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Title: The Girl Scout's Triumph; or, Rosanna's Sacrifice

Author: Katherine Keene Galt

Release date: February 6, 2013 [eBook #42029]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL SCOUT'S TRIUMPH; OR, ROSANNA'S SACRIFICE ***




Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









               Girl Scouts Series, Volume 3

                 The Girl Scout's Triumph

                            or

                   Rosanna's Sacrifice

                 By Katherine Keene Galt


    THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
    CHICAGO  AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
    MADE IN U. S. A.

    Copyright, MCMXXI, by
    THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY




    THE GIRL SCOUTS SERIES

    1 THE GIRL SCOUTS AT HOME

    2 THE GIRL SCOUTS RALLY

    3 THE GIRL SCOUT'S TRIUMPH




[Illustration: Claire was lying there on the rug, and Claire was crying.
Rosanna slid from her bed and ran across the room.]




THE GIRL SCOUT'S TRIUMPH




CHAPTER I


The red-haired girl stared fixedly out of the window. There was nothing
to look at but black night, and the light from within turned the glass
into a dusky mirror where her image was clearly reflected. But she
stared at it unseeingly, busy with her thoughts.

She was very early, but in fifteen minutes or so the Girl Scouts would
commence to arrive. It was something of an ordeal to face the strangers
and she had planned to be the first one in the room. She thought it a
distinct advantage to meet them so rather than to enter the room feeling
that the fifteen or twenty pairs of eyes were all noting her and the
brains belonging to them were registering the usual formula, "Goodness,
what _red_ hair!"

She never could see why people always spoke of her hair. Certainly there
were redder heads, and her heavy, waving locks were always perfectly
cared for, glossy and brushed with careful attention. She pulled the
long braid over her shoulder and looked at it. The braid was thicker
than her wrist, and when unbound it reached nearly to her knees. Almost
petulantly she swung it behind her and turned her eyes toward the window
again. They were queer eyes, a strange sea-green in color, and their
black lashes and straight brows gave them a dark and brooding
expression. She was pale, but it was not a wholesome pallor. She looked
like a girl whose hours were not good, who sat up too late, and ate the
wrong kinds of food. Her supple slender hands were bare except for a
little finger ring of green jade set in silver. Her wrist-watch showed
its tiny face from the center of a silver and jade bracelet. She wore
the jewel pushed far up her sleeve.

The door opened, and a tiny figure in the uniform of the Scout Captain
entered. The red-haired girl, still staring into the night, did not
bother to turn, and with a long glance at the unfamiliar and unfriendly
back the little lady who had just entered advanced to the table in the
center of the room and arranged the papers lying there. Occasionally she
directed a puzzled glance toward the girl at the window, but silence
filled the big room and the resolute shoulders showed no sign of
curiosity or embarrassment. The little lady at the table smiled. She was
well aware that the girl at the window, looking into the dark pane as in
a looking-glass, was watching her closely. She frowned suddenly at the
girl's rudeness, then smiled and went on with her task.

A little later the door opened and a laughing, chattering group entered.
Then and not until then did the red-haired girl rise and advance.

The girls stared, and the stranger's lip curled. Her red hair! It was
always so. Walking slowly toward the table, she started to give a
perfunctory salute, a salute which changed character and became snappy
enough as she felt her gaze held by a pair of deep, compelling eyes. The
Scout Captain was tiny and looked not a day over sixteen; but she was
the Captain, and the red-haired stranger reluctantly admitted it to
herself. She could not complain of the friendliness of her greeting.
Wanderer as she was, drifting here and there over the world, a Scout in
one place after another, she was aware that here were girls filled with
the simplest and most charming courtesy. Each one met her with a sweet
warmth of manner that almost pierced her chill and reserve, and when she
turned and took her seat as the business meeting commenced, the girls
were all along wondering if the stranger was shy, sad, or merely bored.
A feeling of puzzled resentment stirred in a few. If the strange girl
did not wish to be friendly, why had she brought herself and her jade
green eyes and her queer ring into their happy circle?

The meeting progressed quietly. The strange new element cast a spell
over the happy group. It was not as though they were depressed; it was
rather as though they were waiting for something to happen, as though
it was time for the curtain to go up on a new and exciting play.

The girls, all a little restless by nature, smiled, shifted in their
seats and occasionally touched each other with friendly, caressing
hands. They regarded the little Captain with adoring eyes and cast
questioning and friendly glances toward the newcomer.

She, however, ignored them all. It was as though she sat alone, her
strange, deep eyes fixed on the Captain's sparkling face, studying it
with cool, impersonal interest. She never changed her easy, graceful
position, and her delicate hands rested in her lap motionless as though
carved from wax.

The meeting closed, and as was their custom when a new girl joined, the
Scouts gathered around the stranger with pretty, friendly advances. As
they spoke to her, she regarded them with the same curious gaze she had
bent on the Scout Captain.

"We are so glad you have joined us," said a sparkling mite, dancing from
one tiny foot to the other. "You say your name is Claire Maslin? Mine is
Estella LaRue."

"And mine is Jane Smith," said a tall beauty with golden hair and
pansy-blue eyes.

"Plain Jane," laughed little Estella, swinging on Jane's arm.

"Have you just moved to Louisville?" asked another girl softly.

"Yes," said Claire. It was the first time she had spoken and the girls
waited breathlessly for more information. But the simple yes was her
whole contribution.

"Well, you must let us see a lot of you," said a bright-faced girl with
docked hair. "Where do you live?"

"At the Seelbach at present," said Claire Maslin. Her voice was very
deep and throaty for a young girl, and she spoke slowly.

Again the girls waited, expecting an invitation to call, but Claire said
nothing. The silence grew oppressive. At the table the Scout Captain and
a group of the girls were deep in some important discussion. No help
could be expected from that quarter. It came, however, as the colored
house-boy appeared at the door.

"Cunnel Maslin's car," he announced.

"Good-night," said Claire Maslin, her sudden smile sweeping the group
and embracing them all. She left them and, moving easily toward the
table, said a polite but brief good night to the little Captain.

"We will see you out," said Estella LaRue, tugging at plain Jane and
accompanying the newcomer to the door. She passively allowed them to
come, and the door closed.

In five minutes the two girls, round eyed and astonished, rushed back.

"Oh, what _do_ you think?" cried Jane.

"Yes, what?" echoed Estella, dancing up and down.

"_I_ think she is a fairy princess in disguise," said Jane, nodding her
golden head.

"_I_ think she is a grouch," said a stout girl at the table, turning
suddenly.

"Why, Mabel, you positively must not say a thing like that!" said the
little Captain in a shocked tone. "She is shy, and it is a good deal to
come and meet so many girls at one time."

"Do let us tell you what happened!" begged Estella. "We followed her out
into the cloak-room, and she put on the _best_ looking hat and Jane
commenced to look for a cloak that might be hers. But I was watching
her, and she put her hand inside her blouse, and brought out a little
handful of stuff and shook it out, and oh dear, oh dear, you never,
never saw anything so wonderful!"

"It was a big scarf of silk or chiffon or crepe. Something soft and
cobwebby and heavy all at the same time. She wound it around her, and
Estella stuttered, 'Won't you freeze in that?'"

"She said, 'My cloak is in the hall,' and we followed her down to the
door, and there--"

"Standing against the wall," broke in Estella--

"Like a graven image," interrupted Jane--

"Was a _Chinaman_!" cried both girls.

"A _Chinaman_!" exclaimed the crowd as one girl.

"Yes," said Jane, while Estella danced up and down and nodded violently.
"He had her cloak over his arm, and she spoke to him in some jabbery
language, Chinese I suppose, and he shook the cloak open and put it
around her shoulders. It was soft white fur."

"Simply _too_ lovely," sighed Estella.

"Then she said good-night, nothing else, and went out with the Chinaman
following," completed Jane.

"Who can she be?" said Estella dreamily.

"A fairy princess, I reckon."

"Fairy fiddlesticks!" laughed the little Captain. "It is all very
simple. Her father has been here to see me. He is a colonel in the Army
and for a long time was stationed in China. Hence the Chinese servant.
Her father, Colonel Maslin, is very anxious to have her know some nice
girls. Claire joined the Girl Scouts when they were stationed in
Washington. Colonel Maslin says Claire finds it difficult to make
advances, and I want you all to be as friendly as you can be."

"Well, I would hate to have a heathen holding _my_ cloak," said Mabel
piously. "What did he have on?"

"Chinese clothes, of course, and made of silk, and all loose and baggy
and flowing and embroidered, and sort of bluish and purplish and
goldish."

"Must have been rather weird," said Mabel, sniffing.

"It wasn't weird one bit," declared Estella. "It was the most gorgeous
thing I ever saw except that white fur cloak. Oh, and did you notice
that queer ring she wears? Just exactly the color of her eyes. I suppose
that is Chinese too."

"She has had a most thrilling life, I am sure," said the little Captain.
"I think she can tell us some interesting things when she feels
acquainted with us. She is either very reserved or very shy. Don't rush
her; just be your own dear friendly selves, my girls, and do all you can
for her. Something tells me that Claire Maslin needs us."

"Someone always needs us, seems to me," said Mabel. "We just get one
person off our minds when up pops someone else."

"Well, don't you think it is splendid and all sorts of fun to be of
service?" demanded a bright, pretty, blond girl with docked hair.

"I suppose so," grumbled Mabel, "but I think sometimes it would be nice
to think just about myself for a while."

The girls looked shocked, but the little Captain suddenly laughed. "Very
well," she said. "It is worth trying if you think it would make you
happy. I will detail you, Mabel, to make a study of this. For the coming
week I want you to think wholly and _only_ of yourself. You will keep a
daily notebook and jot down exactly what you do for yourself and what
you leave undone for others. Be sure to make note of the amount of
happiness you get out of it. You will report at our weekly meeting next
Saturday. There is an extra meeting on Wednesday but you need not
present any report then."

Mabel looked at Mrs. Horton with round, astonished eyes.

"Why, Captain, I can't _do_ it," she said. "My mother wouldn't allow it
at all. Why, she simply wouldn't! She is always preaching generosity and
unselfishness."

"I don't believe she will notice what you are doing," said the Captain.
"If she does, you can explain it to her. Otherwise say nothing at all.
This is a Scout order, remember, and I expect you to do it with all your
heart. We want to work this out. It will be very interesting to learn
just how much pleasure one can get from absolute selfishness. That is
what you really mean, you know, Mabel, when you want to live entirely
for yourself."

"If everyone did it, no one would have to do anything for anyone else,
would they? Everything would be all done, and everyone would be doing
just what they liked best to do," said Mabel, sticking to her point.

"Perhaps," granted the Captain. "It is worth trying out."

"Why don't we all try it for a week?" suggested Mabel, feeling that
perhaps there was safety in numbers.

"That would be upsetting," said the Captain. "You shall be our pioneer,
Mabel."

"Well, mother won't stand for it, I know," said the girl as she pulled
on her soft tam-o'-shanter and said good-night. She went out very
thoughtfully and the Captain with a queer little smile hurried to the
telephone booth and called a certain number. A long conversation with
Mabel's mother followed: a conversation punctuated by much laughter and
a little sadness.

When the Captain returned to the big scout room, all the girls had gone
excepting the three she loved the best. Elsie Hargrave, the little
French orphan adopted by Mrs. Hargrave and living in her splendid
residence near by; Helen Culver, whose clever father had once been old
Mrs. Horton's chauffeur; and the Captain's niece by marriage, Rosanna
Horton: Rosanna of the dark eyes and lovely smile; Rosanna, whose tender
and generous disposition made her well-loved wherever she went.

"What did you do that for, sweetness?" said Rosanna, putting an arm
around the tiny Captain.

"You mean that detail for Mabel?" laughed little Mrs. Horton. "She needs
it, and I am sure it will work out exactly right. Mabel is continually
fretting about what she has to do for other people and what she is
obliged to do at home. I think she is not nearly so selfish as she tries
to be, but she is certainly taking a wrong turn. I want to help her if I
can."

"She will be punished if she gets any worse than usual," said Helen with
conviction. "Her mother just simply _hates_ selfishness and keeps after
Mabel all the time."

"Perhaps that is where part of the trouble lies," said Mrs. Horton,
nodding her head. "Well, I don't believe she will interfere this time."

"Trust the dear little one to arrange all," said Elsie in her pretty
way.

"We will have a good many thrills, I think," said Helen, laughing,
"between Mabel's experiment and that funny new girl, Claire Maslin."

Mrs. Horton looked grave.

"Confidentially, girls, I have a feeling that the 'funny new girl' as
you call her, is not so funny after all. There is trouble enough there
somewhere, and we must help her through."




CHAPTER II


When Mabel Brewster left the Horton residence, she found her brother
Frank waiting for her. He was bursting with curiosity.

