged from a doorway and +she hailed him: + +"You're all dressed up, Antovich, aren't you? Just like a regular little +gentleman. Are you going to Sunday school?" + +"Oh, no, ma'am; that is, I donno as 'tis. Mr. Hardinian doesn't go to +call it that. He calls it a boys' club by Treasure Seekers. There's a +clubhouse over to Seventy-fifth Street. I say, Miss Bobs, I wish for you +to come and see it. I sure wish for you to." + +Roberta assured the eager lad that she might look in a little later, then +bidding him good-bye, she turned in to the model tenement house to ask +Miss Selenski to a one o'clock dinner. + +"Oh, how lovely and sunny and sweet smelling your little home is," Bobs +said three minutes later when she had been admitted to the small +apartment, the front windows of which overlooked the glistening blue +river. + +"I like it," was the bright reply of the slender dark-eyed girl who lived +there. + +Bobs continued: "How I wish the rich folk who built this would influence +others to do the same. Take that rookery across the street, for instance. +It looks as though a clap of thunder would crash it to the ground, and it +surely is a fire trap." + +"It is indeed that," Miss Selenski said, "and though I have reported it +time and again, the very rich man who owns it finds it such excellent +income property that he manages to evade an injunction to have the place +torn down. Some day we'll have a terrible tragedy of some kind over +there, and then perhaps--" she paused and sighed. "But, since we can't +help, let's talk of pleasanter things." + +Bobs then informed Miss Selenski that she had come to invite her to +dinner that day, and the little agent of the model apartments indeed was +pleased, and replied: "Some time soon I shall invite you girls over here +and give you just Hungarian dishes." Then Bobs departed, and as she +walked down Fourth Avenue she glanced with rather an amused expression up +at the windows of the Detective Agency of which, for so brief a time, she +had been an employee. She wondered what that good-looking young man, +James Jewett, had thought of her, for, surely, her recent employer would +have at once telephoned that as a detective she had been "no good." Then +she decided that she probably never would learn, as she most certainly +would not again return to the agency. But little do we know what fate +holds in store for us. + +Nell Wiggin was ready and waiting, and she looked very sweet indeed, with +her corn yellow hair fluffed beneath her neat blue hat, her eyes eager, +her cheeks, usually pale, flushed with this unusual excitement. Her suit +was neat and trim, though made of cheap material. + +"You're right on time to the very minute, aren't you, Miss Dolittle?" she +said happily, as she opened the door to admit her new friend. + +"I sure am," was the bright reply. "I'm the original on the dot man, or +young lady, I should say." But while Bobs was speaking there was +misgivings in her heart. She had forgotten to ask Gloria what she ought +to do about her name. Should they all be Dolittles or Vandergrifts? She +decided to take Nell into her confidence and tell her the story of the +assumed name. + +The listener did not seem at all surprised. "Lots of girls who go out to +work change their names," she said. "It's just as honest as writing +stories under a different name, I should think." + +"That's so," Roberta agreed, much relieved. "A nom-de-plume isn't much +different." + +"And so you are a detective?" Nell looked at her friend with a little +more awe, perhaps. + +"Heavens no! Not now!" Bobs was quick to protest. "I merely tried it, and +failed." + +"Well, as it turned out, a detective wasn't needed on that particular +case." Nell was giving Bob the very information she was eager to receive, +but for which she did not wish to ask. "The next day the stolen book came +back by mail." Roberta knew that she ought to register astonishment, but +instead, she laughed. "What did Mr. Queerwitz say?" she inquired. + +"Oh, they all put it down to conscience. That does happen, you know. You +read about conscience money being returned every now and then in the +newspapers, but the strangest part was, that that very afternoon Mr. Van +Loon came in and said that he had been able to obtain the first volume +and wished to purchase the second. Mr. Queerwitz was out at the time, and +so Miss Peerwinkle sold it to him for five hundred dollars." + +Bobs wanted to laugh again. It amused her to think that she had driven +the better bargain, but she thought it unwise to appear too interested in +the transaction, and so she changed the subject, and together they walked +up Third Avenue. + +"How different it all is on Sunday," Nell Wiggin smiled happily at her +new friend. She had indeed spoken truly. The vendors' carts were +conspicuous by their absence and the stores, if they were open, seemed to +be more for the social gathering of foreign folk dressed in their gay +best, than for active business. Even the elevated trains thundered +overhead with much longer intervals in between, and sometimes, for as +long as fifteen minutes, the peace of Sunday seemed to pervade that +unlovely East Side. + +Bobs, noting a Seventy-fifth Street sign, stopped and gazed down toward +the river, and sure enough she saw a long, low building labeled Boys' +Club House. + +"Let's go through this way to Second," Bobs suggested. In front of the +clubhouse there was a group of boys with faces so clean that they shone, +and one of these, leaving the others, raced up to the girls, and taking +his friend by the hand, he said: "Oh, Miss Bobs, you did for to come, +didn't you? Please stop in by the clubhouse. It will to please Mr. +Hardinian." + +Roberta's smile seemed to convey consent, and she found herself being +rapidly led toward a wide-open door. Nell willingly followed. The sound +of band practice came from within, but, when the lad appeared with the +smiling guest, a young man, who had been playing upon a flute, arose and +at once advanced toward them. What dark, beautiful eyes he had! "Why," +Roberta exclaimed in surprise. "We saw Mr. Hardinian the very first day +we came in this neighborhood to live. He was helping a poor sick woman +who had fallen, and--" But she could say no more, for the small boy was +eagerly telling the clubmaster that this was his "lady friend" and that +her name was Miss Bobs. The young man smiled and said that he was always +glad to have visitors. "What a musical voice!" was Bobs' thought. + +Then, turning to the girl who had remained by the open door, she held out +a hand. "This is my friend, Nell Wiggin. I am sure that we will both be +interested in knowing of your work, Mr. Hardinian, if you have time to +spare." + +"Indeed I have, always, for those who are interested." Then the young man +told them of his many clubs for boys. + +Roberta looked about with interest. "Why are there so many wide shelves +all around the walls, Mr. Hardinian?" she asked at last. + +The young man smiled. "If you will come some night at ten o'clock you +will find a little street urchin, some homeless little fellow, tucked up +in blankets asleep on each of those shelves, as you call their bunks. +Maybe you do not know, but even in the bitterest winter weather many +small boys sleep out in the streets or creep into doorways and huddle +together to keep warm. That is, they used to before I came. Now they are +all welcome in here." + +Roberta wished she might ask this wonderful young man where he came from, +but that would not do on so slight an acquaintance, and so thanking him +and bidding him good morning, with Nell and Antovich, she again started +for home. + +Though Roberta little dreamed it, the wonderful young man had come into +the drama of their lives, and was to play a very important part. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + NELL WIGGIN'S STORY + + +Such a merry dinner party as it was in one corner of the big southeast +corner room of the old Pensinger mansion. The young hostesses by neither +word nor manner betrayed the fact that they were used to better things. +When at last the dishes had been washed and put away, a fire was started +on the wide hearth in the long salon and the girls gathered about it. + +"Suppose we each tell the story of our lives," Gloria suggested, "and in +that way we may the sooner become really acquainted. + +"For ourselves a few words will suffice. We three girls lived very +happily in our Long Island home until our dear mother died; then, last +year, our beloved father was taken, and since then I, because I am +oldest, have tried to be both parents to my younger sisters." + +"And truly you have succeeded," Bobs put in. Gloria smiled lovingly at +her hoidenish sister, who sat on a low stool close to the fire, her arms +folded about her knees. + +"But we soon found that in reality the roof that had sheltered us from +childhood was not really our own. The title, it seems, had not been clear +in the very beginning, when our great-grandfather had purchased it, and +so, because of this, we had to move. I wanted to do settlement work, and +that is what I am doing now. Lena May also loves the work, and is soon to +have classes for the very little boys and girls. Bobs, as we call this +tom-boy sister of ours, as yet, I believe, has not definitely decided +upon a profession." + +Roberta's eyes were laughing as she glanced across at Nell Wiggin, but +since Miss Selenski did not know the story of her recent adventure, +nothing was said. + +Turning to the slender, dark-eyed agent of the model tenements, Gloria +remarked: "Will you now tell us a little about yourself, Miss Selenski?" + +All through the dinner hour the girls had noticed a happy light that +seemed to linger far back in the nearly black orbs of the Hungarian girl, +but they thought it was her optimistic nature that gladdened her eyes; +but now, in answer to Gloria's question, the dark, pretty face became +radiant as the girl replied: "The past holds little worth the telling, +but the future, I believe, will hold much." + +"Oh, Miss Selenski," Bobs exclaimed, leaning forward eagerly and smiling +at their Hungarian friend, "something wonderful is about to happen in +your life, I am sure of that." + +Shining-eyed, the dark girl nodded. "Do you want to guess what?" + +It was Lena May who answered: "I think you are going to be married," she +said. + +"I am," was the joyfully given reply. "To a young man from my own country +who has a business in the Bronx; nor is that all, he owns a little home +way out by the park and there is a real yard about it with flowers and +trees. Oh, can you understand what it will mean to me to be awakened in +the morning by birds instead of by the thundering noise of overhead +trains?" + +"Miss Selenski," Gloria said, "we are glad indeed that such a happy +future awaits you." Then turning to little Nell Wiggin, who sat back +somewhat in the shadow, though now and then the flickering firelight +changed her corn-yellow hair to a halo of golden sheen, she asked kindly: +"Is there some bit of your past that you wish to tell us?" + +There was something so infinitely sorrowful in the pale pinched face of +little Nell Wiggin that instinctively the girls knew that the story they +would hear would be sad, nor were they mistaken. + +Nell Wiggin began: "It is not interesting, my past, and I fear that it is +too sad for a story, but briefly I will tell it: My twin brother, Dean, +and I were born on a farm in New England which seemed able to produce but +little on its rocky soil, and though our father managed to keep us alive, +he could not pay off the mortgage, and each year he grew more troubled in +spirit. At last he heard of rich lands in the West that might be +homesteaded and so, leaving us one spring, he set out on foot, for he +planned taking up a claim, and when he had constructed there a shelter of +some kind, Mother was to sell the New England farm, pay off the mortgage +and with whatever remained buy tickets that would take us west to my +father. + +"It was May when he left us. He did not expect to reach his destination +for many weeks, as he knew that he would have to stop along the way to +work for his food. + +"Dear little Mother tried to run the farm that summer. Dean and I were +ten years of age, and though we could do weeding and seeding, we could +not help with the heavier work, and since our mother was frail much of +this had to be left undone. + +"Fate was against us, it would seem, for the rain was scarce and our +crops poor, and the bitterly cold winter found us with but little +provisions in store. In all this time we had not heard from Father, and +after the snows came we knew the post office in the town twenty miles +away could not be reached by us until the following spring, and so we +could neither receive nor send a letter. + +"Our nearest neighbor was eight miles away, and he was but a poor +scrabbler in the rocky soil, a kind-hearted hermit of whom Brother and I +had at first been afraid, because of his long bushy beard, perhaps, but +when we once chanced to be near enough to see his kind gray eyes, we +loved him and knew that he was a friend, and the future surely was to +prove this. But, if possible, that dear old man, Mr. Eastland, was poorer +than we were. + +"Our mother, we knew, was worried nearly to the point of heartbreak, but +I shall never forget how wonderful she was that winter. Whenever we +looked, she smiled at us, tremulously sometimes, and when our task of +shelling and pounding corn was over, she helped us invent little games +and told us beautiful stories that she made up. But for all her outward +cheer, I now realize, when we children were asleep on the mattress that +had been brought from the cold bedroom and placed on the floor near the +stove, that our mother spent many long hours on her knees in prayer. + +"Our cow had been sold before the snow came, as money had been needed to +pay on the mortgage, and so we had no milk. Our few hens were kept in a +lean-to shed during the day, but Mother permitted them to roost behind +the stove on those bitterly cold nights, and so occasionally we had eggs, +and a rare feast it was, but at last our supply of corn was nearly +exhausted. + +"There was usually a thaw in January, but instead, this exceptionally +cold winter brought a blizzard which continued day after day, burying our +house deep in snow. At last Mother had to tell us that unless a thaw came +that we might procure some provisions from our neighbors, we would have +to kill our three hens for food. What we would do after that, she did not +say; but, luckily, for the feathered members of our family, the thaw did +come and with it came Mr. Eastland, riding the eight miles on his stout +little mule, and fastened to the saddle, back of him, was a bag of corn +and potatoes. Dear, kind man! He must have brought us half of his own +remaining store. Eagerly our mother asked if there had been news from +town, but he shook his head. 'No one's been through with the mail, Mis' +Wiggin,' he said; then he added: 'I s'pose likely you're powerful +consarned about that man o' yourn. I s'pose you haven't heard from him +yet, Mis' Wiggin?' + +"Mother tried to answer, but her lips quivered and she had to turn away. + +"'Well, so long, folks!' the old man called, 'I'll be over agin 'fore +spring, the snow permittin'.' + +"We children climbed on the gate and stood as high as we could to watch +our good friend ride away. What we did not know until later, was that as +soon as he was out of our sight, he turned and rode that twenty miles to +the village post office. A week later Mother was indeed surprised to see +Mr. Eastland returning, and this time he brought a letter. It was with +eager joy that Mother leaped forward to take it, but it was with a cry of +grief that she covered her face with her hands and hurried into the +house. The letter had fallen, and I picked it up and glanced at it. +Father never got there, it said, but when he knew he was going to die he +asked someone to write. He had worked days and walked nights and died of +exposure and exhaustion. + +"Spring came and with the first balmy days our mother was taken from us. +We children were eleven years old then, and we knew not what to do. + +"'We must go to Mr. Eastland,' Dean said. 'He would want us to.' + +"We went, and that good man took us in, and made a home for us until--" +she paused and looked around, but as her listeners did not speak, she +added: "Perhaps this is all too sad, perhaps you will not care to hear +the rest." + +"Please do tell us, dear Nell," Gloria said, and so the frail girl +continued her story. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + A PLEASANT PLAN + + +"The summer following our mother's death was hot and dry," the frail girl +continued, "and the grass around Mr. Eastland's shack, though tall from +early rains, was parched in August. + +"One morning before he rode in town, our foster-father jokingly told my +brother Dean that he would leave the place in his care. 'Don't ye let +anything happen to it, sonny,' he said. + +"Dean, who is always serious, looked up at the old man on the mule as he +replied: 'I'll take care of it, Daddy Eastland, even with my life.' + +"We thought nothing of this. My brother was a dreamer, living, it +sometimes seemed, in a world of his own creating. I now realize that my +foster-father and I did not quite understand him. + +"It was an intensely hot day. How the grass got on fire I do not know, +but about noon I heard a cry from Dean, who had been lying for hours on +the ground in the shade of the shack reading a book of poetry that a +traveling missionary had brought to him. He had visited us six months +before and had promised the next time he came that he would bring a book +for my brother. + +"When I heard Dean's cry of alarm and saw him leap to his feet and run +toward a swiftly approaching column of smoke, I also ran, but not being +as fleet of foot, I was soon far behind him. He had caught up a burlap +bag as he passed a shed; then, on he raced toward the fire. I, too, +paused to get a bag, but when I started on I saw my brother suddenly +plunge forward and disappear. + +"He had caught his foot in a briar and had fallen into a thicket which, a +moment later, with a crackle and roar leaped into flame. + +"His cap had slipped over his face, thank heaven, and so his truly +beautiful eyes and features were spared, but his body was badly burned +when the fire had swept over him. + +"The wind had veered very suddenly and turned the flame back upon the +charred land and so, there being nothing left to burn, it was +extinguished. + +"It was at that moment that Daddy Eastland returned. He lifted my +unconscious brother out of the black, burnt thicket and carried him to +the shack. + +"'Boy! Boy!' he said, and I never will forget the sob there was in his +voice. 'Why did you say ye'd take care of the old place with your life? +'Twasn't worth one hair on yer head.' + +"But Dean was not dead. Slowly, so slowly he came back to life, but his +left arm was burned to the bone and his side beneath it. Then, because of +the pain, his muscles tightened and he could not move his arm. + +"We were so far from town that perhaps he did not have just the right +care. Once a month a quack physician made the rounds of those remote +farms. + +"However, he did the best that he could, and a year later Dean was able +to walk about. How like our mother he was, so brave and cheerful! + +"'I am glad that it is my left arm that will not move, Sister,' he often +said. 'I have a use for my right arm.' + +"Our foster-father, noting how it pleased the lad, invented tasks around +the farm that a one-armed boy could do to help, but when he was fourteen +years of age I discovered what he had meant when he said that he had a +use for his right arm. He had a little den of his own in the loft of the +old barn with a big opening that overlooked meadow lands, a winding +silver ribbon of a river and distant hills, and there he spent hours +every day writing. + +"At last he confessed that he was trying to make verse like that in his +one greatly treasured book. It was his joy, and he had so little that I +encouraged him, though I could not understand his poetry. I am more like +our father, who was a faithful plodding farmer, and Dean is like our +mother, who could tell such wonderful stories out of her own head. + +"At last, when I was eighteen years old, I told Daddy Eastland that I +wanted to go to the city to earn my own way and send some money back for +Dean. How the lad grieved when I left, for he said that he was the one +who should go out in the world and work for both of us, but I told him to +keep on with his writing and that maybe, some day, he would be able to +earn money with his poetry. + +"So I came to town and began as an errand girl in a big department store. + +"Now I earn eighteen dollars a week and I send half of it back to the +little rocky farm in New England. Too, I send magazines and books, but +now a new problem has presented itself. Mr. Eastland has died, and Dean +is alone, and so I have sent for him to come and live with me. + +"How glad I shall be to see him, but I dread having him know where I +live. He will guess at once that I chose a basement room that I might +have money to send to him." + +It was Miss Selenski who interrupted: "Miss Wiggin," she said, "while you +have been talking, I have chosen you to be my successor. Tomorrow I am to +be married, and I promised the ladies who built the model tenements that +I would find someone fitted to take my place before I left. The pay is +better than you are getting. It is twenty-five dollars a week, with a +sunny little apartment to live in. I want all of you girls to come to my +wedding and then, when I am gone, Miss Wiggin, you can move right in, and +you will be there to welcome that wonderful brother of yours." + +It would be hard to imagine a happier girl than Nell when she learned +that a brighter future awaited her than she had dared to dream. She tried +to thank her benefactor, but her sensitive lips quivered and the girls +knew that she was so overcome with emotion that she might cry, and so +Miss Selenski began at once to tell them about her wedding plans, and +then, soon after she had finished, the girls who had been invited for tea +arrived. Miss Selenski knew many of them, and so the conversation became +general and little Nell Wiggin was permitted to quietly become accustomed +to her wonderful good fortune before she was again asked to join in the +conversation. Bobs walked with her to the elevated, and merry plans she +laid for the pleasant times the Vandergrifts were to have with their new +neighbors. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + THE DETECTIVE DETECTED + + +One Monday, at high noon, the pretty Miss Selenski was married in the +Hungarian church and her four new friends were among the many foreign +women who came to wish their kindly neighbor much happiness in her new +life. + +Gloria had been pleased with the earnest face of the man who had won the +love of little Miss Selenski, and when the smiling pair rode away on an +automobile delivery truck, which was their very own, the Vandergrift +girls, with Nell Wiggin, stood on a crowded street corner and waved and +nodded, promising that very soon they would visit the little home, with a +yard around it, that was out near the woodsy Bronx Park. + +Bobs at the last moment had tied an old shoe to the back of the truck +with a white ribbon, and there it hung dangling and bobbing in a manner +most festive, while through a small hole in the sole of it a stream of +rice trickled, but in the thronging, surging masses of East Side humanity +this little drama was scarcely noticed. + +When Mr. and Mrs. Cheniska had disappeared up Third Avenue, Gloria turned +to smile at little Nell Wiggin. + +"Now, let us make haste to get your new apartment in order that you may +wire your brother to come at once; that is, if a wire will reach him." + +"Yes, indeed it will, and he is eagerly awaiting it," Nell happily +replied. "Since our foster-father's death my brother has been living in +town with the missionary of whom I told you, the one who used to visit +the remote farms and who brought my brother, years ago, his first book of +poetry. They have been close friends ever since." + +But when the girls reached the little apartment, they found that there +was nothing to be done. It was in perfect order, and the thoughtful bride +had even left part of her wedding flowers that they might be there to +welcome the new agent of the model tenements. + +"There seems to be nothing to do here," beamingly Miss Wiggin said. +"Perhaps I would better go at once to my room and pack." + +"I will go with you and help," Bobs told her. + +"Then both of you come to the Pensinger mansion for lunch," Lena May +suggested. + +"What did you do about notifying Mr. Queerwitz?" Bobs inquired an hour +later as the two girls started down Fourth Avenue toward the basement +home of Nell Wiggin. + +"Nothing as yet. That is, I merely telephoned that I would not be there +today. I suppose I will have to give two weeks' notice. Let us go there +at once and I will do so." + +When the two girls entered the Queerwitz Antique Shop, Miss Peerwinkle +seemed to be much excited because of their arrival and, hastening to the +rear door, which was labeled "No Admittance," she gave three sharp raps +and then hurried back and took up her post near the front door, as though +to prevent escape in that direction. + +Bobs looked all around, wondering if there was a customer in the store +who was being watched, but she and Nell seemed to be the only other +occupants of the place. To add to the mysteriousness, Miss Harriet +Dingley, upon receiving a nod from the head lady, walked to the entrance +of the cloakroom, deliberately turned the key and put it in her pocket. + +Bobs, always on the alert, noted all this and marveled at it. Surely Nell +Wiggin had done nothing to arouse the suspicion of Mr. Queerwitz! Then, +suddenly, a very possible solution of the mystery flashed into Roberta's +consciousness. + +Undoubtedly Mr. Queerwitz suspected that the late Miss Dolittle had +something to do with the disappearance, reappearance and subsequent sale +of the rare old book. She well knew how enraged the grasping shopkeeper +would be if he learned that he had received only half as much for the +second volume as had been paid by Mr. Van Loon for the first, and if that +gentleman had described the girl who had sold the book to him! Bobs +actually smiled as she thought, "I guess I'm trapped all right. A fine +detective I would make when I never even thought to wear a disguise. +Well, the game's up!" + +She knew that she ought to feel troubled when she saw Mr. Queerwitz +emerge from his secret sanctum and approach her, looking about as +friendly as a thunder cloud, but, instead, that irrepressible girl felt +amused as though she were embarking upon another interesting adventure, +and she actually smiled to greet him. Bobs was depending upon her natural +quick-wittedness to save her from whatever avalanche of wrath was about +to descend upon her. + +She had glanced beyond the man, then suddenly she stared as though amazed +at what she saw back of him. The shopkeeper, noting this, turned and +observed that in his haste he had neglected to latch the door labeled "No +Admittance," and that a draught of air had opened it. + +Beyond plainly were seen several workmen engaged in making antique +furniture. Mr. Queerwitz looked sharply at the girl, trying to learn, if +possible, how much of his secret had been revealed to her. + +His anger increased when he saw that her eyes were laughing. "What +puzzles me," she was saying, innocently, "is how you can make things look +worm-eaten as well as time-worn." + +Whatever accusations might have been on the lips of Mr. Queerwitz when he +approached Roberta, they were never uttered. Instead he turned and walked +rapidly back to his workshop and closed the door, none too quietly, but +in a manner that seemed to convince Miss Peerwinkle that she and Miss +Dingley need no longer guard the entrances. + +How Bobs wanted to laugh, but instead she walked over to Nell Wiggin, who +had been collecting the few things that she had at the shop. + +"Have you given notice?" Roberta inquired. + +"I wrote a note and asked Miss Peerwinkle to give it to Mr. Queerwitz. +Come, let us go." + +Half an hour later Nell Wiggin was packing her few garments in a +suitcase, while Roberta tied up the precious books. Two hours later the +new agent of the model tenements was established in the sunny apartment +and her row of red-bound books stood on one shelf of the built-in +bookcase. + +"Now I will wire my brother Dean that he may come as soon as he wishes; +and oh, how I do hope that will be soon," Nell said as she happily +surveyed the pleasantest place that she had ever called home. + +The message was sent when they were on their way to the Pensinger mansion +for lunch. + +"I must not remain long," the new agent told Gloria, "for I promised Mrs. +Doran-Ashley that I would be on duty at one." + +Every little while during that noon meal Bobs would look up with laughing +eyes. At last she told the cause of her mirth. "I am wondering what Mr. +James Jewett thinks of his assistant detective," she remarked. "I am so +glad that I gave the name Miss Dolittle. Now I can retire from the +profession without being traced." + +"Oh, good, here comes the postman," Lena May declared as she rose and +went to the side door to meet the mail-carrier. Gloria looked up eagerly. +She was always hoping that Gwendolyn would write. The letters that she +had sent to the Newport home of the schoolmate whom Gwendolyn had said +that she was going to visit, had been returned, marked "Whereabouts not +known." + +There were two letters and both were for Bobs. One was a bulging missive +from her Long Island friend, Dick De Laney, but it was at the other that +the girl stared as though in uncomprehending amazement. The cause of her +very evident astonishment was the printed return address in the upper +left-hand corner. It was "Fourth Avenue Branch, Burns Detective Agency." +Then she glanced, still puzzled, at her own name, which was written, not +typed. + +"Miss Roberta Vandergrift," she read aloud. Then suddenly she laughed, +and looking up at the other girls who, all interest, were awaiting an +explanation of her queer conduct, she exclaimed: "The amateur detective +has been detected, but how under the shining heavens did Mr. James Jewett +know that my name wasn't Miss Dolittle?" + +Gloria smiled. "You haven't much faith, it would seem, in his ability as +a detective. What has he written, Bobs?" + +There were few words in the message: + +"Miss Vandergrift, please report at this office at once, as we have need +of your services. Signed. J. G. Jewett." + +"Well, I'll be flabbergasted!" Roberta ejaculated. "But I must confess I +am curious, and so I will immediately, if not sooner, hie me down that +way. Wait a jiff, Miss Wiggin. I'll walk along with you." + +When Roberta and Nell were gone, Gloria found the bulging letter from +Bobs' oldest friend, Dick De Laney, lying on the table unopened. The girl +who was so loved by that faithful lad had quite forgotten it in her new +interests. Gloria sighed. "Poor Dick," she said to Lena May as she placed +the letter on a mantel, "I wish he did not care so much for Roberta, for +I fear that she does not really care for him." + +True it was that at that particular moment Bobs was far more interested +in learning what Mr. Jewett had to tell her than in any message that a +letter from Dick might contain. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + A NEW "CASE" FOR BOBS + + +The outer office of the Fourth Avenue Branch of the Burns Detective +Agency was vacant when the girl entered, but almost instantly the door of +the inner office opened and Mr. Jewett himself stood there. His pleasant +face brightened when he saw his visitor. Advancing with his right hand +extended, he exclaimed: "Miss Vandergrift, I am almost surprised to see +you. I really feared that you had deserted your new profession." + +"But--Mr. Jewett--I--that is--my name. I told you that it was Miss +Dolittle." + +The young man drew forward a chair for her, then seated himself at his +desk, and again Roberta realized that, although his face was serious, his +gray-blue eyes were smiling. + +"The letter I sent to you was addressed to Miss Roberta Vandergrift," he +said, "and, since you have replied in person, am I not justified in +believing that to be your real name?" + +Bobs flushed. "I'll have to acknowledge that it is," she said, "but the +other day when you asked me my name, I didn't quite like to give that of +our family and so, at random, I chose one." Then the girl smiled frankly +at him. "I couldn't have chosen a worse one, it seems. Miss Dolittle did +not impress my late employer as being a good name for a clerk." + +"You are wrong there," the young man told her, and at last there was no +mistaking the fact that he was amused. "Mr. Queerwitz decided that you +did too much and not too little. I don't know when I have been so pleased +as I was over the fact, which so disturbs him, that you were able to +drive the better bargain. Mr. Queerwitz has excelled in that line, and to +have a mere slip of a girl obtain one thousand dollars for a book, the +mate of which brought him but five hundred dollars, is humiliating to say +the least." + +Then, leaning forward, the young man said, with evident interest: "Miss +Vandergrift, will you tell me what happened?" + +Roberta's expression was sphynx-like. "I understand, Mr. Jewett," she +replied, "that one need not give incriminating evidence against oneself." + +Then her eyes twinkled. "And what is more," she told him, "I don't +believe that it is necessary. This office seems to have ferreted out the +facts." + +"You are right," the young man confessed, "and now I will tell you just +what happened. It seems that while you were out for lunch Mr. Queerwitz, +or one of his assistants, discovered that the rare book was missing. He +phoned me at once and reported that his head clerk believed that you had +taken the book. She had found you so absorbed in it earlier in the day +that you had not even been conscious of her presence. + +"I assured Mr. Queerwitz that I believed he was on the wrong trail, but +he insisted that a detective be sent to watch your actions. This was +done, and that night the report delivered to this office was that you had +visited an old second-hand book shop on Third Avenue; that from there you +had mailed one book, and had then taken another to Mr. Van Loon, sold it, +and had delivered the money to the old bookseller. + +"Our natural conclusion was that the stolen book was the one that you had +sold, but when Mr. Van Loon was reached by telephone, he stated that the +first of the volumes was the one that he had purchased for one thousand +dollars. + +"We said nothing of all this to Mr. Queerwitz, as we wished to see if the +book that you had mailed was the one that had been taken from the antique +shop. + +"It was not until the following noon that the book was delivered, and +almost immediately afterward Mr. Van Loon appeared and purchased it for +five hundred dollars during the absence of Mr. Queerwitz. + +"We were then forced to conclude that the old bookseller on Third Avenue +had been the thief, and we sent at once to his shop to have him arrested, +only to discover that with his wife, Marlitta, he had sailed for Europe +at daybreak. + +"However, our detective reported that Miss Dolittle was at the shop, +having all of the old books heaped upon a cart. Being truly puzzled by +the case, I decided to follow it up myself, which I did, reaching the +place in my closed car just as you were being driven away on the +book-laden truck. I followed, unobserved, and when you descended in front +of the Pensinger mansion, with which place I am familiar, I decided that +you lived there. To verify this I visited the grocer who has charge of +the place. + +"I made a few purchases and then said casually to the grocer: 'I see the +old Pensinger mansion is occupied. People been there long?' + +"Mr. Tenowitz, as I hoped, was garrulous and told me all he knew about +the three Vandergrift girls who had taken possession of the place. He +said the one answering to your description was called Roberta. + +"Of course the grocer really knew little about you, but it was not hard +for a detective to learn much more about a family that, for generations, +has been so well known in New York. But there is one thing I do not +understand, and that is your evident interest in that old second-hand +dealer in books." + +"I will tell you gladly," Roberta said, and she recounted the