"Say, Mabe," he exclaimed, "who is the nifty red-head with the Chinese
footman? Some style, I say. Who is she?"

"A new Girl Scout," said Mabel absently. Even the mysterious stranger
was crowded out of her thoughts by the new orders she was about to
follow.

"Well, don't you know her name, or where she lives, or anything about
her?" demanded Frank.

"What ails you?" retorted Mabel testily. "I thought you had no use for
girls."

"Don't usually," said the lad, "but this one is different. Comes sailing
out with that Chink at her shoulder, and she was talking thirteen to the
dozen in Chinese or something."

"Talking?" interrupted Mabel. "You don't mean she spoke, do you?"

"Not exactly," grinned Frank. "She simply rattled it off by the yard,
and the Chinaman just went along nodding like one of those little china
figures with wiggly heads you see in the Japanese shops."

"Did she take the Chinaman along in the car?" asked Mabel curiously.

"Yep! It was a big limousine, and the Chinaman hopped up in front with
the driver. Miss Red-head sat alone like a queen. Say, she has wads of
that red hair, hasn't she?"

"I didn't notice," said Mabel. "What have you been doing? Playing
basketball?"

"Yes, we had a hot game, and I tore my suit all to pieces. I wish you
would mend it, please, before Monday night. We are going to have
practice games all next week."

"All right," said Mabel absently. Then as she remembered her task she
said firmly, "I forgot; I can't mend your suit. Mend it yourself."

"Why, what ails you anyhow?" asked Frank wonderingly. "I can't sew, and
I hate to ask mamma, she is always so busy. Why can't you mend it for
me, Mabe?"

"Something else I want to do," said Mabel coolly.

"Well, I say you are a selfish pig!" retorted Frank.

"Don't you let mamma hear you talk to me like that!" said Mabel. "You
know what you would get."

"It's what you are anyhow, and I will get even with you if you don't
come across."

Frank flung this threat at his sister as they entered their modest home.
Mabel, flushed and rather uncomfortable, went into the sitting-room
where her mother greeted her with a smile. She asked about the meeting,
but made no comment when she heard Mabel telling Frank that she did not
intend to go to church.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Stay in bed and have your
breakfast brought up and loaf all day?"

"I may," replied Mabel boldly.

"If you do, you are a pill!" said Frank hotly.

"Mamma, don't you let him talk to me like that," appealed Mabel.

"Fight your own battles, my dear," said Mrs. Brewster. "If you are not
able to compel politeness from your brother and others I feel sure that
it is your own fault, and there is no use in someone else demanding it
for you. Besides," said Mrs. Brewster, yawning rather openly, "I am
tired fussing over you children. I have about decided to go into
business."

"Mummy!" cried Frank in a horrified tone.

"_Mam_-ma!" wailed Mabel.

"Exactly! I am thinking of going into interior decorating now that you
children are old enough to look out for yourselves. I have spent a good
share of my life looking after you, and now I think I will do something
that I have always wanted to do."

There was a long silence. Coming on the heels of her own plan, Mabel
listened in amazement. Frank, however, went to his mother and sat down
on the arm of her chair. There was a break in his boyish voice when he
spoke.

"Mummy, I don't like it," he said. "Are we out of money, or anything
like that?"

"Oh, no, not at all!" said Mrs. Brewster easily. "I just thought it
would be fun."

"I don't like it," repeated Frank in a hurt tone and, kissing his
mother, he left the room and went whistling upstairs. Mrs. Brewster
chuckled.

"Frank always whistles when he is cross," she said, looking at her
daughter as though she would appreciate the joke. But Mabel did not
smile.

"I don't blame him at all," she said stiffly.

"Dear me! What a tempest in a tea-pot!" said Mrs. Brewster. "Here are a
lot of stockings belonging to you that need mending. I am going upstairs
to read," and she too left the room, calling back, "Be sure to put out
the lights."

Mabel, quite stupefied with surprise, sat thinking awhile, then she
snapped off the lights, thinking as she did so that it was her mother's
usual custom to put the room in order before she left it for the night.
But Mabel did not intend to do it. So she left the chairs standing every
which way with papers and magazines scattered over the table and her
mother's sewing trailing on the floor.

Reaching her own pretty room, she put on a comfortable kimono, arranged
the light so she could read in bed, and from under a box divan dug out a
paper-covered novel. She read the title with satisfaction, _Lady
Ermintrude's Lover_, or _The Phantom of Marston's Marsh_. She curled up
against the pillows, laying a copy of _Longfellow's Complete Poems_
close beside her as a quick, safe substitute in case of interruption.
Then before opening her book, she gave herself up to her thoughts,
planning a luxurious and detailed campaign of self-indulgence. She
smiled as she thought of the little Captain. It was a good joke on her,
because Mabel was shrewd enough to realize that Mrs. Horton was trying
to show her that happiness, true happiness, lay in doing for others.
Mabel, with the Captain's authority behind her, prepared to fulfill all
her dreams. How this was going to strike her mother Mabel could not
guess, but her mother was showing a strange, new and unforeseen side.
She was glad, and hoped her mother would be so busy with her own plans
that she would fail to notice her daughter's actions. Presently Mabel
buried herself in the trashy novel and with many thrills over the
foolish and impossible adventures of the Lady Ermintrude forgot
everything but her book.

While she was thus employed, Mrs. Brewster, sitting on the foot of her
son's bed, her feet curled under her, was deep in a whispered
conversation which made both of them giggle like a pair of mischievous
children rather than mother and son.

"All right, mummy," agreed Frank finally. "I am game, but I know Mabe
will be awfully mad at me."

"Just go ahead and do as I tell you," said Mrs. Brewster, planting a
kiss on her son's rumpled hair. "It will all come out right and I will
help you when things get too deep."

She went off to bed, and Frank, grinning with pleased anticipation, was
almost asleep before the door closed.

In the morning force of habit woke Mabel, and remembering the breakfast
table to be set, she hopped out of bed and started for her morning bath.
Then she quickly hopped again, this time back into bed.

Presently her mother looked in.

"Time to get up, Mabel dear," she said cheerily. "You will be late."

"I don't believe I want to get up this morning," answered Mabel
uncertainly, and waited for her mother to retort, "Oh, yes, you do! Come
and help with the breakfast!" but instead she said:

"All right, my dear; suit yourself," and went off to call Frank.

Somehow Mabel did not care to sleep after that, and lay listening to the
sounds and smells from below. She did not guess that the lower doors had
been purposely left open in order to let the odors from her favorite
dishes ascend. But on the rare occasions when her mother had let her
sleep over, there had always been a dainty meal left in the warming
oven, so Mabel snuggled down and fixed her already strained and tired
eyes on the poor print in _Lady Ermintrude_.

Her mother and Frank went off to church without disturbing her, and as
the front door closed with the click that told her that the latch was
down, Mabel closed her book, hurried out of bed, and wrapping her kimono
around her, went downstairs to explore.

She found nothing!

The warming oven was empty; the tables in the kitchen and dining-room
were so empty that they looked lonesome. She looked in the ice-chest.
There was nothing cooked. In the sink there was a pan of potatoes peeled
and in cold water; on top of the warming oven a pan of bread pudding,
looking very queer and doughy, was ready for baking. There were some
chops. Nothing more.

Mabel commenced to feel abused. She went back to her room, and once more
followed along on the trail of Lady Ermintrude. After a long while the
telephone rang. Mabel went down and heard her mother's voice.

"We decided to have a little spree, dear," she said. "We are going to
take dinner down town at Sherr's. Hop on the car and join us; we will
wait for you."

"Where are you now?" asked Mabel joyfully. She loved an occasional meal
at the bright pleasant restaurant where everything was always so
deliciously cooked and carefully served.

"Here at Sherr's, and you must hurry; it is past one o'clock now."

"Why, I am not even dressed yet," wailed Mabel.

"Oh, I am sorry," said Mrs. Brewster. "I don't believe we had better
wait. You know it always takes you an hour to dress. Better luck next
time, dearie! There are chops in the ice-box, and the potatoes and
pudding are ready to cook, and there are some canned peas. You can fix a
good dinner, and we will be home before long. Perhaps if you have time
you had better pick up the sitting-room. I didn't feel in the mood for
it this morning. It is an awful mess. Don't bother if you don't want to,
however. Good-bye!"

Mabel hung up the receiver with an angry frown. Nothing was going right;
nothing was starting as she had intended it. She dressed slowly, and ate
bread and butter and sugar for dinner. The milkman had forgotten to
leave the milk. She drank water. And she did _not_ pick up the
sitting-room.

Later, her mother and brother failing to appear, she went out for a
walk. When she returned at half past five, she met her truant family
descending from a big touring car. Some friends had picked them up and
had taken them for a long ride.

Mrs. Brewster noted the bread crumbs on the kitchen table and the open
sugar bowl. She smiled. Later they all sat down to a delicious hot
supper, and Mabel cheered up enough to listen politely at least to the
accounts of their dinner and ride that had followed.

But when according to her orders, Mabel went to writing the account of
the day in her notebook, it did not sound interesting at all!

The next afternoon when Mabel came from school, having been detained
half an hour on account of inattention, she found Frank busy mending the
tears in his basketball suit by the simple method of drawing them up in
a tight pucker.

"Where is mother?" demanded Mabel.

"Dunno," said Frank, squinting at his work.

"Well, I wonder where she is," said Mabel. "Rosanna Horton asked me to
come over to supper tonight, and I want to wear that new dress mother is
making for me. She said she would have it done today." She went into her
mother's little sewing-room, and came back looking disappointed.

"It isn't finished at all!" she said. "I don't see where mother can be!"

"Fix it yourself," suggested Frank, stabbing his needle into the jersey.

"I can't," said Mabel. "Mother always does it. Besides," she added as an
afterthought, "I hate sewing."

As she spoke, her mother came in with a cheery greeting for her
children. Before Mabel had a chance to ask her mother about the dress,
Mrs. Brewster said,

"Mabel, I want you to get supper for Frank tonight, and be here when
the laundress comes for her pay. I have been asked to take dinner with a
woman from New York City who is an interior decorator of note."

"I can't, mamma, Rosanna Horton has asked me over there, and I told her
I would come," said Mabel peevishly.

"Well, tell her you won't be among those present," said Frank, chewing
off his thread.

"But I told her I would come, and I am going," said Mabel, stubbornly.

"I bet you won't if mamma says not," retorted Frank.

His mother caught his eye and shook her head.

"Someone will have to stay home and see the laundress, and Frank has his
basketball practice. It is a great chance for me, so I wish you would
stay, Mabel," she said.

"I don't see how I can!" objected Mabel. "I told Rosanna I would come
and I reckon I had better go. You can go some other time, can't you,
mamma?"

"I suppose I can," said Mrs. Brewster, and left the room.

Mabel glanced at her brother and noting his scowl, commenced to read a
magazine.

She was perfectly miserable. When it came time to dress, she donned her
old frock, wondering why her mother had laid the new one, still
unfinished, across her bed. Mabel loved to go to the Hortons. But for
once the dinner was not a success. All the conversation seemed to hinge
on anecdotes of unselfishness and generosity. Mabel thought of Frank
working on his gym suit because she wouldn't mend it for him, but she
thought most of her mother giving up her dinner to sit at home and wait
for the laundress. Her mother was too kind to make the poor colored
woman come again for her money. Mrs. Brewster knew that she needed it.

Mabel, sitting with unwonted primness and silence at the Horton table,
thought harder and harder and could not enjoy herself. And Mrs. Horton,
the little Scout Captain, saw and smiled to herself a sly, quiet smile
that scarcely disturbed her dimples. She wondered curiously what sort of
a report Mabel would bring her.




CHAPTER III


We will leave Mabel embarked on her desperate career of utter
selfishness and return to Claire Maslin.

When Rosanna and Helen and pretty Elise went to call on her they found
her rooms had been marvelously changed from the stiff appearance of
hotel suites by the gorgeous draperies and scarfs and table covers
placed wherever they could possibly be put. A faint, sweet, oriental
odor seemed to come from them, and the soft-stepping Chinaman who
ushered them in seemed to be part of a dream. Claire looked modern
enough, however, in her kilted skirt of big green plaid, soft silk
shirtwaist and dull green sweater. Her face was as impassive as ever,
but she seemed to think that as hostess something more than silence was
required of her, and she talked in a very friendly and entertaining
manner.

Elise, always thoughtful of little courtesies, asked almost at once if
they might meet Madame, her mother, and the girls were filled with pity
when Claire replied that her mother was an invalid and was away at a
sanitarium. It was clear that Claire in her silent, repressed way felt
her mother's illness very deeply. She changed the subject at once.
Little by little, however, the girls gleaned the bare facts of her life.
She had been born in the Philippines, and had traveled from post to post
and from country to country with her parents until the time of her
mother's illness. There was a gap in her story there, but later she went
with her father, the Colonel. Her own maid, who took charge of the house
when they had one, was a serious looking New England woman about sixty
years old. The Chinaman too went with them everywhere.