story from +the moment when she had caught a first glimpse of the spray of lilacs, +unconsciously telling him more than her words did of how touched her +heart was by the poverty and sorrow that she was seeing for the first +time. + +When she paused, he looked thoughtfully out of the window. "I don't know +that I ought to permit you to continue in this line of work," he said. "A +girl brought up as you have been can know nothing, really, of the dangers +that lurk everywhere in this great city." + +"Oh, Mr. Jewett!" Bobs was eager, "please let me try just once more; +then, if I fail again I will endeavor to find a profession for which I am +better fitted." + +"Very well, I will," was the smiling reply, "for this case cannot lead +you into places that might be unwise for you to visit. In fact, I am sure +that it is a case that will greatly interest a young girl." + +Mr. Jewett paused to take a note book from his pocket. While he was +scanning the pages Roberta leaned forward, waiting, almost breathlessly +eager. + +Mr. Jewett, glancing up from his note book, smiled to see Bobs' eager, +interested expression. Then he told her about the case. "A certain Mrs. +Waring-Winston, who is prominent in society, has a daughter who, although +brought up in a convent, is determined to go upon the stage. Her mother +has tried every form of persuasion to prevent this unfortunate step, and +at last she decided that a year of travel in Europe might have the +desired effect, and so she engaged passage upon a steamer which is to +sail next week. + +"Mrs. Waring-Winston believed that if she could interest the girl in +other things just now, on their return to this country she might entirely +abandon her determination to become a chorus girl. The mother assured me +that Winnie, her daughter, is not talented enough to advance beyond that +point. + +"But the girl, it would seem, has more determination and self-will than +she has talent, for when her mother informed her of the plans she had +made, although outwardly seeming to acquiesce, she was inwardly +rebellious as her subsequent actions proved, for that night she +disappeared. + +"Three days have passed and she has not returned. Mrs. Waring-Winston did +not report the matter at once, believing that Winnie must have gone to +stay with girl friends in the suburbs; but yesterday, having inquired at +all possible places where her daughter might visit without having found a +trace of her whereabouts, Mrs. Waring-Winston, in desperation, appealed +to us, imploring us forever to keep the matter secret. We, of course, +agreed to do this, and it was then that I determined to send for you, +believing that a young girl could find Winnie sooner than one of our +men." + +"Do you think, Mr. Jewett, that the daughter of Mrs. Waring-Winston has +joined a theatrical troupe in this city?" Bobs inquired. + +"I think that it is more possible that she has joined a troupe that +either has or soon will leave town to tour the country, but of course we +must first visit the playhouses in the city. I have two other women +working on the case, as I wish if possible to cover all of the theaters +today. I have assigned to you a group of Broadway playhouses that you can +easily visit during the matinee performances. Here is a photograph of the +missing girl." + +Roberta looked at the pictured face. "How lovely she is!" was her +comment. "I do not wonder that her mother wants to protect her. How I do +hope that I will be able to find Winnie and persuade her to wait, at +least, until she is eighteen years of age before choosing a profession." + +The girl rose. "It is one-thirty," she said. "Perhaps I had better be +starting. Do I have to have a pass or something of that sort in order to +be admitted to the theaters?" + +Mr. Jewett also rose and pinned a badge under the lapel of the girl's +jacket. "Show that," he told her, "and it will be all the pass that you +will need." + +Then as he held open the door, he smilingly added, "Good luck to you, +Miss Dolittle Vandergrift." + +Bobs flashed a merry smile back at the young man. "I sincerely hope that +I will do more than I did last time," she said, but, when she was seated +in the taxi which was to take her to her destination on Broadway, her +thoughts were not of the little would-be actress, but of Gwendolyn. Day +after day Roberta had noted that, try as she might to be cheerful, her +oldest sister, the one who had been Mother to them all, grew sadder and +more troubled. + +"Glow will not be really happy," Bobs was thinking, "until Gwen comes +back to us. I cannot see where she can be, for she had only one month's +allowance with her and she could not live long on that." + +Bobs' reverie was suddenly interrupted by the stopping of the taxi, and, +looking up, the girl found that they were in front of one of the +festively adorned theaters. With a rapidly beating heart, she descended +to the walk, made her way through the throng, showed her badge and was +admitted. At her request an usher led her behind the scenes. + +Bobs felt as though she were on the brink of some momentous discovery. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + BOBS TRIES ACTING + + +When they were behind the scenes, a short, flashily attired man advanced +to meet Roberta and the usher departed. For one panicky moment Bobs +wondered whether she should tell that she was a detective. Would the +director wish her to interfere with his plans, as she undoubtedly would +be doing were she to take from him one of his chorus girls? + +The alert little man, however, did not need to be told, for he had caught +a glimpse of Roberta's badge when a projecting bit of scenery had for a +moment pulled at her coat. + +Rubbing his hands, and smiling ingratiatingly, he said in a voice of oily +smoothness: "Is it one of our girls, ma'am, that you're wishing to see?" + +Bob realized that he had guessed her mission and so she thought best to +be perfectly frank with him and tell the whole story. The little man +seemed greatly relieved, and shook his head many times as he talked. "No +such girl here," he assured her. "I'd turn her over to her Ma if there +was. Come and see." + +The small man spun around with the suddenness of a top, and Bobs could +not help thinking that his build suggested the shape of that toy. Then he +darted away, dodging the painted trees with great dexterity, leading the +way down dark aisles among the scenes that were not to be used that day. + +At last they reached the dressing rooms. "Look in all of 'em," he said. +"Don't knock. Just walk in." + +Then, with a flourish of his plump diamond-bedecked hands, which seemed +to bestow upon her the freedom of the place, the small man gave another +of his top-like spins and disappeared among the scenery. + +Roberta found herself standing near a door on which was a large gilt +star. + +No need to go in there, she decided, for of course the girl whom she +sought would not be the company's star, but since she had the open sesame +of all the rooms, why not enter? She had always been wild to go behind +the scenes when she and her sisters had been seated in a box in this very +theater. + +Little had she dreamed in those days that now seemed so far in the past, +that day would come when she would be behind the scenes in the role of an +amateur detective. + +As Roberta stood gazing at the closed door, she saw it open and a maid, +dressed trimly in black and white, hurried out, leaving the door ajar. + +Glancing in, Bobs saw a truly beautiful young woman lounging in a +comfortable chair in front of a long mirror. The maid had evidently been +arranging her hair. Several elaborate gowns were hanging about the room. +Suddenly Roberta flushed, for she realized that a pair of darkly lashed +eyes were observing her in the mirror. Then the beautiful face smiled and +a slim white hand beckoned. + +Entering the small dressing room, Roberta also smiled into the mirror. +"Forgive me for gazing so rudely," she apologized, "but all my life I +have wished that I might meet a real star." + +The young woman turned and with a graceful yet indolent gesture bade +Roberta be seated on a low chair that was facing her. + +"Don't!" was all that she said, and the visitor thought that even that +harsh word was like music, so deep and rich was the voice that uttered +it. + +Bobs was puzzled. She looked up inquiringly: "Don't what?" she asked. + +The white hand rested on Roberta's knee as the voice continued kindly: +"If you were my sister, I would say don't, _don't_ take up the stage as a +profession. It's such a weary, thankless life. Only a few of us reach the +top, little girl, and it's such a hard grind. Too, if you want to live +right, theatrical folk think you are queer and you don't win their +friendship. They say you're not their kind." + +"But, you--" Roberta breathed with very evident admiration, "you are a +star. You do not need their friendship." She was thinking of the small +florid man who had suggested a top. + +The actress smiled, and then hurriedly added in a low voice, for the maid +was returning: "I haven't time to talk more, now, but dear girl, even as +a star I say _don't_." + +Bobs impulsively caught the frail hand and held it in a close clasp. She +wondered why there were tears in the dark-lashed eyes. As she was closing +the door after her, she heard the maid address the star as Miss +Merryheart. + +"Another fictitious name that doesn't fit," Bobs thought. How she longed +to go back to the little dressing room and ask Miss Merryheart if there +was something, anything she could do for her; but instead, with a half +sigh, she turned toward an open door beyond which she could hear laughter +and joking. + +Bobs wondered if among those chorus girls she would find the one she +sought. + +The door to the larger room was ajar, and Roberta entered. As she had +guessed, there was a bevy of girls in the room. A dozen mirrors lined the +walls and before each of them stood a young girl applying paint or powder +to her face, or adjusting a wig with long golden curls. Some of them were +dressed in spangly tights and others in very short skirts that stood out +stiffly. + +This was unmistakably the chorus. + +"Hello, sweetie," a buxom maiden near the door sang out when she observed +the newcomer. "What line of talk are you goin' to give us? The last guy +as was here asked us if our souls was saved. Is that the dope you've got +up your sleeve?" + +Roberta smiled so frankly that she seemed to disarm their fears that they +were to be preached to. "I say," she began, as she sat on a trunk near +the door, "do you all like this life?" + +Another girl whirled about and, pausing in the process of applying a lip +stick, she winked wisely at the one who had first spoken. "Say, Pink," +she called, "I got'er spotted. She's an ink-slinger for some daily." + +"Wrong you are," Bobs merrily replied. Then she turned to a slender girl +who was standing at the mirror next to her, who had appeared quite +indifferent to the newcomer's presence. "How is it with you?" Roberta +asked her directly. "Do you like this life?" + +But it was one of the bolder girls who replied: "Sure thing, we all like +the life. It's great." + +"Goin' to join the high kicks?" This question was asked by still another +girl who, having completed her toilet, now sauntered up and stood +directly in front of Bobs. For one moment the young detective's heart +beat rapidly, for the newcomer's resemblance to the picture was striking, +but another girl was saying: "Bee, there, has been with this here show +for two years, and she likes the life, don't you, Bee?" + +So, after all, this wasn't the one whom she sought. + +Bobs decided to take them into her confidence. Smiling around in the +winning way that she had, she began: "Girls, you've had three guesses and +missed, so now I'll put you wise. I'm looking for a Winifred +Waring-Winston, whose mamma-dear wishes to see her at once, if not +sooner. Can you tell me at which theater I can find her?" + +The others grouped about Roberta, but all shook their heads. "Dunno as +I'd squeal on her if I did know," said the one called Pink. "But as it +happens, I don't." + +Nor did the others, it would seem, and when Roberta was convinced that +Winnie was not to be found there, she left, but, as the curtain had +raised on the first scene, she paused near the front door to hear Miss +Merryheart sing. Truly she was an actress, Bobs thought, for no one in +that vast audience who saw the star could have guessed that only a brief +time before there had been tears in those dark-lashed eyes that now +seemed to be brimming with mirth. + +At the next theater she entered, Bobs had an unexpected and rather +startling experience. Just as she appeared in the dimly lighted space +back of the scenes, she was pounced upon by a man who was undoubtedly the +stage manager. + +"Miss Finefeather," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "What? You late again? +Two minutes only to get into your riggin'." Then giving Bobs a shove +toward an open door, he called hoarsely: "Here's that laggard, Stella. +Help her and be quick. We don't want any hitches in this scene. No time +for explainin'. That, an' settlin' accounts will come later," he added +when Bobs tried to turn back to explain that she was _not_ Miss +Finefeather. + +The man was gone and the leading chorus girl pounced upon her and, with +the aid of two others, she was being disrobed. To her amusement as well +as amazement, she soon found herself arrayed in tights with a short +spangled overskirt. Resignedly she decided to see it through. Just at +that moment a buzzer sounded, which seemed to be a signal for the +entrance of the chorus. "Here you, Miss Finefeather," someone was saying, +"can't you remember overnight where your place is? Just back of me, and +do everything I do and you'll get through all right." The voice was +evidently intended to be kind. + +Bobs followed the one ahead, trying to suppress an almost uncontrollable +desire to laugh. Who in the world did they suppose her to be? she +wondered. The girls had divided into two long lines and they entered the +stage from opposite sides. Bobs was thinking, "I've heard folk say it's +hard to get on the stage. Strikes me it's just the other way. I jolly +wish, though, I had some idea what I'm supposed to do." + +Roberta's reverie was interrupted by her kindly neighbor, who whispered: +"Gimme your paw. Here's where we swing, an' don't forget to keep your +feet going all the time. There's no standing still in this act." + +Being in it, Bobs decided to try to do her best, and, having been a +champion in school athletics, she was limber and mentally alert and went +through the skipping and whirling and various gyrations almost as well as +though she had been trained. However, when the act was finished and the +chorus girls, with a burst of singing laughter, had run from the stage, +the man whom she had first seen came up to her, profuse with apologies. +He had just received a message telling him that Miss Finefeather was very +ill and wouldn't be able to keep on with the work. "You're a wonder," he +exclaimed, with very sincere admiration. "How you went through that act +and never missed so's one could notice it proves you're the girl for the +place. Say you'd like it and the position's yours." + +Bobs paused, but in that moment she seemed to hear Miss Merryheart's one +word: "Don't!" + +Roberta thanked the man, but said that her business engagements for that +afternoon were so urgent that she could not even remain for another act. + +Having learned that Miss Finefeather had been with them but a few days, +Bobs, believing that she might be the girl whom she sought, asked for her +address, and departed. + +Her heart was filled with hope, "I believe I've hit the right trail," she +thought, as she hurried out of the theater. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + WHO WAS MISS FINEFEATHER + + +Roberta stepped into a drug store to inquire the way to the address that +she had upon a slip of brown paper. The clerk happened to know the +locality without referring to the directory, and Bobs was thanking him +when one of the customers exclaimed in a voice that plainly expressed the +speaker's great joy: "Bobsy Vandergrift, of all people! Where in the +world are you girls living? Dick wrote me that you had left Long Island, +but he failed to tell me where you had located?" + +It was Kathryn De Laney who, as she talked, drew Bobs into a quiet booth. +The girls seated themselves and clasped hands across the table. + +"Oh, Kathy," Bobs said, her eyes glowing with the real pleasure that she +felt, "I've been meaning to look you up, for Gloria's sake, if for no +other reason. I heard Glow say only the other day that she wanted to see +you. I believe you'd do her worlds of good. You're so breezy and +cheerful." + +Kathryn looked troubled. "Why, is anything especially wrong with Glow?" + +"She's brooding because Gwen doesn't write," Bobs said. Then she told +briefly all that had happened: how Gwen had refused to come with the +others to try to earn her living, and how instead she had departed +without saying good-bye to them to visit her school friend, Eloise +Rochester, and how letters, sent there by Gloria, had been returned +marked "Whereabouts unknown." + +"I honestly believe that Gloria thinks of nothing else. I've watched her +when she was pretending to read, and she doesn't turn a page by the hour. +I had just about made up my mind to put an advertisement of some kind in +the paper. Not that I'm crazy about Gwen myself. There's no excuse for +one sister being so superlatively selfish and disagreeable as she is, but +Gloria believes, she honestly does, that if we are patient and loving, +Gwen will change in time, because after all she is our mother's +daughter." + +"Gloria is right," was the quiet answer. "I am sure of that. You all +helped to spoil Gwen when she was a child because she was frail. Then +later you let her have her own way because you dreaded her temper spells, +but I honestly believe that a few hard knocks will do much toward +readjusting Gwendolyn's outlook upon life." + +"But, Kathryn!" Bobs exclaimed. "Don't you know that Gwen couldn't stand +hard knocks? If it were a case of sink or swim, Gwen would just give up +and sink." + +"I'm not so sure," the girl who had been next door neighbor to the +Vandergrifts all her life replied. "It's an instinct with all of us to at +least try to keep our heads above water." Then she added: "But didn't I +hear you asking the clerk about an address? That was what first attracted +my attention to you, because it is the same locality as my destination. +I'm visiting nurse now on the lower West Side." + +Then, after glancing at the slip of paper Bobs held up, Kathryn +continued: "I'll call a taxi, and while we are riding down there you can +tell me all about yourself." + +When they were settled for the long ride, Bobs blurted out: "Say, Kathy, +before I begin, please tell me why you've taken up nursing? A girl with a +thousand dollars a month income hardly needs the salary derived from such +service, and, of course, I know that you take none. Phyl said she thought +you ought to be examined by a lunacy board." + +Kathryn laughed good-naturedly as she replied: "Oh, Phyl means all right. +She does think I'm crazy, but honestly, Bobsy, anyone who lives the idle, +selfish butterfly life that Phyllis does is worse than not sane, I think: +but she will wake up as Gwen will, some day, and see the worthlessness of +it all. Now tell me about yourself. Why are you bound for the lower West +Side?" + +Bobs told her story. How Kathryn laughed. "A Vandergrift a detective!" +she exclaimed. "What would that stately old grandfather of yours have to +say if he knew it?" + +Roberta's eyes twinkled. "Just about the same thing that he would say +about aircraft or radio. Impossible!" + +The recounting of their recent experiences had occupied so much time +that, as its conclusion was reached, so too was Bobs' destination. + +"I'll get out with you, if you don't mind," Kathryn said, "for, since +Miss Finefeather is ill, I may at least be able to give her some advice +that will help her." + +Roberta glanced gratefully at her friend. "I had hoped that you would +want to come with me," she said, "but I did not like to ask, knowing that +your own mission might be imperative." + +"No, it is not." Then, having dismissed the taxi driver. Kathryn said: "I +know this building. It is where a large number of poor struggling artists +have rooms. On each floor there is one community kitchen." + +A janitor appeared from the basement at their ring. She said that Miss +Finefeather lived on the very top floor and that the young ladies might +go right up, and she did hope that they would be on time. + +"On time for what?" Kathryn paused to inquire. The woman gave an +indifferent shrug. + +"Oh," she informed them, "ever so often one of the artists gets +discouraged, and then she happens to remember that the river isn't so +very far away. Also they just go to sleep sometimes." Another shrug, and, +with the added remark that she didn't blame them much, the woman returned +to her dreary home. + +Bobs shuddered. What if they were too late? Poor Miss Finefeather, if she +were really Winnie Waring-Winston, as Roberta so hoped, would not need be +discouraged when she had a fine home and a mother whose only interest in +life was to find her. + +They were half-way up the long, steep flight of stairs leading to the top +floor when Bobs paused and looked back at her friend, as she said: "I'm +almost afraid that this girl cannot be the one I am seeking. Winnie could +not be discouraged in only three days." + +"I thought that at once," Kathryn replied, "but she is someone in +trouble, and so I must go to her and see if I can help." + +In silence they continued to climb to the top floor, which was divided +into four small rooms. Three of the doors were locked, but the fourth +opened at their touch, revealing a room so dark that, at first, they +could only see the form of the bed, and were relieved to note that +someone was lying upon it. But at their entrance there was no movement +from the silent figure. + +"Maybe--after all--we came too late," Bobs said softly, and how her heart +ached for the poor girl lying there, and she wondered who it might be. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + THE LOST IS FOUND + + +Kathryn crossed to the one window and drew up the shade. It was late +afternoon and almost dusk on that north side of the house. The dim light +revealed on the pillow a face so still and white that Bobs was sure only +death could make it so. For one long moment she gazed before she +recognized the girl lying on the bed, and no wonder, for great was the +change in her. + +"Gwen! It's our own Sister Gwen!" she cried as one who can scarcely +believe the evidence of her senses. + +Down by the bedside Roberta knelt and took one of the lifeless white +hands in her own. "Oh, Gwen," she implored, "why did you do it? You +thought we didn't want you. You believed that in all the world there was +no one who loved you, no home in which you were welcome. Oh, how selfish +I've been! Gwen, forgive me, Sister. I should have tried to help you. I +was the one really who was selfish, for I wanted adventure. I didn't try +to think what it would mean to you; but O, I will, I will, Gwen, if only +you will live. Why don't you open your eyes, Gwen?" + +Then, as there was no response from the apparently lifeless form on the +bed, Bobs looked up at her friend as she implored: "Kathryn, why doesn't +Gwen open her eyes? Are we too late? O, don't say that we are. It will +kill Glow. She thinks that it is her fault that Gwen left. She feels that +she turned one of Mother's own daughters out of our home." + +Kathryn, who had been hunting about the room as though in search of +something, as indeed she had been, gave an exclamation of relief and, +going to Bobs, she held out a small vial. "Gwen isn't dead," she said. +"It wasn't poison that she took. Just a heavy dose of sleeping powder. +However, she will probably continue in this deathlike sleep for hours, +and yet she may soon recover. We have no time to delay. I will remain +here while you go to the corner drug store and telephone to my hospital +for an ambulance. Just say that it is for Miss De Laney and they will +respond at once. While she is unable to protest, we will take her to your +home." + +Bobs had arisen, but lovingly she stooped and kissed the white face that +was so unlike the proud, beautiful one she had last seen on that +never-to-be-forgotten day when they had planned leaving their Long Island +home. + +Tears fell unheeded as Roberta whispered to ears that could not hear: +"And when you waken, Sister dear, you will be in a home that wants you, +and our Gloria, who has tried to be Mother to us all these years will be +at your side smiling down, and a new life will begin for you and for us +all." + +Then, almost blinded by her tears, Roberta descended the long, dark +flight of stairs and telephoned not only to the hospital, but also to +Gloria, telling her the wonderful news and bidding her prepare Bobs' own +room for the sister who was coming home. + +Two hours later Gwendolyn, who had not awakened, was lying in the +comfortable bed in Bobs' room. Her three sisters and their friend, +Kathryn De Laney, stood watching her in the shaded lamp-light. The +expression on the face of Gloria told more than words could have done +what it meant to her to have this one of her dear mother's daughters back +in the home. + +"And a real home it is going to be to her from now on if patient love can +make it so," Gloria said. Then to the nurse she turned, asking, "Will it +be long before she wakens, Kathryn?" + +"It ought not to be long," was the reply, which had hardly been given +when Roberta whispered eagerly, "Glow, I think Gwen moved." + +The eyes that looked so wearily out at them were about to close as though +nothing mattered, when suddenly they were again opened with a brightening +expression, and yet they did not look quite natural. + +Holding out her arms toward the oldest sister, the girl on the bed cried +eagerly: "Mother, I have come to you after all. I took something. I +wanted to come----" Her voice trailed away and again she closed her eyes. + +Gloria was the one of the girls who looked most like their mother. "Dear, +dear Sister," Glow said, trying not to sob, "you are home again. I am +sure that our mother led us to you. Try to get strong. We will help you, +Gwendolyn, for truly we love you. No one knows, little Gwen, how your big +sister has wanted you. Can't you try to forgive me for having spoken +impatiently, if not for my sake, at least for the sake of our mother?" + +Gwendolyn looked at the face bent close above her as though trying to +recall the past. Then, reaching out a frail hand, she said, "I, Glow, am +the one who should be forgiven." + +Then she closed her eyes, and a moment later Kathryn said that she was +asleep, but that this time it was a natural sleep from great weariness. + +"When she wakens again, give her broth, for I fear she is too nearly +starved to take heavier food just now." + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + A FAILURE THAT WAS SUCCESS + + +The day following that on which Gwen had been found, Detective Bobs had +gone early in the morning to report at the Fourth Avenue Branch of the +Burns Agency. + +"Mr. Jewett," she began at once, "as a detective I certainly am a +failure." + +The young man laughed. "I'll agree with you that in one way, you +certainly are, but nevertheless you accomplished your mission." + +Bobs' expression of blank surprise seemed to delight her employer. "But, +Mr. Jewett, what can you mean? It was my sister whom I found. I did not +find Miss Winston-Waring." + +"Yes you did, and you talked with her, or to her, rather." + +"Well, I'll be flabbergasted!" Then Bobs apologized. "Pardon my lingo, +Mr. Jewett. Our gardener's boy used to say that when he was greatly +astonished, and I certainly never was more so. When, in the name of +mystery, did I talk to that young lady, and where?" + +"It was at the first theater that you visited. Miss Winifred said that +you came into the dressing room and that after two of the girls, called +Pink and Bee, had talked with you awhile, you turned to her, for her +mirror was nearest you, and asked her directly if she liked the life of a +chorus girl. She did not know how to reply, for the truth was that her +three days' experience on the stage had greatly disillusioned her. She +had found the rough ways of the girls repellent to her refined, sensitive +nature, and she was afraid of the stage manager, whose criticisms were +sarcastic and even unkind. + +"While she was hesitating, Bee, it seems, had replied for her, and then +it was that you had explained your mission. She, of course, had not given +her real name, and so no one suspected that she was Miss Winifred +Waring-Winston. + +"Her pride alone kept her from following you and confessing her identity. +She had declared to her mother that she would live her own life in her +own way, and she could not bear to acknowledge her defeat. Too, there was +one bright spot in her new profession, which was that the star, Miss +Merryheart, had singled her out and was very kind to her. + +"That same afternoon, it seems, after the matinee," Mr. Jewett continued, +"Miss Merryheart sent for her to come to her dressing room. The others +were jealous and said things that were so unkind and untrue that the +sensitive girl was almost in tears when she reached the room of the star. + +"When the door had been closed and they were alone, Miss Merryheart +placed kindly hands on her shoulders and looked deep into the +tear-brimmed eyes. 'Dear little girl,' she said, 'why didn't you tell our +visitor that you are Winifred Waring-Winston?'" + +Of course the girl was amazed and greatly puzzled, for she had told Miss +Merryheart nothing at all concerning her past or her identity, and so she +asked her how she had known. + +"The star replied: 'I have been long on the stage and I know when a girl +has been brought up in an environment different from the others. Too, I +saw last night that you were greatly disillusioned, and I realized by the +frightened, anxious glances that you cast about the audience that you +feared someone might be there who would recognize you in spite of your +disguise, and when our visitor today told me that in this city there was +a home made desolate, a mother heart breaking because a little girl had +run away to go on the stage, why shouldn't I guess that you are the one?' + +"Then she added: 'Tell me your telephone number, dear.' + +"And that," Mr. Jewett concluded, "is how it chanced that an hour later +Winifred was restored to the arms of her mother, who at once canceled her +passage for Europe, as a year abroad would not be needed to disillusion +the little would-be actress." + +"That wonderful Miss Merryheart!" Bobs said irrelevantly, "I love her and +I want to know her better." + +Mr. Jewett smiled, "Miss Vandergrift, as you say, you are not exactly a +successful detective, and yet, in both of the cases on which you have +been engaged you have accomplished what might be called indirect success. +For, even though you did help him to escape, you discovered the thief of +the rare old book, and you have been instrumental in restoring a lost +girl to her mother. Now, I have another case and one quite different for +you. Do you wish to take it?" + +Bobs laughed. "Mr. Jewett," she said, "like Winnie, I fear that I, too, +am disillusioned. I find that a detective is not allowed to have +sympathy. Honestly, if my life had depended upon it, I couldn't have +turned that old man over to justice; but what is the new case?" + +Roberta could not believe that she was hearing aright when he told her. + +"Mr. Jewett," she exclaimed, "will you kindly say that over again?" + +The young man was finding his new assistant refreshingly different. + +"I merely stated that I would like you to help us find the heir to the +Pensinger Mansion, who--" he paused and snapped his fingers. "I declare," +he ejaculated, "I had quite forgotten for the moment that is your present +home. All the better, for there may be some important evidence right on +the premises. Come into my office and I will read all the data that we +have filed up to the present." + +Very much interested, Roberta followed the young man, wondering what she +was to hear. + +When they were seated, Mr. Jewett said: "Perhaps you know something of +the story of the Pensinger family?" + +Roberta replied that she did; that a neighbor, Miss Selenski, had told +about the lost daughter, Marilyn, and about her father's strange will. + +"There is little more known by anyone," Mr. Jewett said. "Judge +Caldwaller-Cory, whose father was Mr. Pensinger's legal advisor and close +friend, is very eager to find the heir before it is too late. Not many +years remain before the property, according to the will, is to be sold, +the money to be devoted to charity. Judge Cory declares that it haunts +him, sometimes, as the old house is supposed to be haunted. He feels sure +that Marilyn is not living, but she might have children, somewhere, who +are in need. The judge never accepted the theory which some held, that +the beautiful girl leaped into the East River on the night that her shawl +was found on the bank. He believes that she was secretly married and +that, with her lover-husband, she departed for his home country, +Hungary." Roberta nodded. "O, I do hope so!" she exclaimed so eagerly +that Mr. Jewett smiled. But what he said was: "And so now, once again, +the case is to be reopened, and, as the judge himself is very busy, he +has turned the matter over to his son, who has recently become junior +member of his father's firm. Ralph Caldwaller-Cory is young and filled +with fresh enthusiasms, and it is _his_ wish that we put on the case a +girl of about the age that Marilyn was at the time, if we have one in our +employ. Since you had not notified me that you had ceased to be one of +us, I told him that I would procure just the type of person whom I +believed best fitted to assist us. Are you willing to undertake this +case, Miss Vandergrift?" + +Bobs smiled when she heard the name. "Gladly," she said, rising, "and +_this time_ I hope I will not _do little_." + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + A NEW ARRIVAL + + +When Roberta reached home that day, she began to sniff, for the house +seemed to be pervaded with a most delicious aroma. + +"Ohee, fried chicken, if I guess aright!" she thought. The front room +being vacant, she skipped down the long, wide hall and pounced into the +sunny combination kitchen and dining-room. Lena May smiled over her +shoulder to greet the newcomer. She was busy at the stove preparing the +noon meal. Gwendolyn, made comfortable on a pillowed reclining chair, was +lying in the sunshine near the blossoming window-box. She also smiled, +though she was too weak and weary to speak. Bobs kissed her tenderly and +then inquired: "Say, Lena May, why all this festiveness? It isn't +anyone's birthday, is it?" + +"You know it isn't," their youngest replied as she stopped to open the +oven door, revealing a tin of biscuits that were browning within. Then, +rising, she added: "But, nevertheless, we are celebrating. You see, Nurse +Kathryn ordered chicken broth for Gwen and, having made that, I decided +to fry the remaining pieces because we are going to have company for +lunch." + +"Who, pray?" Bobs was removing her hat and coat as she spoke. Just then +Gloria came in from the Settlement House and she inquired as she glanced +about: "Hasn't the company come?" + +"Not yet." Lena May looked at the old grandfather clock. "It lacks two +minutes of being noon. They will be here promptly at twelve." + +"I do believe that you are all trying to arouse my curiosity," Bobs said. +"Well, the deed is done, so fire ahead and tell me who is to be the +victim?" + +"Victim, indeed." Lena May tossed her curly head with pretended +indignation. "I have nine minds not to give you a single piece of this +delicious fried chicken because of that--that----" + +Bobs helped her out. "Slam on, your cooking is what you really mean, but +of course you can't use slang, not even in a pinch. But, I say, is our +honored guest fine or superfine?" + +Gloria and Lena May exchanged amused glances. It was the former who +replied: "The guest of honor is to be a young gentleman, and, as to his +identity, you may have three guesses." + +This had always been their method of telling each other interesting news. + +"Dick De Laney isn't in town, is he?" Roberta inquired in so +matter-of-fact and little interested a manner that again Gloria realized +that her sister did not greatly care for the lad who had loved her since +the pinafore days. + +"Not that I've heard of," Lena May said. "Now you may guess again." But +before this could be done, the heavy knocker on the front door was +announcing the arrival of someone, and Gloria went to answer its summons. + +Bobs skipped over to the stove as she said hurriedly, "Tell me quickly +who is coming, so that I may be prepared." + +"Nell Wiggin and her brother Dean," was the whispered reply. "He came in +on the eleven-ten train. Nell went to meet him and I told her to bring +him over here to lunch. I thought it would be pleasant for both of them." + +"You're a trump," Bobs began, but paused, for Gloria was opening the +door, saying, "Sisters, here are Nell and her brother Dean." Then to the +tall, pale lad with the dreamy eyes she added: "This sister is Gwendolyn, +who has been ill, and this is Lena May, fork in hand, symbolizing the +fact that she is also our housekeeper. Roberta we call Bobs, for every +family has need of a boy and Bobsy has always done her best to fill the +requirements." + +The lad, unused to girls, acknowledged these introductions rather shyly. +Bobs, knowing that he was conscious of his muscle-bound left arm, which +he could not move, said at once in her merry, nonsensical manner: "If so +many sisters won't frighten you, Dean, I'll retire from the role of +brother and let you fill it." Then she added, "I'm not going to call you +Mr Wiggin. It is too formal." + +The lad flushed in his effort to reply, but Lena May saved him from +further embarrassment by saying, "Nell, you and your brother may sit on +either side of Gloria. Bobsy, will you serve the chicken? Gwen had her +broth at eleven, so she isn't hungry just now." + +Realizing that the lad who had lived only on remote New England farms +would rather listen than talk, Bobs monopolized the conversation in her +usual breezy manner, and often when she glanced his way she noted that +the soft brown eyes of the lad were smiling as though he were much +amused. But after lunch she spoke to him directly. "Dean," she said, +"your sister tells me that you love books." + +"Indeed I do," the boy replied, "but I have seen very few and have owned +only one." + +"My goodness!" Bobs exclaimed. "Come with me and I will show you several +hundred." + +"Several hundred books," the lad gasped, quite forgetting his +self-consciousness in his astonishment at this amazing remark. + +Bobs nodded mysteriously as she led the way to the room overhead, where +in the dim light Dean beheld old books in dusty piles everywhere about. + +There was a sudden glow of pleasure in the eyes of the boy which told +Bobs that he was indeed a booklover. "What a treat this will be," he +exclaimed, "if I may browse up here when I wish." Then he added as a new +thought presented itself: "But, Miss Roberta, I must not spend my time in +idle reading. I want to find some way to earn money." Eagerly, anxiously, +his eyes turned toward her. "Can you suggest anything that I might be +able to do?" + +For one panicky moment Bobs' thoughts groped wildly for some profession +that a one-armed lad might follow, then she had what she believed was a +wonderful inspiration, and she said with her usual head-long +impulsiveness: "I do, indeed, know just the very thing. You and I will +start an old book shop and you may be manager." + +The lad's pale face flushed with pleasure. "Do you really mean it, Miss +Vandergrift?" he asked eagerly. "How I would like that." + +In her characteristic manner Bobs wanted to settle the matter at once, +and so she tripped downstairs with Dean following. + +She found that Gwendolyn had gone back to bed and that the kitchen having +been tidied, the three girls were sitting about the fireplace talking +softly together. When they heard Bobs' inspiration, they all thought it a +splendid plan, and Nell said that there was a vacant room adjoining the +office of the model tenement that she had been told she might use in any +way that she wished. As there was a door opening upon the street, she +believed it would be an ideal place for an old book shop. + +Rising, Nell continued: "I will telephone Mrs. Doran-Ashley at once to be +sure that she is still willing that I use the room as I desire." + +This was done, and that most kindly woman in her beautiful home on +Riverside Drive listened with interest to the plan and gave the +permission that was requested. Moreover, upon leaving the telephone she +made a note in her engagement book: "At the next board meeting suggest +that a visit be made to the old book shop in the model tenement." + +When Nell returned with the information that they might do as they wished +with the room, Bobs and Dean went at once to a lumber yard near the docks +and ordered the shelves they would need. An hour later Antovich and +several of his boy companions had carried the old books from the +Pensinger mansion and had heaped them upon the floor of the pleasant +vacant room, which opened directly upon the sidewalk on Seventy-eighth +Street. + +When Bobs left, Dean was busy with hammer and nails and happier, perhaps, +than he had been in the twenty years of his life. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + A CASE FOR TWO + + +As Bobs left the small shop, she glanced at her watch, and finding that +it was nearly four, she hastened her steps, recalling that that was the +hour when she might expect a call from the young lawyer. As she turned +the corner at the East River, she saw a small, smart-looking auto drawing +up at the curb in front of the Pensinger mansion, and from it leaped a +fashionably groomed young man. Truly an unusual sight in that part of New +York's East Side, where the clothes, ill-fitting even at best, descended +from father to son, often made smaller by merely being haggled off at arm +and ankle. No wonder that Ralph Caldwaller-Cory was the object of many an +admiring glance from the dark eyes of the young Hungarian women who, with +gayly colored shawls over their heads, at that moment were passing on +their way to the tobacco factory; but Ralph was quite unconscious of +their scrutiny, for, having seen Bobs approaching, he hastened to meet +her, hat in hand, his good-looking, clean-shaven face glowing with +anticipation. + +"Have you found a clue as yet, Miss Vandergrift?" he asked eagerly, when +greetings had been exchanged. + +Roberta laughed. "No, and I'll have to confess that I haven't given the +matter a moment's thought since we parted three hours ago." + +"Is that all it has been? To me it has seemed three centuries." The boy +said this so sincerely that Roberta believed that he must be greatly +interested in the Pensinger mystery. It did not enter her remotest +thought that he might also be interested in her. Having reached the +mansion, Bobs led the way up the wide stone steps, saying: "I do hope +Gloria and Lena May are at home. I want my sisters to meet you." + +But no one was to be seen. Gwen was still in her room, while the other +girls had not returned from the Settlement House. + +"Well, there's another time coming." Bobs flashed a smile at her +companion, then led the way to the wide fireplace, where comfortable +chairs awaited them, and they seated themselves facing the still burning +embers. + +"I say, Miss Vandergrift," Ralph began, "you're a girl and you ought to +know better than I just what another girl, even though she lived +seventy-five years ago, would do under the circumstances with which we +are both familiar. If you loved a man, of whom your mother did not +approve, would you really drown yourself, or would you marry him and +permit your parents to believe that you were dead?" + +Bobs sat so long gazing into the fire that the lad, earnestly watching +her, wondered at her deep thought. + +At last she spoke. "I couldn't have hurt my mother that way," she said, +and there were tears in the hazel eyes that were lifted to her companion. +"I would have known that her dearest desire would be for my ultimate +happiness." + +"But mothers are different, we will have to confess," the lad declared. +"Marilyn's may have thought only of social fitness." Then, as he glanced +about the old salon and up at the huge crystal chandeliers, he added: "I +judge that the Pensingers were people of great wealth in those early days +and probably leaders in society." + +"I believe that they were," Roberta agreed, "but my mother had a +different standard. She believed that mental and soul companionship +should be the big thing in marriage, and for that matter, so do I." + +Ralph felt awed. This was a very different girl from the hoidenish young +would-be detective with whom he had so brief an acquaintance. + +"Miss Vandergrift," he said impulsively, "I wish I had a sister like you, +and wouldn't my mother be pleased, though, if you were her daughter. A +girl, I am sure, would have been more of a comfort and companion to her +when my brother Desmond died." Then he added, after a moment of silence: +"I can get your point of view, all right. I wouldn't break my mother's +heart by pretending to drown myself, not even if the heavens fell." + +"I'd like to know your mother," Roberta said. "She must be a wonderful +woman." + +"She is!" the lad declared. "I want you to meet her as soon as she +returns. Just now she is touring the West with friends, but, to get back +to Marilyn Pensinger. From the little that we know of her family, I +conclude that her mother was a snob and placed social distinction above +her daughter's happiness. But, the very fact that the father made his +will as he did, proves, doesn't it, that he loved his daughter more +sincerely? He did not cut her off with a shilling when he believed that +she had eloped with a foreign musician. Instead, he arranged so that a +descendant of that Hungarian, whose name we do not even know, would +inherit all that Mr. Pensinger possessed. But this isn't getting us +anywhere. Do you happen to know anyone who has recently come over from +Hungary?" + +Bobs smiled. "Wouldn't that be grasping at straws?" + +"Maybe, but do you?" + +Roberta thought a moment, then looked up brightly. "I believe I do. At +least I know a Hungarian. His name is Mr. Hardinian and he is doing +social welfare work. He speaks perfect English, however, and may have +been born in this country. Suppose we go over to his clubhouse and +interview him." + +Then, as she rose, she added: "You will like Mr. Hardinian. He has such +beautiful eyes." + +Ralph laughed as he also arose. "Is that a girl's reason for liking a +man?" he inquired. Then he added, "Would I were a Hungarian that I might +have interesting eyes. As it is, mine are the plain, unromantic American +variety." + +Roberta smiled at her new friend, but what she said showed that her +thought was far from the subject: "Before we go, I want to be sure that +my sister, Gwen, is comfortable." + +Gwendolyn was sleeping so quietly that Roberta believed she would not +awaken before Lena May's return, and so, beckoning the lad to follow, she +left the house, closing the door softly. Ralph turned and looked back at +the upper windows of the rooms that were not occupied, as he inquired: +"Do you have a hunch that the old mansion holds the clue we are seeking?" + +Roberta's reply was: "Only the ghost of Marilyn knows." + +When the two partner-detectives were in the small, luxurious car, and +going very slowly, because of the congested traffic down First Avenue, +Ralph said: "Tell me a little about your sisters and yourself that I may +feel better acquainted." And so, briefly, Roberta told the story of their +coming to the East Side to live. + +"I say, Miss Vandergrift, that certainly was hard luck, losing the fine +old place that your family had supposed was its own for so many +generations." Then the lad added with sincere admiration: "You girls +certainly are trumps! I'm mighty glad I met you, and I hope you'll be +glad, too, some day." + +"Why, Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, I'm glad right this very moment," Roberta +assured him in so impersonal a manner that the lad did not feel greatly +flattered. Indeed, he was rather pleased that this was so. Being the son +of a famous judge, possessed of good looks, charming manners and all the +money he wished to spend, Ralph had been greatly sought after by the fond +mothers of the girls in his set, if not by the maidens themselves, and it +seemed rather an interesting change to meet a girl whose interest in him +was not personal. + +After a silent moment in which the lad's entire attention had been +centered on extricating his small auto from a crush of trucks, +vegetable-laden push-carts and foreign pedestrians, he turned and smiled +at his companion. "Let's turn over to Central Park now," he suggested. +"It's a little round about, I'll agree, but it will be pleasanter +riding." + +It was decidedly out of their way, but a glance at her wrist watch +assured Roberta that Lena May would have returned to be with Gwen by that +time, and so she was in no especial hurry. + +How beautiful the park seemed after the thronged noisy East Side with its +mingled odors from tobacco, fish markets, and general squalor. + +"There, now we can talk," Ralph said as he drove slowly along one of the +winding avenues under a canopy formed by wide-spreading trees. "What +shall it be about?" + +"You," Roberta replied. "Tell me about yourself." + +"There isn't much to tell," the lad began. "My brother Desmond and I grew +up in a happy home. During the winter months we attended a boys' school +up the Hudson, and each summer vacation we traveled with our parents. We +have been about everywhere, I do believe. Desmond and I were all in all +to each other. We were twins. Perhaps that was why we seemed to love each +other even more than brothers usually do. I did not feel the need of any +other boy companion, and when at last we entered college we were +permitted to be roommates. In our Sophomore year, Desmond died, and I +didn't much care what happened after that. It seemed as though I never +could room with another chap; but at last the dormitories were so crowded +that I had to take a fellow in. That was two years ago, and today Dick De +Laney is as close to me as Desmond was, almost, not quite, of course. No +one will ever be that. But, I tell you, Miss Vandergrift, Dick is a fine +chap, clear through to the core. I'd bank on Dick's doing the honorable +thing, come what might. I'm a year older than he is, and he won't finish +until June, then he's coming on here to little old New York and spend a +month with me. I say, Miss Vandergrift, I'd like to have you meet him." + +Roberta smiled. "I've been waiting for you to come to a period that I +might tell you that Dick De Laney and I were playmates when we wore +pinafores. You see, they were our next-door neighbors." Bobs said this in +so matter-of-fact a tone that Ralph did not think for one moment that +this could be the girl his pal had once told him that he loved and hoped +to win. + +If only Ralph had realized this, much so might have been saved for one of +them. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + PARTNER-DETECTIVES + + +It was five-thirty when the partner-detectives left the quiet park, where +long shadows were lying on the grass and where birds were calling softly +from one rustling tree to another. + +"It seems like a different world, doesn't it?" Bobs said, as she smiled +in her friendliest way at the lad at the wheel. She had felt a real +tenderness for her companion since he had told her about Desmond, and she +was glad that an old friend of hers had been a comfort to him. + +"It does, indeed," he declared with a last glance back at the park. "I +like trees better than I do many people. We have some wonderful old elms +around our summer home in the Orange Hills. When my mother returns I +shall ask her to invite you four girls to one of her week-ends, or to one +that she will plan just for me, after Dick comes." + +Then, as they were again on the thronged East Side, the lad said: + +"Seventy-sixth Street, beyond Second, you said, didn't you?" + +"Yes. There is the Boys' Club House just ahead," Roberta exclaimed. Then +as they drew up at the curb, she added: "Good! The door is open and so +Mr. Hardinian probably is here." + +The young man whom they sought was still there, and as they entered the +low wooden temporary structure which covered a vacant lot between two +rickety old tenements, they saw him smiling down at a group of excited +newsies, who were evidently relating to him some occurrence of their day. + +He at once recognized Roberta and made his way toward her, while the boys +to whom he had spoken a few words of dismissal departed through a side +door, leaving the big room empty. + +Bobs held out her hand as she said: "Mr. Hardinian, this is my friend, +Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, and we have come, I do believe, on a wild goose +chase." + +Ralph at once liked the young man with the lithe, wiry build and the dark +face that was so wonderfully expressive. + +He looked to be about twenty-four years of age, although he might have +been even a year or two older. An amused smile accompanied his question: +"Miss Vandergrift, am I the wild goose?" + +The girl laughed. "That wasn't a very graceful way of stating our +errand," she said, "so I will begin again. The truth of the matter is +that Mr. Cory and I are amateur detectives." + +Again Mr. Hardinian smiled, and, with a swinging gesture that seemed to +include the entire place, he said: "Search where you will, but I doubt if +you will detect here a hidden wild goose." Then, more seriously, he +added: "Come, let us be seated in the library corner, for I am sure that +your visit has some real purpose." + +Mr. Hardinian listened to the story of the Pensinger mystery, which, as +little was really known about it, took but a brief moment to tell. At its +conclusion he said: "Did you think. Miss Vandergrift, that I might know +something about all this? I truly do not. Although I was born in Hungary, +while I was still an infant my parents went to England, where I was +educated, and only last year the need of my own people brought me here +where so many of them come, believing that they are to find freedom and +fortune. But how soon they are disillusioned, for they find poverty, +suffering and conditions to which they are unused and with which they +know not how to cope. Many of