"We expect to move tomorrow," said Claire. "Papa has found a nice house
way up on Third Street. It is furnished, so we will not have to unpack
our things."

"You look unpacked now," said Helen, glancing at the gorgeous silks and
cushions that were scattered around.

"Oh, no, we just take a trunk full of these with us so wherever we stop
the rooms will seem like home to us. Papa and I both hate hotel rooms.
They all look alike with their stuffy furniture and dreadful curtains.
It does not take Chang long to fix everything and we are much more
comfortable. I think we will like the new house." Then she added rather
shyly, "I hope you will all come to see me very, very often. Papa wants
me to know all of you. I don't like girls very well."

The three girls stared in amazement. She didn't like _girls_! And she
was willing to tell them so! Elise lifted her eyebrows. It was so rude.

Helen Culver laughed. "Why do you bother with us if you do not like us?"
she demanded.

Claire was blushing. "I should not have said that," she confessed
bluntly. "I don't mean to say what I think. You must excuse me for
saying it."

"And we will forgive you for having such a heart for us," said Elise,
smiling. "I know how you will feel soon. At least for these two dear
ones. You will love them so much."

"It is such a beautiful day," said Rosanna, to change the conversation,
"why can't we all take a ride? Perhaps you would like to see our parks."

"I have seen everything," said Claire wearily. "I have done nothing but
ride ever since we came to Louisville. But every afternoon I drive up to
Camp Taylor to get papa and it is now almost time to go. Won't you all
come with me? I do truly want you to, and papa wants so much to meet
you. Papa likes girls," she added with a smile.

"I think we should love to go," said Rosanna heartily. She wanted to
accept the first invitation that Claire gave, so she spoke quickly and
nodded gaily to the girls. But it was a nod that they understood to mean
"We will go." They were accustomed to the guiding nods of the wise
little Rosanna.

Gliding smoothly along the beautiful roads in the luxurious limousine,
the four girls chatted gaily. And returning, the talk and laughter was
even more spirited for they found Colonel Maslin to be all that one
could dream of or hope for in the way of a jolly, handsome father.
Nothing would do but they must return to the hotel for afternoon tea,
and Colonel Maslin's idea of tea was ordering all the goodies to be
found on the menu card, and then a few more that the head waiter managed
to think up. So it was a regular feast.

Then the Colonel and Claire insisted on driving them home, and Colonel
Maslin went in and was introduced to each of their families. The girls
only waited for the big Maslin car to be well on its way when with one
accord they hurried over to Rosanna's.

"Well, what do you think?" demanded Helen.

"Claire's father, is he not most splendid?" asked Elise with a deep sigh
of appreciation.

"Yes, he is!" agreed Rosanna. "But Claire is the oddest girl that I ever
saw. Did you notice how she sits and looks in one direction as though
she did not hear a word you were saying? And her eyes look perfectly
desperate!"

"She doesn't hear much that you say, at that," said Helen. "I watched
her. She has taken a great fancy to you, Rosanna."

"Dear me!" said Rosanna. "I almost wish she wouldn't! Whenever I look at
her or think about her, it seems as though a cloud pressed down on me
and choked me."

"Don't you like her?" asked Helen.

"Yes, in a way I do, but there is something so strange about her, and I
can't help the feeling that some way she is going to have an influence
on my life."

"Don't let her," said Helen calmly. "Do some influencing yourself. I
never let anyone influence me that way. Why, you will be awfully
uncomfortable if you feel as though that girl with her red hair and
green eyes could turn you from your purpose in any way. Don't you let
her! I am surprised at you, Rosanna!"

"I don't mean it in that way," said Rosanna. "She will not change me,
Helen dear, but in some way or other--Oh, I can't tell what _I do_
mean!"

"Too many tarts!" laughed Helen. "I confess she is a queer girl, but we
don't have to see much of her, and I doubt if we will. We have enough
work coming along this spring without taking on any more than we have
to. I want to earn all the merits and emblems that I possibly can by
summer time, and I shall be a busy girl if I do it. And you want to do a
lot of Scout work, Elise, now that you have learned to speak English so
nicely."

"_Merci_--I mean, thank you," said Elise. "Indeed I do much want to do
something to benefit myself, and more to please our dear Captain. And
somehow I think you are both seeing that strange Claire wrongly. I think
the cloud hangs over her, and she is most, most sad, most gloomy in its
shadow."

"Dear me, how mysterious!" said Helen. "To me, she seems just like any
other girl, except that she has gorgeous clothes and those queer green
eyes, and such wads and wads of hair, and that Chinaman, and all those
splendid embroideries. And of course it is odd the way she sits and
never moves her hands but looks over your head as though there was some
writing on the wall."

"Perhaps there is," said Rosanna. "Like that man in the Bible, you know,
who had a warning."

Rosanna, as she spoke, little dreamed that there _was_ writing on every
wall, in every cloud, that poor Claire saw and read with a feeling of
hopeless horror.

Leaning close to his handsome daughter in the big luxurious limousine,
Colonel Maslin was saying to her, "Well, Bird o' Paradise, how do you
like your new friends? Are they as friendly and fascinating as Kentucky
girls are supposed to be?"

"You met them," said Claire evenly. "What do you think?"

"A mere man isn't supposed to think," laughed Colonel Maslin. "They seem
delightful to me, so pretty and dainty and girlish. Stray sunbeams."

Claire laughed. "I should say you thought quite fully on the subject,
daddy!"

"Well, they are all that I say, are they not?" asked the Colonel.

"Oh, yes!" and Claire leaned indifferently away from her father's
shoulder. He glanced at her and sighed. They entered the hotel in
silence, each one busy with somber thoughts, and as the Chinaman closed
the door behind them Claire suddenly flung her gloves on the table with
a gesture of impatience and turning to the Colonel said passionately:

"Father, look at me! Am I like those other girls? Do I look like them or
act like them or talk like them? Is my heart like theirs? Oh, father, do
you suppose they ever have the fits of awful temper that I have, or do
the wild things I like to do? Just look at me, father! I am thirteen
years old, and I feel thirty. Why do you make me have anything to do
with them--those girls, I mean? We won't be friends, ever. It will be
just like it has always been on other Posts where you have been
stationed. You always want me to make friends with girls. And I hate
them! And sooner or later they find it out and they are shocked. I wish
I could shock them worse than I do! I'd like to scream and dance and
pull my hair at them!"

"Steady, Claire, steady!" said Colonel Maslin in a quiet level voice.

He tried to take his daughter's hands but she jerked away.

"Don't!" she exclaimed harshly. "Oh, father, can't you _see_ how it is?
Can't you _see_ that they never, never like me? They look at my red
hair, and they stare at Chang, and snub Nancy because they think that is
the way to treat my maid, and they like the candy you always bring me,
but we are never _friends_. Oh, I hate them all: every one of them!
Sunbeams you call them. Well, I feel like a streak of lightning, and I
would like to _strike_ them!"

She beat her slender hands together violently, and crossing the room
flung herself down on a divan and covered her eyes. Her father, white
faced and stern, followed her and seated himself on the edge of the
divan, although Claire lay rigid and tried to crowd him off.

Colonel Maslin was silent for a time, and when he spoke his voice was
very sad.

"This is my fault, my child," he said. "When your mother was taken ill
and could not be with us, I could not face the loneliness of having you
away from me. Both your aunts insisted that I was wrong, but I wanted
you for comfort, my darling, so I took you with me. Later, when I should
have sent you to a good boarding-school, I did not have the courage. You
are old for your age, I confess it, yet in many ways you are a spoiled
and undisciplined child, my dear. You make it very hard for me, for I
need you and you fail me. Now I am going to ask one more favor of you.
After that, after you have honestly tried to do what I ask you, we will
consider the subject closed for all time and you will go away to
school."

"You know I hate that worst of all!" cried Claire, lifting a stained and
tearful face. "_Nothing_ but girls at school! Oh, father, why can't you
let me do what I want to do, just amuse myself my own way, when I am not
studying? You know I work hard at my books and music, and I don't _want_
any friends. Girls are so curious, they always want to know things, and
I am so afraid they will find out--"

"Our misfortune is not a disgrace, Claire," said her father in a voice
that shook in spite of his efforts to keep it steady. "And I want you to
have friends."

"Claller for Mlissie Claire," said Chang, coming silently from the
telephone.

"Another of them!" groaned Claire, sitting up. "Tell her I must be
excused."

"No," said Colonel Maslin sternly. "You promised to do what I asked, and
I want to see you begin now--today. If after three months of honest
effort you still take no pleasure in the society of these girls, I will
give up the struggle and arrange your life in some different way. Come,
Claire, do, _do_ try! You have given me your promise. A Maslin never
breaks his word and I hold you to yours."

Claire looked up wearily. "Very well, father, I will really try. Who is
it, Chang?"

"Mlieeis Blooster," said Chang in his pleasant sing-song voice.

"Oh, yes, I know that girl," said Claire. "She is a queer one. Ask her
to come up, Chang."

Mabel, rather flustered over her adventure into the unknown mysteries of
the big hotel, entered sedately and seated herself in the deepest and
most comfortable chair that she could choose. For once Claire had to
lead the conversation, as Mabel spoke but little and seemed to expect
her hostess to do the talking. Colonel Maslin, thinking that his
presence might keep the girls from getting on an easier footing, excused
himself, and in a few minutes sent up from the office a huge box of
candy.

Mabel did brighten at this and stayed long after the proper length of a
first call, while she ate candy and told her troubles, both real and
imaginary, to her bored hostess. She finally told her of the task the
Captain had set for her. And at last Claire was interested. She listened
intently as Mabel droned on about her experiences.

"I don't think parents really understand their children," said Mabel,
carefully choosing a large chocolate cream. "Of course it may be
different with you, but my mother certainly does not understand me at
all. I am naturally very sensitive and love to read and dream, and I
never get well into a book without her reminding me of something horrid
and domestic that has to be done. I know I could write beautifully if I
had time to collect my thoughts. And now that Captain Horton expects me
to lead my own life regardless of others for a whole week, though of
course part of the time has gone, I thought I could write some truly
beautiful things. But nothing goes right. Of course mother does not
know that Captain Horton told me to try this and she never notices any
change in me, but she acts too queer for anything. She goes out all the
time, and doesn't do any sewing for us (I have a brother) and last night
she was talking about a _career_! My brother ought to stop her, but he
just backs her right up."

"It is too bad," sympathized Claire, passing the candy. "My father
doesn't understand--"

"I think a parent's place is in the home," Mabel interrupted. She was
not at all interested in Claire or her father. Like all selfish people,
she talked for the pleasure of hearing herself. "But mother has changed.
I suspect it is old age. She will be thirty-five her next birthday. I
have three more days for my experiment, and then if I cannot live my own
life at home I shall ask mother to arrange something different. I have
always wanted to be a bachelor girl. I read a story about one. She wrote
for the papers and made enormous sums and had a _sweet_ apartment, and
was so happy because she felt her soul was free. My, I must go! It is
nearly supper time, and I think mother is going to have Parker House
rolls. I adore them. I had no idea I had stayed so long, but you are so
entertaining and it is so nice to think we feel alike about leading our
own lives our own way, and all that."

Claire murmured a faint good-bye after her departing guest and flopped
heavily down on the divan where she had so recently thrown herself in
tears.

She lay staring at the ceiling, deep in thought. A hazy question flitted
through her mind. "Am I like that?" she asked herself. Then she laughed
and dismissed the silly idea.

"What a dreadful girl!" she concluded. "Too dreadful! And father wants
me to bother with people like that!"




CHAPTER IV


Having met Colonel Maslin in the hotel lobby, Mabel found herself riding
home in the beautiful Maslin limousine. She sat exactly in the center of
the softly cushioned seat and stared haughtily at the passersby. She
inclined her head a trifle in condescending acknowledgment of the
traffic police who waved them on as they turned from Broadway into Third
Street. Mabel was sorry that he did not seem to notice her. He lived
three doors from Mabel on the side street and it seemed a pity not to
impress him, especially as he was forever bringing home the Brewster dog
when he ran away without his tag.

But luck was with Mabel when the big car rolled noiselessly up to the
curb before her home, for her mother was standing at the window, and her
brother and three other boys were having a last confab before separating
for the night. Mabel crossed the sidewalk and went up the steps in her
most stately manner. She did not notice the boys at all.

"Well," said her mother as she entered the house, "did you get a ride
home? How do you like the Maslin girl?

"She is a rare soul," said Mabel. Then descending to earth, "I wish you
could see the rooms they live in. You never _did_ see such lovely
things. And she has a maid, and a Chinese house-servant, and her father
is a perfect dear and sent us up a big box of candy."

"A rare soul, is she?" said Mrs. Brewster. "How do you mean?"

"Oh, I can't explain," said Mabel. "She is so understanding, and we
seemed to think and feel just alike on so many subjects. I expect to see
a great deal of her. We have so much in common."

"Does she object to dusting and making beds and things of that sort?"
asked Mrs. Brewster in a mild tone.

"I don't know," said Mabel, flushing.

"Ummm," said Mrs. Brewster. To Mabel the smile was
maddening,--infuriating.

"I don't see why you take it like that," she burst out harshly. "Just
because I have a mind above the average and want to live my own life and
set my soul free! I am reading every little while about some girl who
does it. But I never get a chance. Nothing for _me_ but school and
practice and that old dusting and helping around the house!"

Mrs. Brewster sat down and looked quizzically at her excited elder
child. She was in no hurry to break the silence, while Mabel stared out
of the window and drummed on the pane with nervous finger tips. Finally
she said gently, "Just what do you think you would like to do?"

"Oh, I want to break away, and have a chance to expand! I feel choked
the way things go now. I read about one girl about my age who left home
and took an apartment and lived her own life. It was wonderful. She went
to work too, and made lots and lots of money."

"Lucky girl," said Mrs. Brewster. "What a help she must have been to her
family! Oh, I forgot; the trick was that she _didn't_ help her family at
all, did she? Was she a rare soul too?"

Mabel registered what she fondly hoped was a look of scorn. She did not
speak, and after a moment Mrs. Brewster continued:

"What was her chosen field of endeavor? In other words, what job did she
get?"

"She became a newspaper woman," said Mabel.

"But what did she do in the meantime? What did she do while she was
learning to do newspaper work? Didn't you say she was a girl about your
age?"

Mabel answered patiently.

"She became a newspaper writer at once," she said. "Don't you see,
mamma, that is just the point? She went away from all the worries of her
own home, where she never had time to think things out for herself, and
it gave her a chance to _expand_. While she was at home her time was so
broken."

"I see," said Mrs. Brewster. "I suppose her cruel parents expected her
to dust and wash dishes and mend her clothes and practice, and all
that. It was a great pity. I suppose there are a great many parents
like that--so thoughtless."

"Indeed there are!" said Mabel with feeling. For the moment, hearing her
mother agree with her, she forgot to whom she was talking. "If mothers
and fathers only could understand that girls want to be _free_, that
they want to expand and be themselves, everything would be different."

"I don't doubt it at all," said Mrs. Brewster. She left the room and
Mabel continued the train of pleasant thought. She made no move to help
about supper, and Mrs. Brewster did not call her. Remembering that the
girl she had read about was accustomed to sit at her piano and compose
most beautiful melodies whenever she was disturbed or wanted to soothe
herself, Mabel went to the piano and, putting a firm foot on the
forbidden loud pedal, broke into what she fondly told herself were
crashing chords palpitating with the suppressed passion of her breaking
heart. The sounds thrilled her, and she continued until interrupted by a
roar from Frank who was doing his algebra at the kitchen table.

"Aw, Mabe, have a heart and quit that noise, will you?" he begged.

His rudeness broke the spell. Mabel rose and started to sweep haughtily
toward the stairs. She would retire to the sanctuary of her own room and
brood! But before she reached the door she heard her mother call,
"Supper is ready!"

Mabel did not hesitate. She remembered the Parker House rolls and
hurried into the dining-room. The rolls were there, and it was well
worth postponing a "brood" for them. Mrs. Brewster was unusually silent
and Frank watched her anxiously until, catching her eye, she nodded and
flashed a quick look toward her abstracted daughter. At the close of the
meal Mabel said with what sounded to Frank perilously like kindly meant
condescension, "That was a delicious little supper, mamma," and
receiving a meek but fervent, "Thank you so much, dear," from her mother
Mabel went straightway to her own room and closed the door between
herself and her unappreciative family.

The sound of that door was a signal for Frank to explode.

But Mrs. Brewster laid a soft hand over his rebellious mouth.

"Softly, softly, dear!" she begged. "I want you to be as patient as you
can. If _you_ were on the wrong path somehow or other, you would be glad
to be turned back where there was safer going, wouldn't you? Well, Mabel
must work this thing out for her own good. You and I cannot tell how she
will come out of it, because after all her soul is her own, and she
knows it better than we do. But we have faith in her, sonny dear, don't
forget that, and we believe she is a dear daughter and sister, who
really loves us with all her heart."

"Yah, she acts it!" scoffed Frank, the unbeliever.

"Give her time, dear," said Mrs. Brewster. "Please be patient. I am
going to do some telephoning now, and if you hurry with your algebra and
finish that history lesson, we will go to the movies. There is a good
play at the Strand tonight."

"I can do that all right," said Frank, and after his mother had gone to
the telephone he rushed the dishes out into the kitchen, stacked them
neatly, and was buried in his book when his mother returned, a look of
amusement rather mixed with worry on her pleasant, wholesome face.

The result of the telephone talk was an astounding offer from Mrs.
Brewster to meet Mabel when that young lady left school next day. Mrs.
Brewster was waiting for her daughter at the door of the High School,
and as they started slowly down the street, Mrs. Brewster said, "You
know the girl you were telling me about last night? I mean the one who
broke away and lived by herself and freed her soul and all that?"

Mabel nodded. Was her mother going to lecture her?

"I don't want to stand in your light, Mabel, and some day suffer all
kinds of remorse when I remember that I was the one who held you back
just because I am old-fashioned and happen to think that home is the
place for a young girl to grow up in, a place where she can have her
mother's care and guidance and all that. No, I just can't do it! I want
to give you a good start if you still feel that you want to take it.
Something came up today that looked exactly like what you wanted, and I
snatched at the chance. At least until you decide. Of course I could not
decide for you."

"What is it?" asked Mabel cautiously.

"It seems quite wonderful," said Mrs. Brewster. "You know that ducky
little apartment the Kents have right under Grandmother Brewster's? They
are going away for the next six months, and want someone to live there
and take care of it."

"And we are going to live there?" cried Mabel delightedly. "Oh, I am so
glad! I am so sick of our house, it is so out of date, mamma, and on
such a side street! What will you do--shut it up or rent it?"

"Don't go so fast, Mabel. You say yourself you can't expand your soul
when Frank and I are around. I should think not! We will live just where
we are, and if you like _you_ can have the flat all to yourself. I was
there this morning. There is the sweetest kitchenette, with everything
in it, and the dearest living-room and dining-room combined and, Mabel,
_wait_ until you see the bed-room! It will be a lot to keep clean. I
certainly was lucky this morning. Just as I was coming home I met Marian
Gere, who does society for the _Times-Leader_, and she is looking for an
assistant, and simply snapped at the chance of having your help. I said
you could help her after school hours until the end of this term, and
after that you could give all your time, because I did not feel that I
could ask any girl to stay in school who was as talented as you feel you
are. And she said I was very sensible to let you try your wings. _Try
your wings._ Don't you think that a sweet expression? I remembered it
because I thought perhaps you could use it in your writing some time."
Mrs. Brewster paused for breath.

Mabel was looking rather wild-eyed. Things seemed to be happening rather
rapidly. Was it possible that all her cherished dreams were to be
realized, and at once?

Her mother had the key to the little playhouse apartment, the owner
having departed, and Mabel looked it over and over with actual cold
chills of delight coursing down her spine.

"I wouldn't tell Grandmother Brewster for a while about being here,"
suggested Mrs. Brewster. "She might think you needed looking after," and
Mabel agreed.

"When will you come over?"

"Oh, today!" cried Mabel. "And I think I will go down right now and see
Miss Gere."

"Very well, and I will go home and pack a few things for you. I think I
would just take a hand-bag now, and later you will know exactly what you
will need. There is not much closet space in the apartment. And of
course Frank and I will hope to see you occasionally. But we will
understand if you don't come home often, because you will be working
pretty hard to earn your living, even with such a good start. It is
lucky that you can get this lovely place to live in rent free. Later I
suppose you will not care what you have to pay, but now it will be a
help. And you will find that groceries are pretty high."

Mrs. Brewster nodded a gay good-bye as the car approached, and left
Mabel walking down Third Street on her way to the _Times-Leader_. A few
blocks on her way she overtook Jane and Estella arm in arm as usual.
Mabel gave her braid a flirt and unconsciously puffed out her chest.

"Where away, Mabel?" chirruped little Estella, twinkling. In a rush of
words Mabel told her tale while the girls listened in speechless
amazement.

"You don't mean to say that you have really _left home_?" demanded
Estella. There was no chirp in her voice now, no twinkle in her face.
She looked absolutely shocked.

"I leave tonight," said Mabel, "soon as I settle my salary with Miss
Gere. I am _wild_ to be free! It is going to be wonderful, perfectly
wonderful! I expect to write something grand. Just think, no one to
disturb me; no housework, no practicing! Oh, how my mind will soar!"

"Are you going to keep a maid?" asked Jane feebly. "You said no
housework."

"Well, it won't be like the housework at home," declared Mabel. "That
is the dustiest old place! It won't take me a minute to put everything
in order at my apartment."

"But your mother!" almost wailed Estella. "How can you leave your
mother? I can't bear to leave mine for all day even."

"Mothers are different," said Mabel sadly. "Mamma is sweet, of course,
but she does not understand me. We are better apart; I feel it."

"Well, of all things!" said Jane slowly. "I am glad _my_ soul doesn't
have to have things done for it. I don't remember much of the time that
I have one, and you couldn't _hire_ me to leave home."

"You don't understand," said Mabel loftily. "One must do what seems
right to one's own self. I am doing that, and I shall be rewarded. Come
and see me sometimes, girls. I shall be very busy, but never too busy to
receive my old Girl Scout friends."

She nodded, and struck into a quicker pace which carried her ahead of
the two girls.

"Well, I think that is perfectly awful, don't you, Jane?" demanded
little Estella, looking at the broad, retreating back.

"Simply dreadful!" murmured Jane, shocked and wondering.

"What do you suppose has got into Mabel? Do you suppose it is possible
that her mother is actually letting her do it, or is she running away or
something awful?"

"Oh, Jane, do you remember what the Captain told her to do at the last
meeting? Oh, oh, what _will_ the Captain say when she hears about this?
She will feel awfully. Why, she never, never meant Mabel to actually
leave her mother and go off and do dreadful things! I don't see how
Mabel can bear it! And it will make our little Captain feel awfully!"

"Says she is going to live all alone, and work on the newspaper. Just
like being an orphan. Get her own meals and everything. I couldn't stand
it," said Jane.

They stared after the distant figure. They did not approve.

"But, of course," said Estella suddenly, "we must not be too hard on
Mabel. You know she writes real poetry. Perhaps that is what ails her.
We mustn't forget that."

"No," said Jane pityingly, "we mustn't forget _that_."




CHAPTER V


Mabel, hunting for Miss Gere in the big newspaper building, nearly died
of fright. Some repairs were being made, and the office force was
huddled into a space about half large enough for it up on the fourth
floor. When Mabel finally reached the room, she was told that Miss Gere
was out but that she might wait at her desk. The desk was a small,
disorderly table littered with papers swarming over, around and under a
battered typewriter. She sat down and looked about. Young men,
unattractive, harried looking young men with steely eyes hurried in,
dropped down before tables just like Miss Gere's, pounded furiously on
typewriters, or consulted earnestly with a tall, thin man in shirt
sleeves, who glared ferociously at their papers from the safe shadow of
his green eye-shade. To Mabel, watching with all her might, this tall
thin man seemed to be the only one who was not in a hurry. He listened
to everyone, sometimes to three or four at a time, answered questions,
sent instructions down a telephone that Mabel rightly guessed connected
with the printing rooms far below and seemed perfectly capable, as
indeed he was, of keeping a thousand different lines of action going at
once. Mabel wondered who he was.

He was the City Editor, and already he knew about Mabel and had judged
her with one of the lightning glances hidden under the shade. The room
was overheated, and Mabel, waiting as patiently as she could, commenced
to grow drowsy. In a half dream, she saw herself entering the magic
railing which surrounded the tall man's desk. _She_ did not lean
hectically over the rail and talk rapidly from the outside as did the
young men reporters. No, Mabel, grown tall and slender and surpassingly
beautiful, walked _into_ the charmed circle, greeting her chief with a
slow, faint smile. Then opening her hand-bag, and drawing off her gloves
while she lazily watched the great man through her long drooping lashes,
she proceeded to present a sheaf of papers written over closely in her
fine neat hand. The lines of her beautiful rajah silk sport suit clung
to her lovely figure as she modestly drew the chief's attention to some
particular statement. Stubby Mabel, in her plain, serviceable school
dress, sitting unnoticed at Miss Gere's table, was thrilled at the sight
of herself! As the dream-Mabel finished her interview with the City
Editor and rose, she said in response to his enthusiastic praise of her
work, "Thanks so much!"