the older ones lose out and their children +are left waifs all alone in this great city. I found when I reached here +that they needed me most, the homeless boys who, many of them, slept +huddled over some grating through which heat came, or in hallways crowded +together for warmth, until they were told to move on. And so the first +thing that I did was to rent this vacant lot and build a temporary wooden +structure. Now with these walls lined with bunks, as you see, I can make +many of the boys fairly comfortable at night." + +"I say, Mr. Hardinian," Ralph exclaimed, "this is a splendid work that +you are doing! I'm coming over some night soon, if I may. I want to see +the place in full swing." + +"Come whenever you wish," was the reply. And then, as Roberta had risen, +the young men did also. + +The girl smiled as she said: "Honestly, Mr. Hardinian, I knew in my bones +that you would not be able to help us solve the mystery, but you were the +only Hungarian with whom I had even the slightest speaking acquaintance, +and so we thought that we would tell you the story and, if you ever hear +anything that might be a clue, let us know, won't you?" + +"Indeed I will, and gladly. Good-bye! Come over Sunday afternoon at four, +if you have no other plans. We have a little service then and the boys +conduct it entirely." + +When they were again in the small car, Ralph was enthusiastic. "I like +that chap!" he exclaimed. "I wish detectives could plan to have things +turn out the way an author can. If I had the say of it, I'd make Mr. +Hardinian into a descendant of Marilyn Pensinger and then he could +inherit all of that fortune and use it for his homeless waifs." + +It was after six when the small car stopped in front of the Pensinger +mansion, and Ralph declared that since he had a date with his dad, he +could not stop to meet the other Vandergrift girls, as he greatly +desired. + +That night, when Ralph returned from an evening affair which he had +attended with his father, he did not retire at once. Instead, he seated +himself at his desk and for half an hour his pen scratched rapidly over a +large sheet of white paper. He was writing a letter to Dick De Laney, his +close-as-a-brother friend, telling him that at last the only girl in the +world had appeared in his life. + +"I always told you, old pal, that I'd know the girl who was meant for me +the minute that I met her. But I do believe that she is going to be hard +to win." + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + ROMANCE BUDDING + + +Two weeks have passed since the evening upon which Bobs and her new +friend, Ralph Caldwaller-Cory, drove together in Central Park and told +each other briefly the story of their lives. It does not take interested +young people long to become acquainted and these two had many +opportunities to be together, for were they not solving the Pensinger +mystery, and was it not of paramount importance that the poor defrauded +heir of all those idle millions should be found and made happy with his +rightful possessions? Of course no other motive prompted Ralph, the +rising young lawyer, to seek the companionship of his detective-partner, +not only daily but often, in the morning, afternoon and evening. + +They had sought clues everywhere in the mansion, but the great old rooms +had failed to reveal aught that was concealed. Too, they had long drives +in the little red car that its owner called "The Whizz," and these +frequently took them far away from the thronged East Side along country +roads where, quite undisturbed, they could talk over possible clues and +plan ways to follow them. + +And all this time Roberta really thought that Ralph's interest in her was +impersonal, for the lad dreaded revealing his true feeling until she +showed some even remote sign of being interested in him. + +"If I tell Bobs that I care for her, it might queer the whole thing," was +one thought suggested to him as he rode home alone one night through the +quiet park. Another thought was more encouraging. It suggested, "But a +girl's pride won't let her show that she cares. There is only one way to +find out, and that is to ask." And still another assured him, "There is +every reason why Roberta Vandergrift should be pleased. You, Ralph, have +wealth and position, and can restore to her all that she has lost." + +"Lots you know about Bobs," the lad blurted out as though someone really +had spoken to him. "My opinion is that Roberta isn't really grown up +enough as yet to think of love. She considers her boy friends more as +brothers, and that's what they ought to be, first and foremost. I'll bide +my time, but if I do lose Bobs, it will be like losing Desmond all over +again." + +Meanwhile, although no progress had been made in solving the mystery, +much progress was being made in other directions. + +Gloria, with Bobs and Ralph, had attended a Sunday afternoon meeting of +the Boy's Club and Mr. Hardinian had walked home with them and had +remained for tea. He was very glad to have an opportunity to talk with a +young woman whose interest in welfare work paralleled his own, especially +as he had one rather wayward boy whom he believed needed mothering more +than all else. + +Gloria's heart indeed was touched when she heard the sad story that the +young man had to tell, and she gladly offered to do what she could. + +She invited the wayward boy to one of her game evenings at the Settlement +House, and in teaching him to play honestly she not only won his ardent +devotion but also saved him from being sent to the island reformatory for +petty thievery. + +After that Mr. Hardinian frequently called upon Gloria when he needed +advice or help. + +The little old book shop, during the eventful two weeks, had started, or +so it would seem, on a very successful business career. + +Because of the little memorandum that she had made in her note book on +the day that Nell Wiggin had first telephoned to her, Mrs. Doran-Ashley +did tell the ladies who attended the next model tenement board meeting +about the shop, and asked them to visit it, which they did, being +sincerely interested in all that pertained to their venture. And not only +did they buy books, but they left others to be sold on commission. One +glance at the fine face of the lad who was bookseller made them realize +that, crippled as he might be, he would not accept charity. + +"How's business this hot day?" Bobs asked early one morning, as she poked +her head in at the door. She was on her way down to the Fourth Avenue +Branch of the Burns Detective Agency, where she went every day to do a +few hours' secretarial work for Mr. Jewett. + +"We had a splendid trade yesterday," the lad replied, as he looked up +from the old book of poetry which he was reading. And yet, since he held +a pencil, Bobs concluded that he was also writing verse as the +inspiration came. + +"How so?" she inquired. + +"The shop had a visit from no less a personage than Mr. Van Loon, the +millionaire book collector, of whom you told me. He bought several +volumes that I hadn't supposed were worth a farthing, and what he paid +for them will more than cover our expenses up to date. I wonder how he +happened to know about this out-of-the-way shop?" + +"Oh, I guess he goes nosing around after old books, sort of ferrets them +out, like as not. Well, so long! I'm mighty glad our shop is financially +on its feet." + +As Bobs went on her way down the crowded First Avenue she smiled to +herself, for it was she who had sent Mr. Van Loon a business-like letter +announcing the opening of an old book shop, feeling sure that he would +not miss an opportunity of seeing it if it held something that he might +desire. + +Fifteen minutes after her departure, Dean again heard the door open, and +this time a dear little boy of three darted in and hid beneath a +book-covered counter, peering out to whisper delightedly, "I'se hidin'! +Miss May, her's arter me." + +Almost immediately the pursuer, who was Lena May Vandergrift, appeared in +the doorway. The young bookseller was on his feet at once and there was a +sudden light in the dreamy brown eyes that told its own story. + +"Good morning, Dean," the girl said. "Have you seen Antony Wilovich? I +told him to wait out in front for me so that he could escort me to the +Settlement House this morning." + +Dean smiled knowingly and replied, which was his part of the game: "Well, +well, has that little scamp run away again somewhere, and hidden? I guess +he doesn't love his Miss May or he wouldn't do that." + +This always proved too much for the little fellow in hiding, and from +under the counter he would dart, his arms extended. Then the girl, +stopping, would catch him in a loving embrace. "I do so love Miss May," +the child would protest. "I loves her next most to my muvver over dere." +A chubby finger would point, or the golden head would nod, in the +direction of the rickety tumble-down tenement across the way, the very +one which Miss Selenski, the former agent of the model tenement, had +called a "fire trap." + +This little game of hide-and-seek took place every morning, for Lena May +had promised the "muvver over dere," who was slowly dying of consumption, +that she would call for Tony, take him to the Settlement sandpile and +return him safely at noon. + +If this was a merry moment each day for little Tony, it was to Dean +Wiggin much more. The sweet, sympathetic girl, in her pretty muslin dress +and flower-wreathed hat, suggested to the lad from the country all that +he most loved, the fragrance of blossoms, the song of birds, and the +peace of the meadow-pool at noon time. When she was gone, with a friendly +backward nod at the crippled bookseller, he would always read poetry or +try to write one that would express what Lena May was to him, to little +Tony, or to the invalid mother who trusted her with her one treasure. + +And so that two weeks had raised the curtain upon three dreams, but one +of them was to become a tragedy. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + A SUDDEN DEPARTURE + + +Time--A week later. + + +"Hello, Bobs, is that you?" But it was Lena May who had answered an +imperative ring at the telephone, and so she replied, "Oh, good morning, +Mr. Caldwaller-Cory. No, I am not Roberta. I will call her." + +A moment later Ralph knew that he was talking to the girl whom he loved. + +"I say, Bobety," he exclaimed, "will you go for a drive with me right +away this minute? Please say 'yes' (for she had hesitated), I have +something of great importance to tell you." + +"Honestly, I can't, Ralph," was the earnest reply. "I am going to give +Lena May a holiday. She and Dean Wiggin are going to take little Tony +Wilovich to Bronx Park and spend the day. The little fellow is wild to +see the monkeys and Lena May needs a day among the trees." + +Her youngest sister was at her elbow whispering, "We can go some other +time, dear, if there's something that you want to do." + +But Roberta shook her head. There was a brief silence at the other end of +the line, then the lad spoke again. "I say, Bobs, how are they going? On +the L! That's what I thought. Suppose I get Dad's big car. We can take +them out to the park and then on the way back you and I can have the +visit I want. In fact I've _got_ to see you, Bobs. It's terribly +important to me. I'm all cut up about something that has happened +and----" + +Roberta knew by her friend's voice that something had occurred to trouble +him greatly, and so she said: "Wait a moment, Ralph. I will talk it over +with my sister." + +Lena May thought the plan a good one and Ralph was told to be at the +Pensinger mansion in one-half hour with the car and they would all be +ready and waiting for him. + +Lena May then departed to the rickety tenement to get the wee lad. + +"Oh, Mrs. Wilovich," the girl said, as she looked about the small, hot +room. "How I do wish that you would go with us today. Don't you feel +strong enough?" + +"No, dearie, thanks though. The coughin' spell was harder'n usual this +mornin'. 'Twas all as I could do to get Tony's breakfast. I'll be that +happy knowin' as the little fellow's seein' the monkeys his heart's been +set on ever since the picture posters was up on the fences." + +Five minutes later the girl and the little boy were joined by the young +bookseller on Seventy-eighth Street. + +"Dean," Lena May said sadly, "I don't believe that Mrs. Wilovich will be +with us one month from today." + +"Nor do I," the lad replied; then he added, as he looked at the +curly-headed three-year-old, who had darted ahead but who looked back, +laughing at them, "What will become of Tony?" + +"I'm going to keep him, somehow. Gloria has given her permission. I +wanted to be sure that Sister thought my plan wise that I might know just +what to say to the little mother when she speaks of it to me, as she will +in time." + +No wonder was it that the lad's unspoken love for the girl took unto +itself the qualities of adoration. "She is too sweet and too good to be +loved by a useless man such as I am," he thought, and how he wished that +his muscle-bound arm might be freed that he could work and fight the +world for this angel of a girl. A surgeon had once told him that there +was really nothing wrong with his arm. It had grown with the passing +years, but was stiffened from long disuse. + +Tony was wildly excited when he saw the big green car in which he was to +ride for the first time in his short life, and he entertained them all +with his chatter. + +Roberta, sitting on the front seat with her friend, glanced often at his +face and realized that, although he, too, joined in the laughter evoked +by the baby's prattle, his thoughts were of a very serious nature, and +she wondered what she was to hear when they two were alone. + +She little dreamed that Ralph was to say something that would greatly +affect her. + +Dean, carrying the basket which was well filled with picnic refreshments, +and Lena May leading the shining eyed three-year-old, waved back at the +big car as they entered the side gate of the woodsy Bronx Park. + +Bobs smiled as the baby voice wafted to them, "Ohee, see funny cow!" + +They were near the buffalo enclosure. + +Then Ralph started the engine and slowly the car rolled along the little +river and toward the country. Roberta, knowing that something was greatly +troubling her friend, reached out a hand and laid it sympathetically upon +his arm. Instantly his left hand closed over hers and his eyes turned +toward her questioningly. "Bobs," he said, "you've been a trump of a +friend to me. I'm not going to try to tell you just now what it means. +It's another friend I want to talk about. Dick--Dick De Laney. You +remember that I told you he has become almost as dear to me as a brother, +since Desmond died. I was sure Dick would do anything for me. I had such +faith in his loyalty, in his devoted friendship, but now he has done +something I can't understand." Ralph paused and his companion saw that he +was greatly affected. "Bobs, I'm taking this awfully hard. I----" + +Roberta was amazed. What had her old pal, Dick De Laney, done to so hurt +her new friend? "Why, Ralph dear," she said, for he had turned away as +though too overcome with emotion for the moment to go on with his story. +"What has Dick done? I know that it is nothing disloyal or dishonorable. +You don't know Dick as I do if you can doubt him for one moment. He would +do what he believed was right, even if the consequences were to bring +real suffering to him. He's been that way ever since he was a little +fellow. You may take my word for it, Ralph, that whatever Dick has done, +his motive is of the highest. Now tell me what has hurt you so deeply?" + +"Well, it's this way," the lad began. "I've missed Dick terribly, more, +of course, before I met you, but I have been looking eagerly forward to +the month he was to spend with me in the Orange Hills. I didn't tell you +that I expected him to arrive today. I wanted to surprise you, but +instead I received a letter on the early morning mail and it informed me +that, although the writer really did love me as though I were his +brother, he thought it best not to visit me this summer; instead he had +decided to travel abroad indefinitely and that he had engaged passage on +a steamer that leaves Hoboken at noon today. What can it mean?" + +The lad turned and was amazed at the expression in the face of the girl. +"Why, Bobs," he blurted out, "can it be--do you care so much because Dick +is going away." + +"Oh, Ralph, of course I care. It's all my fault. I knew Dick loved me. I +guess I've always known it, and last April, when he was home for the +spring vacation, I promised him that--Oh, I don't remember just what I +did promise, but I do know that I haven't written often of late, and I +guess he thinks I don't care any more; and maybe that's why he's going +away; but I do care, and, oh, Ralph, I can't let him go without telling +him. I always meant to tell him when he came home from college. I thought +we were too young to be really engaged until then. Dick has been so +patient, waiting all these years, and loving me so truly and so loyally. +Can't we stop him, or--at least can't we see him before he sails?" + +The expression in the fine face of the lad at her side plainly told the +struggle that was going on within his heart. So, after all, Dick De Laney +had been as loyal as a brother. He was going away to give Ralph a clear +field. + +Well, it was Ralph's turn now to show the mettle he was made of. In a +voice that might have betrayed his emotion if Roberta had not been so +concerned with her own anxiety and regrets, he said: + +"Of course, Bobs, we will try to reach the boat before it sails. We'll +ferry over to the Jersey side and then we'll break the speed limit." + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + A HAPPY REUNION + + +Dick De Laney was leaning over the railing of the big liner that was to +take him away from the country that was home to him and from the girl he +loved, whose happiness meant more to him than did his own, but, as he +looked out over the choppy waters of the bay and toward the broad +Atlantic he could see ahead of him nothing but years of loneliness. + +Then it was that he heard a voice that was eagerly, tremulously calling +his name. He whirled and beheld Roberta back of him, her hands +outstretched. There were tears in her eyes as she said: "Dick, why did +you do it? Why did you plan going away without saying good-bye? Even if +you have changed your mind, even if you don't care for me any more, it +isn't like you to just run away." + +Dick's face, troubled at first, was radiant when the full meaning of the +words reached his consciousness. + +"Bobs," he said, "why, Bobita, I thought you didn't care; that is, I +thought maybe you loved Ralph, and so----" + +"And so you were going away to let me have someone else, you dear old +stupid! To think that I so nearly lost you just because I was so very +sure that you loved me; that I never could lose you, and so I didn't +write about it." + +These two were holding each other's hands and looking deep into each +other's eyes, entirely oblivious of their surroundings. Roberta +continued: + +"Dicky-boy, I've had my lesson, and when we are married, every day the +first thing, instead of good morning, I am going to say I love you, +which, after all, will mean the same thing." + +"Married, Bobs! When are we to be married?" + +The girl laughed at the lad's eagerness, but as many passengers were +appearing on deck, she replied, demurely, "Sometime, of course, and live +happily ever after." + +It was hard for Dick not to shout, but, instead, he said: + +"Come along, dear, and I'll cancel my passage, and then I'll go home with +you and tell you what all this means to me. I can't very well here." +Then, as he glanced about, he inquired: "How did you get here, Bobs? Did +you come alone?" + +"No, Ralph brought me." Her conscience rebuked her, for she had +completely forgotten the existence of her other friend. "He was as hurt +as I was because you were going away without seeing him," she told Dick. + +"Poor old Ralph," was all he said. "I certainly am sorry for him, but I +suppose it can't be helped." + +"Sorry for Ralph? Why?" Roberta's expression of surprised inquiry was so +frank that the lad knew his pal had never spoken of his love. + +Dick was even more puzzled when, upon reaching the dock, he saw his +friend Ralph leap toward them with hands outstretched. Joyfully he +exclaimed: "Great. I know by your radiant faces that you've made up. I +congratulate you both. I certainly am glad that we made it on time." Then +after a hearty hand-shaking: "What put that wild notion of flight into +your head, old man? You can't get rid of us that easy, can he, Bobs? My +detective-partner here has been telling me that she has been engaged to +you ever since she wore pinafores, or was it a little later?" + +Roberta laughed. "I believe I had on a riding habit that day, didn't I, +Dick?" + +Ralph turned away after a fleeting glance at the girl's face as it was +uplifted to his roommate. He had not dreamed that she could be as +beautiful as that expression of love had made her. + +Dick was replying, "Oh, it doesn't much matter when it happened, dear. +The big thing is that it did happen at all." + +Then, when they were in the big green car (the front seat was wide enough +to hold all three of them), Dick began to ask questions. + +"How is Gwen now?" was the first of them. He was pleased to hear that the +girl, but a year Roberta's senior, was much better and visiting his +sister, Phyllis. + +Then it was that Bobs thought of something. "Why, Ralph," she said, "you +never did have an opportunity to meet my beautiful sister, Gwendolyn, did +you? She hasn't been strong enough to visit with strangers, and now she +has gone away for a whole month." + +Dick smiled as he said to the driver: "Bobs is giving herself a +compliment when she calls Gwendolyn beautiful, for the family resemblance +between the two girls is very striking." + +Roberta laughed. "I should say that it must be, Dick. Did I ever write +you about the time a stage manager thought that I _was_ Gwen, and I +actually had to do a song and dance? I laugh every time I think of it. +Gloria said afterwards that it was a natural mistake, for though I am not +as sylph-like as my sister, we do look very much the same." + +Ralph smiled, but he made no response. His thought was commenting: "As +though anyone could be like you, Bobs." + +It was noon when the Pensinger mansion was reached, and Roberta told the +lads that she wasn't going to ask them in just then, as she had to do +some writing for Mr. Jewett that must be delivered that afternoon, but +she invited them both to supper, if they weren't afraid to eat her +cooking. Dick said he certainly would reappear as soon as she would +permit him to come, but Ralph had an engagement with his Dad. As that was +not unusual, Bobs did not think that this time it was an excuse to remain +away, as indeed it was. + +Roberta turned at the house door to wave to the lads in the car that was +starting away. Vaguely she wondered what they would talk about. How +little she knew of the aching heart that one of them was so bravely +trying to hide. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + REVELATIONS THAT DO NOT REVEAL + + +The two lads who were close as brothers rode for some time in silence +after having left Roberta at the Pensinger mansion. It took skillful +driving to cross the crowded streets at First, Second and Third, but +after that the way was open to Central Park and, when at last they were +riding down one of the wide, tree-shaded avenues, Ralph turned his gaze +from the road and smiled at his friend. + +The eyes of Dick were searching. + +"And all this means what, to you?" he asked earnestly. + +"That I wrote the letter to which you are referring, hastily, on an +impulse, before I was really acquainted with Miss Vandergrift. I know now +that she isn't the girl for me, and I also know that she _is_ the girl +for you, and I sincerely congratulate you both. Now I say, Dick, you +aren't going to spoil my plans for a house party in the Orange Hills by +bolting, are you? Ma Mere will be back tomorrow, and she wrote that I +might have my friends for a week as soon as the house has been aired out. +You know it has been closed all winter." + +"Indeed, I'm not going anywhere." Dick felt greatly relieved, for he +believed that Ralph was telling him the truth. He knew that his college +pal was impulsive and often did things in more of a headlong manner than +he would had he given the matter thought. "Of course he admires my Bobs; +no one could help that, but I'm glad that he doesn't really love her," +Dick was thinking. "He's had sorrow enough as it is." Aloud he asked, +"Who are you going to ask?" + +"Well, I did invite all four of the Vandergrift girls, but Bobs is the +only one who has accepted. The oldest and youngest sisters are free but a +few hours each day; the rest of their time they devote to Settlement work +and they feel that they are especially needed now that it is vacation in +the schools. Gwendolyn, however, may come, as of course I have invited +your sister Phyllis and her guests." + +Dick looked at Ralph with the light of a new inspiration in his eyes. "I +say, wouldn't it be great if you could care for my sister Phyl? Then you +would be my brother in very truth." + +Ralph laughed. "Dicky-boy," he said, "are you turning matchmaker? It's +too late for that, old man. Bobs tells me that Phyllis is engaged to a +fine chap from up Boston way. His name is Arden Wentworth." + +"Gee, that's great news! Arden is a chap after my own heart, but I didn't +think that he ever could win Phyl. She must have changed a lot this last +year." + +"Why, how's that?" Ralph looked around inquiringly. "His father has piled +up a few millions. That ought to please any girl." + +"That's just where the shoe pinches, so to speak," was the reply. "Arden, +being a red-blooded young American, refused to just spend his father's +money and so he put on overalls and began at the bottom in one of his +dad's factories. He said he wanted to prove to himself, even if the world +didn't care, that he had brains enough to make good without help. Phyl +wouldn't speak to him after that, hoping that, for her sake, he would +give it up; but he didn't, and so I thought it was all off between them." + +"Well, something must have happened, for Bobs tells me that they are +really engaged, and so, of course I have also invited Arden. By the way, +you know Gwendolyn Vandergrift. What kind of a chap ought I to ask for +her? Harry Birch is in town. I thought she might like him." And so the +lads talked over the plans for the coming house party, and so +successfully did Ralph play his part that his pal did not for one moment +suspect that his friend was secretly wishing that he might have sailed +away in Dick's place on the boat which, that noon, had left for distant +shores. + +But night is darkest before the dawn. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + THE HOUSE PARTY + + +Ralph and Dick were out on the wide velvety lawn which surrounded the +handsome rambling summer home of the Caldwaller-Corys. + +The gay awnings, palms and boxes of flowers gave the house a festive +appearance, while the many colored lanterns strung about the garden +suggested that some merriment was planned for the evening. + +Mrs. Caldwaller-Cory, who seemed very young to be the mother of a junior +member of an ancient law firm, emerged from the house closely followed by +Roberta Vandergrift. + +Bobs, in an attractive summer dress and wide flower-wreathed hat, looked +very different from the girl who, while on the East Side, dressed in a +simple dark tailor-made suit and a neat, narrow-brimmed hat. + +"Aren't your guests late, my son?" the hostess inquired. Ralph looked at +his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. + +"They certainly are," he replied, "late by a full hour now, and I am +almost inclined to think that they had a breakdown. They were coming in +Jack Beardsley's tallyho, and he said he would time the drive from New +York so that they would reach us promptly at two-thirty, and now it is +nearing four." + +Just at that moment a butler crossed the lawn and, beckoning Ralph to one +side, told him that someone awaited him at the telephone. Excusing +himself, the lad fairly ran indoors. As he had expected, it was the voice +of his friend, Jack Beardsley, that greeted him. "I say, Ralph, are you +alone so that no one will get wise to what I am going to say?" + +"Yes," was the reply. + +"We don't want to worry her sister needlessly. There really is no cause +for that, but we've been delayed at the Orange Hills Inn because +Gwendolyn Vandergrift, who isn't as strong as she thought, has found +riding in the tallyho too hard. She's got grit, that girl has! Never +complained, but kept up as long as she could that she need not trouble +anyone until she just keeled over and fainted. She's better now, and +Phyllis thought that if you would come over after her with that little +runabout of yours, made comfortable with blankets and pillows, it +wouldn't be as hard for Miss Vandergrift as this old tallyho of mine. +Mrs. Buscom, the innkeeper's wife, will look out for her, and so, if you +are coming, we'll start along, as I want to make the steep grade with +this lumbering vehicle of mine before dark." + +"Sure thing, I'll get there all right. I'll take a short cut through the +hills, so you won't pass me, but don't be alarmed. I'll probably get back +here in The Whizz as soon as you do in the tallyho, so I won't say +anything to her sister, Roberta, as yet. So long." + +Again Ralph was acting on impulse. His first desire had been to take Bobs +with him, but if he did there would not be room to make the invalid +sister comfortable on the return trip, and, moreover, it wouldn't be fair +to Dick. + +His dad wouldn't arrive with the big car until five-thirty, and so The +Whizz would have to do. Sending word out to the group on the lawn that +the tallyho had been delayed but would soon arrive, Ralph donned his +leather coat, cap and goggles and made his way out through a back +entrance and down to the garage. Soon thereafter he was speeding over a +country road which led among the hills and was a short cut of many miles +to the Inn. He broke the speed limit whenever the dirt road was smooth +enough to permit him to do so, but, although he frightened many a flock +of birds from the hedges, no one arose from the wayside tangle to bid him +go more slowly. + +When at last he drew up at the Inn, the kind Mrs. Buscom appeared and +smilingly informed him that the young lady was quite rested and that the +tallyho had been gone for half an hour. She was about to lead the way +into the dim, old-fashioned parlor of the Inn when new arrivals delayed +her, and so Ralph went in alone. + +The blinds in the old-fashioned parlor of the Inn were drawn, and, having +come in from the dazzling sunshine, Ralph at first could scarcely see, +but a girl, who had been seated in a haircloth rocker, arose and advanced +toward him. She wore a rose-colored linen hat and dress. For a moment the +lad paused and stared as though at an apparition. + +"Bobs!" he ejaculated. Then he laughed as he extended his hand. "Miss +Vandergrift, honestly, just for a second I thought that I was seeing a +vision. I had quite forgotten that you and your sister so closely +resemble each other, though, to be sure, you are taller than Bobs; but +pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Ralph Cory, of whom, perhaps, +you have heard." + +"And I am Gwendolyn Vandergrift, of whom I am sure that you have heard, +else you would not have come for me," the girl smiled; and, to his +amazement, Ralph found that his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. +"If you are sure that you are rested, Miss Vandergrift," he said, "we +will start back at once. I've brought soft pillows galore, and a jolly +soft lap robe. I do hope you'll be comfortable." + +On the porch of the Inn, Gwen turned and, holding out a frail hand, she +said to the kindly woman: "Thank you, Mrs. Buscom, for having taken such +good care of me. I shall stop again on our way back to town." + +The bustling little woman helped arrange the pillows and tucked in the +blanket. Then to Ralph she said as the machinery started: "Do take care +of the pretty dear. It's like a flower she is, and ought to be sheltered +from the rough winds of the world." + +"I'll do that little thing, Mrs. Buscom. Good-bye. Wish us luck!" + +Ralph drove slowly at first, but Gwen said, "I'm so well packed in +pillows, Mr. Cory, it won't jar me in the least if you go faster." And so +the speed increased. It was late afternoon and the highway was deserted. +"I'd like to overtake the tallyho," Ralph remarked. "If I thought you +wouldn't mind the pace we'd have to hit." + +Gwendolyn smiled up trustingly. "I have perfect faith in your driving," +she said. "I know you will take care of me." + +Ralph, looking into the face of the girl at his side, again had the +strange feeling that it was Bobs, only different, and--Oh, what was the +matter with him, anyway? Was it possible that he liked the difference? + +Bobs had always been a frank comrade, more like another boy, when he came +to think of it, but this girl, who was equally beautiful, was depending +upon him to take good care of her. + +A fifteen-minute spurt brought them to the top of a hill and in the +valley below they saw the tallyho. + +Ralph stopped a brief moment on the plateau, leaped out to be sure that +The Whizz was in perfect condition, and then anxiously inquired, "Are you +sure you're game? Loop the loop won't be in it." + +Gwen nodded. "I'll like it," she assured him. The color had mounted to +her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. "All right! Hold fast! Here goes!" Then +The Whizz went like a red streak down that hill on which, as Ralph had +observed from the top, there was nothing to impede their progress. + +They overtook the tallyho and slowed up that they need not startle the +horses. They had reached the outer boundaries of the Caldwaller-Cory +estate. + +"Suppose I get back in the tallyho with the others," Gwen said, "then +Bobs won't know that I had a fainting spell. If she knew it, she would +feel that she ought to take me right home, and I don't want to go." Her +smile at Ralph seemed to imply that he was her fellow-conspirator. + +"I'm not going to let you go," he heard himself saying. + +So the change was made. Ralph turned The Whizz into a rear entrance, used +only by delivery autos, and in that way reached the garage. + +He had asked Jack Beardsley to give him time to get out on the lawn +before he arrived, and so the three, who were still seated around a tea +table under a spreading oak, saw Ralph coming from the house at the same +time that the tallyho entered the front gate. + +They little dreamed of all that had happened. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + TRAGIC HOURS + + +And now while these young people are having a care-free, happy time in +the beautiful Orange Hill country, let us return to the East Side that is +sweltering in the heat of late June. + +It was nine o'clock at night and the air was still breathlessly stifling. +The playground that edged the East River was thronged with neighboring +folk who had brought what portable bedding they had and who planned +sleeping upon the ground out-of-doors to catch some possible breeze from +over the water. + +Many of these people were residents of the rickety tenement across from +the model apartments, but one there was who had been unable to leave the +small, hot room that she called home, and that one was Mrs. Wilovich. + +She was not alone, nor had she been, for all that day Lena May had been +at her bedside. + +"She cannot last the night out," the visiting district nurse had said. +"Hastn't she any own folks to stay with her till it's all over?" + +"I shall stay," little Lena May had replied. + +"You? Do you think you ought? You're a mere girl. Aren't there some women +in this house who'd do that much for a neighbor?" + +"I am seventeen," was the quiet reply, "and Mrs. Wilovich would rather +have me. She never made friends among the neighbors." + +"Well, as you wish," the busy nurse had said. "I have many more places to +visit this evening, so I can't stay; and, anyway, there's nothing to do +but to let her----" + +"Hush, please, don't say it. Little Tony might hear," Lena May had +implored in a whisper as she glanced at the child curled up on the floor +as though he were asleep. + +When the nurse was gone, Dean Wiggin appeared in the open doorway, as he +had many times that day and evening. Nell had been called to the country +to see about the small farm which their foster-father had bequeathed +them, or she would have been with Lena May. Gloria had left at eight to +take her evening classes at the Settlement, and had promised to return at +ten and remain with her sister until the end. + +The giant of a lad, with his helpless arm that was always held in one +position as it had been in slings so long ago, glanced first at the woman +in the bed, and then at the girl who advanced to him. + +"Can't I stay now?" he spoke softly. "I've closed the shop and the +office. Isn't there anything that I can do to help?" + +"No, Dean, I don't need you, and there isn't room; but I do wish that you +would take Tony out of doors. It is stifling here." + +The little fellow seemed to hear his name. He rose and went to Dean. The +lad lifted Tony with his strong right arm. "I'll take him down to the +docks a while," he told the girl. "Put a light in the window if you want +me." + +Lena May said that she would. Then for a time the young girl stood in the +open window watching the moving lights out on the river. At last she +turned back and glanced at the bed. The mother lay so quiet and so white +that Lena May believed that she had passed into the land where there is +no sweltering, crowded East Side. She was right. The tired soul had taken +its flight. The girl was about to place the lamp in the window to recall +Dean when she paused and listened. What a strange roaring sound she +heard, and how intensely hot it was becoming. In another moment there was +a wild cry of "Fire! Fire!" from the playground. + +Lena May sprang to the open door. She knew there was but one fire escape +and that at the extreme rear of the long, dark hallway. That very day she +had noticed that it was piled high with rubbish. Then she must make her +escape by the narrow, rickety front stairs. Down the top flight she ran, +only to find that the flight beneath her was a seething mass of flame. + +She darted back into the small room and closed the door. Then she ran to +the open window and called for help, but the roaring of the flames +drowned her voice. However, she was seen, and several firemen ran forward +with a ladder, but a rear wall crashed in and they leaped back. + +At that moment a lad darted up and pushed his way through the crowd. "Put +the ladder up to that window," he commanded, pointing to where Lena May, +pale and quiet, was still standing. + +"By heck, we won't! It's sure death to climb up there. The wall's rocking +even now. Stand back, everybody," the chief shouted; but one there was +who did not obey. With superhuman effort he lifted the ladder. Several +men seeing that he was determined helped him place it, then ran back, and +left the lad to scale it alone. Never before had Dean so regretted his +useless arm. + +"God, give me strength!" he cried; then mounted the ladder. He could feel +it sway. Flames leaped from the windows as he passed. He caught at the +rounds with his left hand as well as his right, and up, up he went. The +girl leaned far out. "Drop down. Hold to the window sill! I'll catch +you," the lad called. Lena May did as she was told, and, clinging to the +top round with his left hand, Dean clasped the girl's waist with his +strong right arm and climbed down as fast as he could go. He did not +realize that he was using his left arm. He had to, it was a matter of +life and death. A pain like that made by a hot branding iron shot through +his shoulder, but even this he did not know. + +Firemen rushed forward and took the girl from him, and none too soon, for +with a terrific roar the fire burst through the roof, which caved in; +then the wall tottered and crashed down about them. + +"Where's that boy? The one that went up the ladder?" people were asking +on all sides. Where was he, indeed? + + + + + CHAPTER XXX. + A HERO REWARDED + + +A week later Lena May was in the sunny kitchen of the Pensinger mansion +making broth. A curly-headed three-year-old boy was sitting on the floor +playing contentedly with his toys. He had been told that his mother had +gone to a beautiful country where she would be well and happy and that +some day he would see her again. + +"Muvver likes Tony to stay wiv you, Auntie May," he prattled as the girl +stooped to kiss him. Then, as he suddenly reached up his chubby arms, he +added: "Tony likes to stay wiv you." + +"There, now, the broth's ready and Tony may help Auntie May," she told +him. The little fellow was given a plate of crackers and the girl +followed with a bowl of steaming refreshment. They went to Bobs' room, +where a lad was lying in bed. + +Once again Dean Wiggin had fought a fire for the sake of a friend, but +this time had undone the harm that had been done in the long ago. Even +the surgeon who had been called in declared that the way the lad had +wrenched his arm free and had actually used it was little less than a +miracle; but, all through the ages, people who with a high purpose have +called upon God for help, have received it, and that help has been named +a miracle. + +"See, Lena May," the lad said as he stretched out his left arm, "it +moves, doesn't it? Stiffly, perhaps, but I must keep it going, the doctor +told me." Then he drew himself into a sitting position and the girl +raised the pillows to make him comfortable. + +He smiled at her beamingly as he said: "Another bit of good news is that +tomorrow I may get up. Just because one wall of a burning tenement fell +on me is no reason why I should remain in bed longer than one week and be +waited upon." + +"You surely had a wonderful escape, Dean," the girl said as she gave him +the broth. "Just by chance the firemen instantly turned the water where +you had fallen and so you weren't burned." + +"Nor drowned," the lad said merrily, "just knocked senseless." Then, +after a moment's pause, he continued: "I want to be up and about before +Nell returns. She will be in about noon tomorrow. Unless it got into the +New England papers, which isn't likely, she won't know a thing about it. +I don't want her to hear of it before I tell her. She would imagine all +sorts of things that aren't true, and be needlessly worried." + +"How glad your sister will be when she finds that the use of your arm has +been restored to you." Lena May sat by the bedside holding Tony on her +lap. + +"Won't she?" Dean's upward glance was radiant. "No longer will I have to +follow the profession of old book-seller. I want to do something that +will keep that arm constantly busy." + +"What, Dean, have you thought?" + +"Yes, indeed. You won't think it a very wonderful ambition. I want to be +a farmer. I don't like this crowded city. I feel as though I can't +breathe. When I am lying here alone, I keep thinking of the New England +farm where my boyhood was spent, and I long to really work in that rocky +soil, standing up now and then to breathe deep of that sparkling air and +to gaze at that wide view over the meadow-lands, and the shining, curving +silver ribbon, that is really a river, to the distant mountains. Lena +May, how I wish you could see it with me." + +"I am sure that I would love it," the girl said, then, rising, she added: +"Here comes Gloria and Mr. Hardinian. They are going to hear some +Hungarian music tonight, and I promised to have an early supper for them. +Tony may stay with you. I am sure he would like to hear a story about the +little wild creatures who live on your farm." + +But, when the girl was gone, the little fellow accommodatingly curled up +by Dean's side and went to sleep, and so the lad's thoughts were left +free to dream of a wonderful something that might happen some day on that +far-away New England farm. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + FOUR ROMANCES + + +Time--Two weeks later. + +Place--Kitchen of the Pensinger mansion. + +Characters--Gloria, Gwendolyn, Roberta, Lena May and little Tony. + + +"Haven't things been happening with a whirl of late?" Bobs exclaimed as +she passed a plate of hot muffins. "I feel dizzy, honestly I do! I'm so +proud of Dick," she added as she sank into her own place at the table. + +"All of his own accord he told me that he's going back for one more year +at law school and then he and Ralph are going to hang out a shingle for +themselves. They're going to start a new firm and be partners. Judge +Caldwaller-Cory thinks that his son must be crazy, when he is already a +junior member of an old and well established firm. They got the idea from +Arden Wentworth, I suppose. He has made good by himself, and the plan +rather appeals to Dick and Ralph." + +"They're great pals, aren't they, these two? Brothers couldn't care more +for each other, I do believe," Lena May said, as she buttered a muffin +for her little charge. + +"And to think that they are to marry sisters in the dim and distant +future. That ought to cement the brotherly ties even closer than ever," +Gloria remarked, as she smiled at Gwendolyn, who, wind-browned and +sun-rosy, looked as though she had never been ill. + +"Gwen, you and Ralph fell in love rather suddenly, didn't you?" Lena May +inquired. + +"Maybe so," her sister replied. "Ralph says that he has always felt sure +that he would know the girl who was meant for him the very moment that he +saw her, and he insists that he loved me the minute he met me at Orange +Hills Inn." + +Roberta leaned over and placed her hand on that of her sister. "I'm so +glad," she said, "for I do believe that Ralph is almost as fine a chap as +my Dick, and that is saying a great deal; and to think that if it hadn't +been for the Pensinger mystery, we might never have met him." + +"By the way," Gloria remarked, "what has become of the Pensinger +mystery?" + +Roberta laughed as she arose to replenish the muffin plate from the oven. +"I'm afraid it is destined to always remain a mystery. Ralph and I +followed every clue we could possibly think of. It's a shame, isn't it, +not to have this old place owned by someone, to say nothing of the +money." + +After a moment's silence, Gloria asked: "Lena May, was there any news of +general interest in Dean's letter this morning?" + +Their youngest sister smiled brightly. "Oh, yes, indeed. He was so glad +to get back to that New England farm where he can breathe. He said that +there are wonderful possibilities in the old house and that he is going +to begin work on it at once. He hopes that by the time I am eighteen, it +will look like a real home; but there was another item in the letter that +I am sure you will all be glad to hear. His group of nature poems has +been accepted by a magazine called _The New England Homestead_, and the +check they sent seems like a real fortune to Dean. The best of it is, +they have asked for more." + +"Great! I for one shall be most proud to have a poet for a +brother-in-law." Then to Lena May: "Maybe you thought you were keeping it +a secret from us, little one, but you weren't, and we're glad, just as +glad as we can be." + +Their youngest, shining-eyed, looked up at the oldest sister, who sat at +the head of the table, then she said: "Of course I had told Glow, because +she is Mother to us, but after that letter from Dean this morning, I want +to tell you all." + +Then merrily Bobs exclaimed: "Now, Gloria, we've all 'fessed up but you. +Aren't you and Mr. Hardinian going to be married some day and live +happily ever after?" + +"I never knew two people who seemed better suited for each other," +Gwendolyn commented. + +Gloria smiled. "And what would you have us live on, dear? You know that +it takes Mr. Hardinian's entire income to pay the expenses of his Boys' +Club. Of course the little chaps pay five cents a night for a bunk when +they have work, but he has to loan money to others who are out of work, +who might take to stealing if they had no other way to procure food. +However, they have never failed to pay him back when they did get work." +Their oldest sister's enthusiastic praise of the welfare worker told how +great was her admiration for that truly noble young man, if nothing more. + +"Crickets, what was that?" Bobs suddenly exclaimed. + +"Only the telephone, my dear," Lena May remarked. "Bobsy, will you answer +it?" + +Three minutes later that girl fairly plunged back into the kitchen, her +shining eyes assuring them that she had heard something of an astonishing +nature. + +"It was Ralph," she exclaimed, as she sank down into the nearest chair. +"The mystery is solved!" + +"Solved?" her sisters repeated inquiringly and all at once. "How? When? +Who is the heir?" + +Roberta laughed. "Well, here's where I resign as a detective," she +declared. "I've had three cases and although each one has been +successfully solved in spite of me, it has not been because of any +cleverness on my part." + +"But, Bobs, do tell us what Ralph said. We're bursting with curiosity." + +"My partner-detective feels as chagrined about it as I do, for the +solution of the mystery just turned up; we neither of us ferreted it out +as we had hoped that we would." + +"Bobita, you're just trying to tantalize us," Gwen declared. "Do tell us +from the beginning." + +"Very well then, I will. Ralph said that his dad happened to recall +recently something which his father had once told him. You know it was +Ralph's grandfather who was the intimate friend and legal advisor of Mr. +Pensinger. + +"It seems that a week before his death, Mr. Pensinger had sent some +important papers and a letter to the office of Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, the +grandfather, you understand. Just as he was about to examine them, he was +called away on urgent business and he left the papers on his desk, +expecting to return soon. The Cory building was even then in the process +of construction, but Ralph's grandfather had moved in before it was quite +completed. + +"That day the floor was being put down in the room adjoining the small +office. Later, when Mr. Caldwaller-Cory returned, his mind was so filled +with the intricacies of the new case which had just been given to him, +that he did not even notice that the brown packet containing the +Pensinger papers was gone; in fact, he had forgotten that it ever +existed; but a week later, when he received word that his friend, Mr. +Pensinger, had died suddenly, he recalled the papers and began to search +for them, but they were never found." + +"Oh, I know where they were," Lena May said brightly, "under the floor." + +Bobs nodded, her eyes glowing. "That's just it!" she affirmed. "Recently +Judge Caldwaller-Cory said to Ralph, 'Either we will have to tear down +this old building of ours or we will have to renovate it and bring it up +to date.' + +"Ralph is romantic enough to want to retain the atmosphere of the days of +his grandfather, and so he favored the latter plan. Soon carpenters were +tearing up the office floors to replace them with hard wood and the +packet was found." + +"And in those papers, had Mr. Pensinger made some different disposition +of his property?" Gloria inquired. + +Bobs nodded. "Yes," she said. "It seems that Mr. Pensinger, after his +wife's death, visited Hungary, found his daughter Marilyn, who lived but +a short time, and so, as he was without an heir, he had written Mr. +Caldwaller-Cory, requesting him to use the Pensinger fortune wherever he +thought it would be most needed." + +"What will become of this house?" Lena May inquired. + +"Ralph didn't say. He wants to tell that himself. In fact, he said that +he was coming right up in The Whizz and that he wasn't coming alone, +either." + +"I suppose that Dick De Laney will be with him," Gloria remarked as she +cleared the table. + +"We aren't going to be kept long in suspense," Gwendolyn said, "for The +Whizz just passed the window and there's the knocker. Shall I go to the +door?" + +Before her sisters could reply, that maiden was half-way down the long +hall, and a second later she reappeared with Ralph at her side. Two other +young men followed closely. One indeed was Dick De Laney and the other +was Mr. Hardinian. His dark, expressive eyes showed that he was much +mystified by all that was happening. + +"Shall we go into the salon?" Gloria inquired when greetings were over. + +"No indeed. This dining-room corner with its cheerful grate fire is the +pleasantest part of the old house," Ralph declared. "Dick, help me bring +in another chair or two." + +"Now sit down, everybody, and I'll tell you the results of my conference +with my father." Ralph was plainly elated about something, which, as yet, +he had revealed to no one. + +When they were seated, he turned at once to the tall, dark Hungarian. +"Mr. Hardinian, you were telling me last week that your temporary wooden +building for the Boys' Club is to be torn down next month that a tobacco +factory may be erected, were you not?" + +"Yes," was the reply of the still puzzled young man. "I can't imagine +where I am to take my boys. I don't like to have them bunkless even for +one night." + +"Of course not, nor shall they be," Ralph continued. Then he looked at +the girls beamingly. "Not if these young ladies will consent to having a +model clubhouse erected in the old garden back of their mansion." + +"Ralph, how wonderful that would be!" Gloria exclaimed. "But what do you +mean?" + +"Just what I say," the lad replied. "The former owner of this place +wanted his fortune used for some good cause, and Dad and I thought that +it would be great to help Mr. Hardinian carry on his fine work right here +on this very spot as a sort of memorial, and couldn't it be called The +Pensinger Boys' Club, or something like that?" + +"Indeed it could," Mr. Hardinian's dark eyes expressed his appreciation +more than words could have done. Then to the tall girl at his side he +said: "Now, many of our dream-plans for the boys can be made a reality." + +Turning to the others, he continued: "I am sure that Gloria is now +willing that I should tell you that she had consented to some day mother +all of our boys, and because of this splendid new plan, I hope that the +some-day may be very soon." + +And it was. Indeed, before another year had passed, each of the girls was +in a home of her own. + + + + + * * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +--Obvious typographical errors were corrected without comment. + Inconsistent proper names were made consistent. + +--Non-standard spellings and dialect were left unchanged. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42133 *** |