The real Mabel was frozen with horror to hear herself actually speak the
words! For a moment she assured herself that she had imagined that too,
but a wild-looking, oldish man banging furiously on the typewriter on
the next table turned and stared at her and said, "Huh?" in an
absent-minded way.

"Nothing, sir," said Mabel in a flustered voice, not at all the voice of
the dream-Mabel who had wholly disappeared. The real Mabel sat very
still and red until Miss Gere came in.

Miss Gere was not at all what Mabel thought a Society Editor should be.
The lady slouched in, a fedora hat pulled low over her eyes giving her
very much the general appearance of the City Editor. A long, full ulster
hung uncertainly from her thin shoulders, and its deep pockets bulged
with scrap paper. Her beautiful, delicate hands were quite grubby on the
knuckles. When she entered, she smiled a brilliant, transforming smile
that seemed to embrace everyone in the room. All the hurried young men
felt it and beamed in return; the City Editor turned his green eye-shade
in her direction, and the frantic typist beside Mabel stopped long
enough to flap a thin paw in her direction.

She threaded her way slowly across the room, shaking her head as Mabel
rose and offered her the chair she was occupying, and sat down in
another. She pushed back her hat.

"You are prompt," she said. "I didn't expect you would come today,
though your mother said you would. She says you are very anxious for a
newspaper career. Well, you must be willing to do a good deal of hard
work." She turned first one and then the other grubby hand over and
studied her perfectly kept nails. Mabel, fascinated, watched her every
movement.

"I told your mother it was dollars to doughnuts that you wouldn't stick
it out a month, but she seems to think you will. Of course if you have
actually gone to the length of leaving home and all that, why, you
_must_ be in earnest. Do you know anything at all about reporting?"

"A little," said Mabel. "I have reported for the _High School Clarion_."

A smile flitted across Miss Gere's thin, eager face. She did not seem as
deeply impressed as she might have been. Mabel hastened on.

"I write a good deal by myself," she said. "I can bring you some poems
and sketches that I have done."

"It won't be necessary," said Miss Gere hastily, "although I am sure
they are well worth reading. I will start you on something easy. You are
to be my assistant, you know. All these men around here are reporters
too, and that big man is our City Editor. Bring what you write to me
because he doesn't want to know that you are on earth. I have a full day
tomorrow and you may cover the business meeting at the Red Cross Rooms,
and then you may call up the women on this list, and ask them to give
you some details about the entertainments they are giving. Bring in a
nice little story about all this, and I will give you further
directions when I see you. You may call some of these ladies up tonight.
Use all sorts of tact."

She passed a slip of paper to Mabel bearing a typewritten list of
well-known names. Mabel took it, and guessing from Miss Gere's
preoccupied manner that the interview was at an end reluctantly passed
out.

Reaching the street, she dropped the humble air that she had worn in the
office and, feeling like a conqueror, turned toward her new home. Her
thoughts were all of Miss Gere. How gloriously, fascinatingly thin she
was! Mabel unfastened her coat. Perhaps she would look thinner if her
coat flopped.

Then she heard her name called.

A big car was crawling along the curb, and from the limousine Claire
Maslin and Rosanna Horton called her name again. The car stopped and in
response to a word from his young mistress the Chinaman stepped down and
opened the door.

"Let us take you home," said Claire in her deep, drawling voice. Mabel
entered and seated herself, smiling.

"I have just been down making arrangements to begin my newspaper
career," she said. "I think every young writer should spend a certain
time on newspaper work. It is such good practice, and one learns so much
about Life."

"Dear me!" said Rosanna. "What do you mean, Mabel? Is your mother going
to let you do newspaper reporting?"

"She is perfectly willing for me to do whatever I feel I ought to do,"
said Mabel loftily. "Mother and I have had a good talk, and I find she
is a great deal broader than I feared she would be. The fact is I have
left home and have started on a career. I have a charming little box of
a place where you must look me up."

"Splendid!" said Claire, clapping her gloved hands lightly. "I shall
tell my father, and see what he says. I am always begging him to let me
go away and live my life as I want to live it."

"But, Mabel!" gasped Rosanna in horror. "You can't do anything like
that. You are only a little girl! You _can't_ go off and live by
yourself. Why, you just can't! And, besides, you know the loyalty and
service a Girl Scout owes to her mother. I don't see how you can _think_
of such a thing. I am sure you must be joking."

Mabel's face flushed deeply. "You don't understand at all, Rosanna," she
said stiffly. "What might be right for one is not right for another. You
know the Captain herself told me to live for myself alone and see how it
would work out, and it is working out wonderfully. I shall report
Saturday night at the meeting that it is a great success."

"Oh, dear, _dear_!" cried Rosanna. "I know she did not mean to have
anything like this happen. Oh, Mabel, you _must_ go back home!"

"I think she is right," said Claire.

"Certainly I am right," Mabel declared. "My apartment is around the next
corner, Claire, number 112, if you will drop me there."

The girls were quite silent as Mabel indicated the apartment house and
said good-bye, asking them both to come to see her. As they drove off,
Claire was smiling and Rosanna was very grave.

"I wonder how she will come out," said Claire, as they turned toward
Rosanna's house.

"It is perfectly _awful_!" exclaimed Rosanna.

"She says the Captain told her to," said Claire.

"I know she never meant her to go so far," wailed Rosanna. "Well, I
shall tell her when I go home, and she will know what to do. Cita never
makes a mistake."

"Cita?" said Claire. "That is Spanish."

"Yes," said Rosanna, smiling. "When she married my Uncle Robert she
seemed so tiny and so dimply and young to be married to anyone that I
told her that I meant to call her Cita. Why, I couldn't say _Aunt_! And
she _is_ Cita. She is dear. That is what it means."

"I know," said Claire. "She is a dear, I can agree with you there. I
like her as well as I ever like anyone."

"Don't you _love_ your friends?" asked Rosanna wistfully. This strange
green-eyed girl, so cold and so reserved, made her feel sad.

"I have no friends," replied Claire indifferently.

"Well, you will make a lot of friends here in Louisville," Rosanna
assured her, smiling.

"No," said Claire. The car stopped before Rosanna's house.

"Oh, yes!" insisted Rosanna as she stood at the curb. "You see you will
want friends when you grow up. Every girl does."

"Not I," said Claire, shaking her head. "I shall need no friends. Indeed
I shall _want_ no friends at the place I am going to when I grow up."

She dropped back against the cushions as though she was suddenly very
tired and Rosanna, forgetting to move, watched the luxurious car bear
its beautiful young owner away.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Rosanna finally, and with dragging feet went into the
house to find Cita. But she was out, and Rosanna, puzzled and
distressed, went to her own pleasant room, and curling up on a big divan
tried to solve the new Scout's mysterious words. She forgot all about
Miss Brewster, who at that moment, also curled up on a divan in her new
apartment, had just happened to think that she was growing hungry and
would have to get her own supper. She hurried out to the ice-chest and
found it empty with the exception of three large, violent looking green
pickles on a plate. Mabel bit one. It was very, very sour. Grabbing her
pocketbook, she hurried down to the nearest grocery and bought a loaf of
bread, a pound of butter, some cold boiled ham, a glass of orange
marmalade and a package of shredded wheat. With these packages in hand,
she retraced her steps, the almost empty pocketbook swinging from her
hand.

Supper was queer and not very cheerful, but Mabel knew that she would
find it strange at first and the thought that part of her work lay
before her that very night kept her spirits up. She had her telephoning
to do.

She did not wash the cup and plate, but left them on the table to do in
the morning. She was on her way to the telephone when the ringing of the
bell made her jump. She seized the receiver. Mrs. Horton, the Scout
Captain, was speaking.

"I have just heard the news, Mabel," she said pleasantly. "Isn't it
wonderful? And you are really going to try out my experiment? It is
wonderful to be able to live for yourself alone, isn't it? Nearly always
we have duties that hold us back, and I know you are too good a Scout to
disregard any of yours, but of course your mother has Frank, and he is
_so_ devoted to her that it really leaves you free. She says he always
helps her as though he was a girl. I called you up to suggest that as
long as you are making such a real test that it would be well to
postpone the report you were going to bring to the meeting."

"I think so too," Mabel agreed hastily. "I know it will be a success,
and if I can prove that girls are able to do for themselves, without
having to do all sorts of other things like practicing and helping, at
the same time, it will be a great thing for girls. Don't you think so?"

"I do indeed," Mrs. Horton assured her. "And just _think_ what it will
mean for mothers! They will be so free. As it is now, your mother, for
instance, feels as though she ought to look after you and see that you
have good clothes to wear to school and good food to eat, and she wants
to fix a pretty room for you, and because you are studying and
practicing she does a lot of darning for you and all that sort of thing,
and probably she makes most of your dresses because they cost so much to
buy these hard times.

"Why, by the time she has done all this, and has looked after you when
you are ill, she has no time for herself. I called your mother up to get
your address, and she seemed so pleased with everything. She said with
Frank to help her, she was going to be able to do so much that she has
been wanting to do ever since you were a baby. She and Frank are going
to the theatre tonight, and tomorrow she is going to begin designing for
that big firm on Fourth Street. I suppose she told you about it?" she
added.

"No, she didn't," said Mabel, rather embarrassed to hear in this way of
her own mother's plans.

"We were so busy today that we didn't get time to say much."

"Well, I am glad to be able to tell you good news," said the little
Captain cheerily. "It will be so much off your mind to be able to go to
sleep tonight and be sure that things are working out right. I think you
are so brave, Mabel. I never would have the courage to do what you are
doing, even though I am quite grown up. And you are really only a little
girl in years."

"But I feel old in experience," sighed Mabel. She thought she heard a
soft giggle at the other end of the wire, but at once Mrs. Horton
coughed rather loudly and Mabel knew she was mistaken.

"That makes such a difference," said the Captain. "For my part, I am a
_perfect goose_. I would be so lonesome and afraid there where you are,
and I would rather do any amount of mending and dishes rather than go
down and work in a stuffy newspaper office and beg a lot of women for
items about their silly affairs. Yes, you are really very brave. You
must call me once in awhile and let me know how you are progressing. And
you need not come to the Scout meetings for awhile if you are busy. I
will excuse you. I will explain to the girls just what you are doing to
help them all. Good-night! Oh, your mother said for me to tell you
good-night for her too as she was rushing off to the theatre, so there
are two good-nights for you, Mabel dear. Good luck, and I hope you will
find time to ask me over to tea with you some afternoon."

"Indeed I will!" said Mabel. "Good-night!"

She turned from the receiver. Suddenly she felt very small and young,
and the pretty rooms were stiller than the rooms at home somehow.

The subject for a poem flashed into her mind. And quick as a wink she
made up the first verse

    "Alone, alone, the world before me.
      What is this I leave behind?
    Happiness and heat and mother;
      All to train my wondrous mind."

Somehow _heat_ did not sound very poetical, but the apartment was
certainly freezing cold.




CHAPTER VI


While eating a not too satisfactory supper on the corner of the kitchen
table, Mabel was blissfully unaware of the fact that her venture into
the world was being discussed at two dinner tables at least.

Rosanna, filled with misgivings, had repeated all that Mabel had said
and she was distressed to see that Uncle Bob regarded it as a good joke,
while his wife, the little Scout Captain, was convinced that the outcome
would be exactly what she desired. And when Rosanna asked what that was,
she laughed and said, "Wait and see."

Claire Maslin, telling her father about it, was met with shouts of
laughter.

"The girl is crazy!" he merely said. "That fat little Brewster girl that
ate so much candy here the other day? She will be sick of her bargain
soon."

"I would like it myself," said Claire sullenly. "She can do exactly as
she pleases. I wish _I_ could."

"My poor little girl," said Colonel Maslin, "that is all in the world
that ails you! I can run a regiment, but I don't seem able to run one
girl. I wish you would try to see, my dear, that you are a lucky, very
lucky young person, and act accordingly."

"_Lucky?_" said Claire bitterly. "You call _me_ lucky? Oh, it is not
your fault, daddy! I am as sorry for you as I am for myself, but it is
so funny to hear you use that word."

"Well, I call _myself_ lucky," said Colonel Maslin, staring at the
flowers that decorated the table.

"Do you? Why?" demanded Claire, her lip curling. She too stared at the
flowers. She would not look at her father.

"I have your dear mother and I have you," he said after a long pause.

"I _am_ a comfort to you, I am sure," she said in low, tense tone, "and
mother must be a comfort too. You would be glad if we both--"

"Stop!" said Colonel Maslin sharply. "You remember you are never to
speak unkindly of your poor mother. You are wrong, all wrong, and I
would give my right hand if I could set you right, if I could make you
understand what is honestly in my heart. When you are older you will
perhaps understand."

"When I am older!" cried Claire. "When I am older--" She sat staring at
her father, rigid and pale, then suddenly all her self-control deserted
her. She leaned forward, burst into a storm of sobs, and pounded
furiously on the table. Her voice tore out in a shrill scream. "When I
am older--_you_ know what I will be then!" she panted, and her sobs rose
higher.

With a muttered exclamation Colonel Maslin rose from the table, dashed
to his daughter's side, lifted her in his arms, and as though she was
still a little child he carried her to her room and laid her struggling
and writhing, on her bed. Her maid entered hurriedly.

"Take care of her," he begged, and left the room.

An hour later he sat in little Mrs. Horton's own sitting-room and talked
while she watched him with eyes made soft by unshed tears of sympathy.

"It is the first time I have asked for help," he said brokenly after
awhile, and she sighed to see the gallant soldier bowed by grief. "But I
have pinned my hope on the Girl Scouts, and now that I know you, on you.
Save my little girl for me, dear lady, save her for her mother's sake! I
need Claire so! And her coldness, her wild fits of temper, and her
gloomy black moods are so unlike the sunny little tot she used to be
that there are times when it seems as though I could never bear it. Is
it always to be so, Mrs. Horton?"

"No!" cried the tiny Captain in quite a fierce voice. "_No indeed!_
Something shall be done to help you. Claire has just made a wrong start,
and her terrible sorrow, instead of making her more loving and more
tender, has made her cold and hard. Don't worry, Colonel Maslin.
Something shall be done."

Colonel Maslin shook his head. "I have about given up hope," he said
sadly. "These fits of excitement are growing on her. At first I thought
that they were plain temper, but it is not possible. Why, Claire is in
her teens, and her whole life has been a lesson in self-control! Our
Chinaman is a living sermon on it. And she has been guarded against
anything nerve racking or exciting or disagreeable."

"Let me think it over for a little," said Mrs. Horton, wrinkling her
smooth brow. "I will find some way of reaching the poor child, I am
sure. It may take a little time. Urge her to come to the Girl Scout
meetings and I will watch her."

"You are more than good," and the Colonel bowed over the tiny hand that
had met his in a firm, comforting grip.

She shook her head and said, "The Scouts themselves, one of them or all,
will do it, I feel positive. That is one thing the Order is for, you
know; to help one another."

"I trust you," said Colonel Maslin.

"Treat her as though nothing has happened this evening," suggested Mrs.
Horton.

"I shall not see her again tonight. By the time I reach home (I shall
have to drive up to Camp from here) she will be asleep. In the morning
nothing will be said. Claire will simply be a little more sullen and
aloof."

"Be of good cheer," smiled the little Captain, and Colonel Maslin went
on his lonely and sorrowful way wondering if the little lady could
really find a way to help his poor child.

In her own soft, luxurious bed, Claire was lying spent and shaken by
the storm she had just passed through. She tried to recall the talk at
the dinner table, but in her dazed condition she could not remember
anything that should have started such a dreadful scene. As she recalled
her own actions, the cries and sobs, the tears and wild words, she
shuddered. Each time she gave way like that seemed to be worse than the
last. And Claire was proud. It shamed her to have her own father see her
acting so, yet some dreadful Something within her seemed to make her
explode in that way once in awhile. And the times were growing closer
and closer. No matter what happened, even the greatest pleasures that
her father planned for her filled her with a sort of hard anger. She
hated everything and everybody. All she wanted was to be let alone, and
then she read book after book until she was dull and dizzy. Then came
long, sleepy rides in the limousine over smooth, uneventful roads.

When at length her maid brought her a glass of hot milk, she did not
know that there was a sleeping powder in it, but sleep came quickly and
mercifully and she did not waken until late the following morning.

A note was on the chair by her bedside, just the usual affectionate
greeting from her father, a pretty little custom of his whenever he was
obliged to leave before she was awake. No matter how hurried, he always
took time to write a line or two before he left. Any other girl would
have been so proud and pleased with his unfailing tenderness and
attention, but Claire wrapped herself round with coldness and accepted
all he did for her without even the thanks she would have offered to a
stranger.

She even hesitated to read the short, loving note. It bored her, she
told herself. But she opened it idly and skimmed the words that told her
that she must spend an easy day because he had planned a little surprise
for Rosanna and Mabel and herself. Claire lifted her eyebrows. She had
forgotten to tell her father that Mabel bored her to death. Rosanna was
not quite so bad; in fact, she really liked the pretty, dark-eyed girl
who seemed so warm-hearted and so sincere. Then with scarcely a thought
of curiosity as to the nature of the surprise, she touched the bell that
summoned the maid with her breakfast, and idly picking up a copy of the
Handbook for Girl Scouts, commenced to read.

"A Girl Scout is loyal," she read, "to the President, to her country,
and to her officers; to her father, to her mother--"

Claire stopped there, at least something stopped her. She read the words
repeatedly, "Loyal to her father." What was loyalty anyway? She read on:
"She remains true to them through thick and thin. In the face of the
greatest difficulties and calamities, her loyalty must remain
untarnished."

Claire frowned. _She_ was faced with terrific difficulties, while a
frightful calamity, like a black cloud, darkened all her future. What
did loyalty to her father mean in her case? She read on: "A Girl Scout
is cheerful under all circumstances." Claire thought of her wild ravings
the night before, and frowned. She skipped down the page to a short
paragraph that her eyes seemed unable to avoid.

"Kipling in _Kim_ says that there are two kinds of women,--one kind that
builds men up, and the other that pulls men down; and there is no doubt
as to where a Girl Scout should stand."

Now Claire in her most selfish moods could not blind herself to the fact
that her violent scenes were always followed by days of deep
mournfulness on the part of her father. Lines appeared in his handsome
face and his hair seemed to grow grayer. Was she pulling her father
down? She refused to answer the question, and flirted the pages over to
escape that part. She scanned the qualifications for the three grades of
Girl Scouts. She was only a Second-Class Scout, and she knew that she
was a poor one at that. She had been too indolent to try for the First
Class. She read the necessary qualifications over.

She could not set a table for any meal, and she could not sew. She had
never tried to walk a mile in twenty minutes, and as for dressing or
bathing a child, Claire wondered where she could borrow one to try on.
She could not pass the First Aid or the International alphabet exam.
She could not train a Tenderfoot; at least it was too much trouble, and
while she could name ten trees, ten wild flowers, ten wild animals and
ten wild birds, they were all Chinese. She could swim; oh, _how_ she
could swim! A thrill of joy shook her as she thought of past hours spent
in soft tropic waters. As for fifty cents in bank earned by herself,
that was so funny that Claire laughed aloud. She could not imagine
earning _five_ cents, let alone fifty.

That brought her thoughts around to Mabel Brewster, and Claire saw her
in a new light.

There was a lucky girl even if she _was_ silly and conceited. She
believed in herself and had gone off alone to fight the world, with all
her banners flying. Yet there was that loyalty law cropping up again.
What if Mabel _could_ write as splendidly as she said, wasn't her place
really at home with her mother and brother? Claire was sure the
Brewsters were not rich, and in that case Mrs. Brewster certainly needed
help. Loyalty; always loyalty! A new and disturbing thought flashed over
Claire. Perhaps she owed her own mother some loyalty too, even though
she was away in a sanitarium. Wasn't it loyalty to her to keep her
troubled, lonely and unhappy father "built up" so far as it lay in her
power?

Claire closed the little offending blue book and flung it across the
room and when her maid entered she was lying petulantly with her head on
her arm, her glorious red hair streaming over her like a glittering
veil.

The little book, so helpful and so uplifting, had not helped Claire at
all. But that was because in her heart she did not want to be helped.
She had lived for herself so long in her queer, cold, brooding fashion
that the thought of anything different actually hurt her just as it
hurts to stand on one's foot when it is asleep. Claire had held one
position of thought for so long that it made her hurt and sting and
prickle even to think of moving. So she buried her face in her arm and
hid under her shining red hair and studied her queer jade ring and tried
to forget the feeling that she might be in the wrong.

Mabel Brewster's awakening was even more disagreeable, although she
really deserved it less. She was not accustomed to pickles and cold ham
and cheese for supper, as Mrs. Brewster was a careful mother. Also
Mabel, to celebrate her great step, had found a light novel, and
snapping on a perfectly fascinating reading light at the head of her
bed, had proceeded to read until after one o'clock. Then she dreamed!
She dreamed that she tried to get out of bed and couldn't because there
was a sour green pickle as large as a street car right in the way, and
the City Editor sat on top and looked at her from under his green shade
and told her that the only way that she could get out was by eating her
way through the pickle. So she commenced, while all the society ladies
in Louisville looked on and said, "Dear me, isn't it wonderful what a
girl can accomplish if she will only leave home, and _live for
herself_?" And the pickle was so sour that it made Mabel shudder with
cold and she shuddered herself awake, to find all the bed-clothes on the
floor. She got up and made the bed over, and found it was only three
o'clock, although she had been hours and hours trying to eat that
frightful pickle. The bed was too soft or too hard or something, and she
could not get to sleep again for a long while. She was glad to waken
again and find that it was morning. Unfortunately, after all the
adventures of the night Mabel had over-slept and was obliged to start
off to school without breakfast and with her hair ribbon badly tied.
Also there was no time to put the apartment in order, and Mabel was
rather shocked to find how badly one person could tumble things up.

She half hoped her mother would run around during the morning and put
things in shape, but when she unlocked her door at one o'clock, when
school was over for the day, she found her bed still unmade, her clothes
tumbling out of the suitcase, and the soiled dishes on the kitchen
table.

She had cold boiled ham for luncheon, and but little of that because
just as she commenced to eat, a telephone call interrupted her. It was
Miss Gere asking how soon she would be down with her items and to take
up some other work. The items were not written up, and Mabel had to
give up her luncheon time to writing them. There was no time to tidy up,
and Mabel hurried down town hoping now with all her heart and soul that
her mother would not get time to use the duplicate key that Mabel had
insisted on her taking. She felt her cheeks burn as she thought of her
mother seeing the mess and cleaning it up in her kind way.

Mabel had no cause to worry. When her mother dropped in about four
o'clock she merely looked the place over, then sat down and laughed in
the strangest manner. Then she carefully went out without disturbing
anything, and took a covered basket into the apartment below where she
talked for awhile with Mabel's grandmother, who laughed too; laughed
hard and long, and who then said mysteriously, "Well, thank you for the
rolls, my dear! I think they will do me more good than they would Mabel.
And I think I shall not be 'at home' for the next week or so."

Mabel did not get home until six o'clock. She had forgotten to stop at
the market, so she had only shredded wheat and milk and pickle for
supper. She ate shredded wheat and milk. It was a modern apartment with
thin walls. Somebody was having chops and baked apples for supper, and a
few minutes later there was a smell of fried chicken. Mabel helped
herself to another shredded wheat biscuit.




CHAPTER VII


A week passed. In one corner of the _Times-Leader_ office there was an
old-fashioned letter-press. You put the letters between two iron plates
and slowly turned a bar that pressed a lever that squeezed the plates
together tighter and tighter. A grimy office boy was forever grinding,
and as Mabel had many a long wait for her chief, Miss Gere, she
commenced to be fascinated by the operation. Her vivid imagination
commenced to trouble her. She saw her hand, her arm, her whole self
being pressed flat by that dreadful boy. The boy, by the way, being
about Mabel's age and totally unconscious of his grubby appearance,
noticed Mabel's fascinated stare and accepted it as a personal
compliment. He turned the press with a grand flourish and squeezed it
close with a darkly frowning brow as though to call attention to his
strength.

Life, after being so eagerly called, was beginning to squeeze Mabel a
little. Saturday noon found her half ill for food, as she had spent her
small allowance almost at once and had had to live on the faithful box
of shredded wheat biscuit and the milk for which she did not have to pay
the milkman until the first of the month.

After luncheon, consisting of a nut sundae which took all her remaining
change, she spent a few moments peering in at the vegetables and
chickens displayed in a grocer's window. She did not see Miss Gere pass.
When Mabel returned to the office, Miss Gere sent her up Fourth Street
to study the delicatessens and bread shops. It was agony. Mabel had
never seen such delicious articles of food, had never dreamed of such
penetrating and tantalizing odors. Mabel wondered if she could ever
stand it until six o'clock when she would be paid. She jotted down her
notes and, wending her way back to the office, settled down in a corner
to put her material in shape. It did not take long, and while she waited
for Miss Gere who was almost always out, she reviewed the experiences
that had beset her during the past few days. Of them all this day had
been the worst. And Mabel, who had fondly expected to have most of her
Saturdays to herself, reflected that after six o'clock she would have to
take her hungry and weary self back to the apartment and attempt to
clean things up.

The dainty rooms looked as though a whirlwind had struck them. Poor
Mabel was not wholly to blame. She was carrying too great a load. She
had school to think of, and as soon as she was released at noon she was
obliged to rush off to the dusty office for her orders for the rest of
the day. She never reached home again until six and later, and on
several occasions she had been obliged to accompany Miss Gere on long
tiresome night trips by automobile or trolley into the surrounding
country. Of her mother she had seen but little. Twice her mother had
called while she was out with Miss Gere, and Mabel, not knowing that
this had been by arrangement between Mrs. Brewster and Miss Gere, was
honestly disappointed. Several times she had met her mother down town,
and once they had had luncheon together at a cafeteria.

On these occasions Mabel was forced to notice that her mother, whom she
had rather looked down on as a common or garden variety of parent, was
really a most attractive and charming woman. She treated Mabel not at
all like a little girl, spoke only of the surface things that interested
Mrs. Brewster herself and lightly passed over all Mabel's wistful
references to home and Frank. Mrs. Brewster did say that they missed
Mabel and added with a rather sad smile that she had never thought to
lose her little daughter and so on. Mabel felt herself saddened by these
meetings. She found that she was thinking of her mother all the time,
and sometimes she almost wished that she was just an ordinary girl and
not a genius, so she could stay at home and be taken care of. When the
second Sunday came Mabel permitted herself the luxury of a good cry. She
was too stubborn to confess that she was desperately sick of her
foolishness and wholly and utterly homesick, but angrily dried her tears
and started to dress.

The telephone rang. It was Mrs. Brewster. She sent a cheery good-morning
over the wire and asked if Mabel had had breakfast. Mabel hopefully said
no, that she was just commencing to dress.

"Why, we are all through!" laughed Mrs. Brewster. "We are getting an
early start, because the Morrissons have asked us to drive to Lexington
with them. They wanted to ask you too, but I told them that you were
always too taken up with your other affairs and your writing to accept
any invitations and they were so disappointed."

"Who is going?" asked Mabel.

"Just the two Morrisson boys and Frank and myself."

The two Morrisson boys were quite the most popular young fellows in
Louisville and Mabel saw, with a sense of defeat, that her biggest
social chance had slipped from her grasp.

Her mother went cheerily on: "So Frank and I got up early and fixed our
share of the luncheon, and prepared and ate our own breakfast, and now
we are all ready."

Mabel was furious. It was on her tongue's end to tell her mother that of
course she would be glad to go, but her stubbornness held her back, so
she said a brief and snippy good-bye and hung up the receiver. But she
did not leave the phone. A moment later she gave central Mrs.
Morrisson's number, and flushed rather foolishly as she heard Mrs.
Morrisson call hello.

"I want to thank you for having thought to ask me on your ride today
Mrs. Morrisson," she said smoothly, in her best manner. "I was just
talking to mother, and she told me about it." Mabel stopped here and
listened eagerly for Mrs. Morrisson to renew the coveted invitation. But
alas, poor Mabel!

"We were all sorry that you could not go," said Mrs. Morrisson in a
sweet voice that you would never think could deal a blow to a girl's
hopes. "And it is almost going to spoil the day for your mother, I know.
She is always so happy when you are with her, my dear."

"It is dear of you all to want me," said Mabel, "and perhaps I can
arrange things so I can go after all."

"Oh, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Morrisson in a most distressed voice,
"that is too awful! You see we never thought you would think of it, so I
asked another girl, a new girl the boys have met in dancing school. She
is a Girl Scout and your mother thought it was just the thing to do."

Mabel swallowed hard.

"Well, I am sure she will have a good time," she replied in a thin
voice. "Is she a girl I know?"

"Her name is Claire Maslin," said Mrs. Morrisson, "and I think she is
really charming."

"I know her," said Mabel briefly and with a noticeable lack of
enthusiasm.

She was glad when the conversation came to an end, and rushing back to
her tumbled bed, she threw herself down and wept loudly and long. When
finally she found that she could cry no more she dragged on her dress
anyhow and went out to look in the tiny ice-chest. She knew what it
contained. There was the usual ready-to-eat cereal and milk for her
breakfast, and two discouraged looking pieces of cold boiled ham, her
unfailing standby, on a saucer; but she had neglected to do any shopping
the day before in the rush of necessary tasks, and there was nothing
else to eat. For all day! Sunday! And mother and Frank were off on a
glorious picnic! Once more Mabel wept. She set the cereal back and went
wearily into the living-room. The bell rang, but Mabel did not care who
it was; she did not want to see anyone. She heard a rush of feet on the
stairs, and the door knob was shaken violently as her brother Frank
called through the crack:

"Hey, Mabe, let me in a second! Hurry up! Here's something for you!"

Mabel rushed to the door and let him in. He had a large box in his hand.

"Hello, sis!" he roared cheerfully. "Here's a box mother sent you. She
is down in the car, but I told her not to come upstairs. I don't want
her to get tired. She sent you some dinner. It's good, I can tell you!
Helped to fix it myself. She thought it would be a change from the swell
eats you must be buying yourself. Just notice the chicken salad. And
she said for you to--but there is a note inside. Sorry you can't come!
Strange girl going, and I don't like 'em. Nuisance to get acquainted.
Why, what's wrong, Mabe?" he asked as he looked at her for the first
time and noticed her tear stained face. "Gosh, what's wrong? Are you
sick? Shall I call mother?" He put an awkward but loving arm around his
sister, but she shoved him violently away.

"Nothing's wrong!" she jerked out, her lips trembling in spite of her.
"Go along, and don't mind me!" She fairly pushed him toward the door and
Frank, dazed and astonished, allowed himself to be hurried into the
small hallway.

There he faced her. "Why don't you get some common sense into your
head?" he asked savagely. "I think it's a crime your coming here and
trying to live by yourself! I am ashamed to have the fellows know about
it. They think it is awfully queer. Fellows like to look after their
sisters. It isn't right! I don't care if you _are_ a smart kid! You can
be just as smart over home as you can here. You don't seem to think of
mother at all. You don't care how _she_ feels. She would skin me if she
knew I was saying this to you, but I'll say you are the most selfish
girl I ever knew and that's the truth! Well, go ahead! We don't care; we
can rustle along without you!" He started for the stairs and flung this
over his shoulder: "But I bet you will be sorry some day!"

He hurried out of sight as a shrill whistle sounded from the street
where the Morrisson boys fretted in the waiting car.

Mabel picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen. Then for the
third time that day she rushed into her bed-room, fell on the
long-suffering bed and cried; cried tears of mingled rage and
disappointment. She could not understand why Frank's ravings, as she
called his outburst, should make her feel so strangely mean and small
and in the wrong when she positively _knew_ that she was on the right
track. But you cannot live principally on cold boiled ham, olives and
shredded wheat day in and out, you cannot leave a comfy, homey sort of
home even for the luxury of a modern apartment without a pang of
homesickness hitting you sooner or later, and Mabel was pierced with it.
And you can't have good reason for tears three times in one morning
without losing a little of your courage, at least for the time being.
Mabel thought of the jolly party motoring along the level roads, all
laughing over the sallies of the older Morrisson boy. She could almost
see Claire Maslin in her lovely green motor coat and close hat set tight
over the shining red hair.

Mabel burrowed her wet face deeper in the moist pillow. Her sobs rose.

"Oh, oh, I wish I was home!" she whispered finally, and then, like the
martyr that she felt herself, she sat up, wiped her eyes, and wondered
what was in the box her mother had sent over. Things to eat, Mabel
reflected, as she opened parcel after parcel and found that a whole
Sunday dinner was hers. She put it in the ice-box and wearily started to
clear up the dusty and untidy rooms. The sink was full of dishes, and as
soon as the water was hot in the boiler, she attacked the piles of
plates and cereal dishes. By the time they were washed and dried and put
away and the rooms swept and dusted, Mabel was too tired to think of
getting herself any dinner, even though it was waiting for her in the
box her mother had sent over. So she curled up in a corner of the divan
and tried to read. She could not interest herself in her novel, and at
last she sat staring moodily at the room, studying its complicated and
fussy furnishings and comparing them with the simple, quiet arrangement
of her mother's house. Mabel had had occasion to see a number of homes
during the time she had worked with Miss Gere and it was dawning on Miss
Mabel that there was a certain charm and beauty about her mother's
simple and unpretentious arrangements that were sadly lacking in many of
the most luxurious places. She had never thought of this until a woman
who stood very high in the social world of Louisville had asked her if
she was related to the Mrs. Brewster who was doing interior decorating.
Mabel flushed with embarrassment and said in a small voice that Mrs.
Brewster was her mother.

"How fortunate you are!" said the great lady. "Your mother is the most
artistic person I have ever known. She is perfectly wonderful and will
certainly make a fortune. I am trying to get her to go to New York where
she can have a studio and command top prices. I don't see why she did
not go into this years and years ago."

Mabel, almost too surprised to reply, managed to mumble that she
supposed her mother had been pretty busy bringing up her brother Frank
and herself.

"Well, I suppose she feels that she is really free now," said the lady
with a smile, "since you are starting out for yourself. Although," she
added, "I think your mother is very brave to let you start out of the
nest so soon. You seem such a young girl to be off by yourself. Of
course it is not at all my affair, but I should think that you would
hate to be away from such a talented mother as yours."

As Mabel recalled this conversation, she saw her mother in a new light
and somehow the new light blazed almost too strongly on Mabel herself.
She felt strangely small. She had this disagreeable dwindling sensation
more and more as she compared her mother with other women in
professional and business and social circles, the three great groups
that made their influence strongly felt throughout the city.

Mabel found too that her Great Experiment, instead of bringing her the
envy and admiration of her mates, seemed in some strange way to make
her the object of a kind of scorn that was very hard to bear. The very
girls who had applauded her most loudly at first showed her in
unmistakable small ways that she was doing something foolish instead of
something brave and grand. But Mabel would not give in. She was not
brave enough.

It was an endless Sunday. She did not go to church, no one came to see
her, and she would not go for her usual afternoon walk. Several times
she started for the phone, intending to call Rosanna or Helen, then
decided against it. Finally she took up the long neglected Girl Scout
Manual and read steadily as far as the page that had caught Claire's
attention.

"Loyalty." The word stood out black and threatening on the page.
"Loyalty to father and mother." Was she loyal to her talented mother,
the mother who had laid aside all her gifts in order to give all her
time and strength to her two children? Wasn't it her place now to
lighten some of her mother's household cares and make it possible for
her to gain the reward she deserved?

Mabel, like Claire, threw the book angrily away from her. But unlike
Claire, she could not throw her thoughts away. She was very unhappy.




CHAPTER VIII


The following morning, however, Mabel was once more filled with her
usual self-esteem. Before going to sleep she had written a poem which
would have sounded more original if it had not been so very like several
well-known bits of verse she had often read. But to Mabel it seemed to
spring from her soul, and after reading it with tears of appreciation in
her eyes, she decided to let the _Times-Leader_ have the privilege of
printing it.

That was to be a strange, terrible and eventful Monday. The Day of
Overheard Conversations Mabel might have named it.

There was nothing to warn her of the day's disagreeable outcome. It was
one of Louisville's loveliest mornings, and there was enough left from
her Sunday dinner to give her a good breakfast. She was up early enough
to go over her lessons, and the apartment as she left it after Sunday's
violent cleaning had a look of righteous order and dustlessness. Also,
having read the poem a number of times, Mabel saw herself as the coming
poetess and preened herself accordingly.

One of the nicest girls in high school overtook Mabel and they walked to
school together. It was in the cloak-room that Mabel received her first
stab. The other stepped around the end of a cloak rack where she was met
by a third girl whom Mabel knew but slightly.

"Hello, Grace," she heard her say. "I stopped at your house but you had
gone."

"Yes, I walked to school with Mabel Brewster," replied Grace.

"Well, how you can stand her _I_ don't know," said the other girl with a
sniff. "Of all the stupid prigs she is the worst!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say _that_," said Grace gently.

"Well, _I_ would!" declared the other girl stubbornly. "She thinks she
is a wonder and knows everything, when in fact she is stupid and
conceited, and _no_ one likes her."

Grace was a Girl Scout and this talk shocked her. She shook her head. "I
don't think you are really right, Mary, and besides I don't think you
ought to speak so."

"It is true, just the same," said the girl stubbornly. "You know
yourself what her marks are--just as low as she can stand and pass. And
that way she has of smiling in such a superior way when anyone else
misses. And when _she_ misses she always has such a good excuse! I do
wonder why the teachers stand for it!"

A group of laughing and chattering girls came into the cloak-room and
Mabel seized the opportunity to slip into the hall and into the
class-room. Her face burned. Of course she told herself that the girl
was jealous, but Mabel was one of those persons who require the approval
and admiration of those about her in order to be happy.

She did such poor work that morning that she was obliged to stay after
school, although she knew that she ought to be at the office. She took
her books to a desk in the reference library where she was soon lost in
her work.

Presently she heard the low voices of a couple of teachers. They came
and seated themselves on the other side of a big blackboard just behind
Mabel.

"Oh, dear," sighed one of them, "this weather makes me long for
vacation."

"The last weeks of school are always a drag," answered the other. "And I
think the children feel it as much as we teachers. Even my brightest
pupils are letting down, and the marks have all fallen off."

"Even Mabel Brewster's marks?" queried Miss Jones with a sniff.

"What a goose that girl is!" said Miss Hannibal. "I don't know what does
ail her."

"An inflated ego," said Miss Jones.

"Novels and the New Woman Movement, I think," said Miss Hannibal. "It is
a perfect shame. I feel _so_ sorry for her mother. Here this girl, as
soon as she gets where she would naturally be of some service and
comfort to her mother, steps gaily out of all her responsibilities and
home duties and sets up a home of her own and goes around talking about
a career. _Career_, indeed! Why, the child has nothing to career _on_!
She did not inherit her mother's cleverness. If she was _my_ child, I
would send her to her room and keep her there on bread and water until
she came to her senses."

"So would I," said Miss Jones, "but it is really none of our business,
of course."

"Well, in a way it is," answered Miss Hannibal testily. "You see she is
doing very poor school work, and the Principal told me yesterday that he
would probably have to drop her from her class at the end of the school
year. And she _won't_ work, because she is so crazy over that silly
newspaper job that she simply neglects everything else. I just _don't_
see what ails her mother!"

"Does her mother know what poor work she is doing in school?" asked Miss
Jones.

"I don't know," said Miss Hannibal. "And I don't know what good it would
do if she did. A girl who thinks as little of her mother as Mabel does
would not care what she thought and would not listen to her advice. You
may be sure that she has cost her mother many bitter tears already. _I_
shan't worry about her. She spoils my thoughts. I have wanted to ask you
how the Morrisson boys are doing."

Miss Jones proceeded to enthuse over the Morrissons, but for once their
achievements did not interest Mabel at all. She was stunned and angry.
Yet as she sat huddled motionless in her corner, waiting for the
teachers to go, she soon recovered her balance, and reflected that they
too were probably jealous. She thought fondly of her position on the
newspaper and proudly dreamed her dream of the day when she would drift
into the magic circle of the Chief Editor's desk as his best reporter.

When Miss Hannibal and Miss Jones sauntered away, Mabel lost no time in
making good her own escape. She crossed over to Third Street where the
beautiful houses with their look of reserve and wealth always catered to
her love of luxury. Ahead were three girls in Girl Scout uniforms. She
recognized them at once: Rosanna Horton with her black docked hair,
Claire Maslin's long swinging red braid and Elise Hargrave's bobbing
curls. At first Mabel decided to walk slowly and avoid them but she
changed her mind and caught up with them.

"Do you still like the work you are doing?" asked Claire in her soft
drawl.

"I suppose so," said Mabel, and then as though forced into honesty, she
added, "The trouble is, I miss mother and Frank so that I don't seem to
do all the work I planned after all. It doesn't seem to be working out
right. Of course I shall go on with it, because I really owe it to
myself, but it isn't half the fun I thought it was going to be."

"I knew it," said Elise Hargrave gently. "It is a most dreadful thing to
be _torn_ from the home nest, and when one hops out by one's self and
waves that not so strong wing one must of a necessity wish to be back."

"Why don't you give up and go home?" said Rosanna. "You would be doing
the wise thing."

"No, I can't," said Mabel. "I suppose some day when I am famous, I will
perhaps take mother and Frank to live with me." She laughed and nodded
as she left the girls and hurried on to the _Times-Leader_ office.

"She means it; she actually _means_ it!" said Rosanna in a hushed voice.

"Of course she means it!" laughed Claire. "Isn't she funny? I never saw
a girl so conceited in my life. And really she _isn't_ bright at all.
She is just an ordinary girl with ordinary gifts. I think she is usually
quite stupid when she talks, but perhaps that is because she is so
awfully conceited that it bores you."

"I hate to hear you say such things about her," said the tender-hearted
Rosanna.

When Mabel reached the office she went directly to the big shabby
dictionary open on its stand, and looked up two words, _Inflated_, and
_ego_. The result was not pleasing! She sat before the book, glooming
over the unflattering result of her quest. So she had an "inflated
ego," had she? As she sat there, the office boy, seeing her close to his
letter-press and feeling himself capable of starting an acquaintance
with any girl his own size, pulled his purple and gold necktie into
place, seized a few sheets of paper, and sauntered up. Mabel continued
to stare at the open page of the dictionary.

"Kiddin' me," thought the boy to himself. He put the papers in place,
and commenced to whistle, one careful eye on Mabel. He whistled so far
off the key that she looked up. Instantly he grinned.

"Great job, this!" he said cheerfully, twisting the lever with a vast
show of effort. "I bet I work harder than any fellow in this office. I
bet I work harder than the Chief himself." Mabel continued to look at
him, but did not speak, and he continued, "Your name is Brewster; Mabel
Brewster, isn't it? I saw it on some of the papers Miss Gere and the
Chief threw in the waste basket. Say, what do you write such gobs of
stuff for? They don't use it. Aren't you on to that yet? My name's Jesse
Hart. Ain't that a peach of a name to give a fellow? Sounds like a
sure-nuff girl's name--Jesse. And Hart means a deer. Fellows used to
call me Jessie dear when I was a kid, but I knocked a couple of 'em out
and they quit it." He grinned at Mabel more cheerfully than before.
"Say, you don't wear yourself out talkin', do you, sis?"

Mabel flushed with anger. A couple of the reporters saw the two and
smiled playfully. "Jessie dear" winked back and Mabel flushed.

"I don't want to talk to you," she said distinctly. "I wish you would go
away."

"Suits me!" said Jesse. "Suits me all right, Miss High-Mighty." He gave
a short laugh with a close imitation of the manner of Dalton Duplex, his
movie star villain, and strutted off. Mabel noted that the rims of his
ears were very red. She dismissed him angrily from her thoughts and went
over to Miss Gere's desk.

The thin man pounded furiously on the next typewriter as usual, but he
looked up as she passed him. "A new crush, Miss Mabel?" he asked
mischievously.

Mabel was too angry to answer; she rudely flounced into the chair and
turned her burning face away.

Surely, she thought, there _never_ was another girl who had so many
things to annoy her. That silly boy! As though she would bother to look
at him. The two immaculate Morrissons flashed through her mind. Such
boys and their friends were well worth while. Then her mind turned to
the remark about the waste basket. She wondered if her work was being
thrown away. She knew that it was always rewritten, but she thought that
was the rule of the office. Mabel had a lot to think of.

The next morning Jesse proceeded to prove that he was a youth of grit
and determination. He wore another necktie, and when he saw Mabel
sitting at Miss Gere's desk he went over and grinned a cheerful
good-morning. Mabel returned it glumly with a stony stare that would
have quelled a less determined boy.

"Say, how about a picnic Sunday afternoon?" he asked without noting the
drop in temperature. "I thought we could ask your mother to chaperone
us, and get your brother Frank, and a couple of other fellows and have
supper at Jacobs' park. The chaps have a car and they know two dandy
girls."

"No," said Mabel decidedly. "It isn't possible for me to go. I am sure
mother wouldn't go, nor Frank." She spoke so sneeringly that Jesse
flushed.

"That's where you guess again, Miss Highty-Mighty!" he said. "I saw
Frank last night and he asked his mother, and she said _sure_, so I
guess I just get another girl for little me, and you needn't think I
don't know where to get off. I won't trouble you again, so don't you
worry." He stalked off, leaving Mabel furious to think that Frank and
her mother were going to go with that dreadful boy and his dreadful
friends. She could just _see_ the sort they must be: the girls like a
lot of the girls she knew in high school, giggly, silly, gum-chewing
girls, with untidy ruffed-up hair pulled over their ears, and boys like
Jesse. She sent a cautious glance after Jesse. After all there was
nothing really the matter with him, except she just didn't like his
neckties, and oh well, he wasn't a bit like the Morrissons, for
instance, who always looked as though they had come out of a bandbox,
and were so polite, and _such_ fun.

That night going home. Mabel met Frank. He seemed to be always hanging
around the corner nearest the _Times-Leader_ office when she came out at
night and always walked home with her.

"Jesse says you won't go on our picnic," Frank commenced at once.

"Why, of course not!" said Mabel. "I am perfectly surprised to think
that you and mother would mix with such people!"

"Such people?" repeated Frank. "_What_ people?"

"Why, the sort that Jesse boy must go around with. Of course I know how
mother is. She would chaperone anyone who wanted her, but I should think
_you_ would know enough to keep her out of it."

"Well, I don't see how you figure it," said Frank sulkily. "I am going
to take Helen Culver. She is all right, isn't she? And Jesse was going
to take you, and I bet you think _you_ are all right, and Rosanna Horton
and that Maslin girl are going with Jesse's cousins. Pretty good crowd,
I take it."

"Who are his cousins, for mercy sake?" demanded Mabel.

"Don't you know?" asked Frank. "The Morrissons, of course! You know
their father owns the _Times-Leader_."




CHAPTER IX


Leaving Mabel to recover as best she could from Frank's astounding
announcement, we will look in on Rosanna listening, round eyed and
breathless, to her Uncle Bob talking rapidly to his mother, his wife,
and his little niece.

"Oh, do you _really_ mean it?" Rosanna exclaimed at last.

"Cross my heart, sweetness!" Uncle Bob assured her. "Cross my heart and
black my eye, _hope_ to live and _haf_ to die!"

Rosanna leaned back with a sigh of absolute delight. "I never dreamed
anything so perfectly splendiferous," she murmured. "Wait until I tell
the girls about it!"

"That is the only disagreeable part, dear," said her uncle. "What I have
told you is a great secret. In fact, no one but just our four selves
must know a single thing about our plans until a week before we sail. I
am sorry, because I know what fun it would be to talk over a trip around
the world, but there are very important business reasons why it must be
kept absolutely quiet."

"All right, uncle, but that means we will have to talk it over twice as
much ourselves. So tell it all over, please!"

"Well," said Uncle Bob, not at all unwilling to talk, "John Culver's
invention makes it possible to arrange our machinery in such a way that
it is possible to use it under almost any and all conditions. It is
changing the whole course of big institutions and vast enterprises will
be affected by it. It is such a big thing that it must be laid before
the heads of governments, and it has fallen to my lot to attend to this
part of the business. So for the first trip I am going to start across
the Atlantic, cut nearly straight across the continent, come home by
Japan and Honolulu, _and_ you are all going with me!"

"But how about school?" wailed Rosanna.

"Oh, bother school!" said Uncle Bob, with an uncomfortable glance at
Rosanna's grandmother. "What's school to us? We are going a-jaunting
whether school keeps or not!" He laughed. "We will be off and away as
soon as ever we can."

"Hurray!" cried Rosanna, hopping up and down. "Oh, grandmother, will you
really let us?"

Her grandmother looked at her son, then at his wife. They both sparkled.

"I think I shall have to," she said. "But, Rosanna, I don't know what is
going to become of your education if these people keep on taking us with
them wherever they go."

"Oh, but grandmother dear, think of all the wonderful things I will see,
and the languages I will hear, and the people, the queer dear people!"

"I should say so!" said Mrs. Horton dryly. "And the _algebra_ you will
miss! How wonderful it will be!"

The next few days were so exciting that Rosanna could scarcely bear it.
She was glad when Claire Maslin telephoned over to see if she would come
and spend the week-end with her in the house her father had just taken.
Both Mrs. Horton and Cita were glad to have Rosanna go, for she was so
excited over the coming journey that she went wandering about the house
like a restless spirit and could neither read, practice nor study.

Claire was drifting into one of her black moods. The Colonel had learned
that his wife had taken a turn for the worse, and had felt that he must
tell Claire. She had heard it in stony silence, with dry eyes and
compressed lips, her only comment being, "It is coming soon, isn't it,
dad?"

Then after a sleepless night and a bad day she asked Rosanna to come and
stay with her, hoping that she could forget her horrors for awhile. But
after a few hours spent with the gentle loving little Scout, she was
conscious of quite a new sensation. For the first time in her life she
wanted to confide all her troubles to someone; someone who would
sympathize with her. She thought almost tenderly of her new friend.
Rosanna's low and pleasant voice, soft friendly eyes, so deep and
loving, her air of truth, all made poor Claire who had been so
friendless and so cold feel that here at last was one whom she could
trust; one to whom she could tell all her worries and troubles. But the
caution which usually held her steady kept her from saying anything to
Rosanna, even when a telegram was handed to her father at the dinner
table; a telegram that deepened the lines in his face and caused him to
glance apprehensively at Claire with a slight shake of the head.

Claire felt the black cloud of horror closing down on her. She managed
to finish the meal, letting her father and Rosanna do most of the
talking. Then she excused herself and went to her room.

She expected that her father would follow her and give her the news.
Claire felt that it was something bad: but Rosanna came bounding up,
calling cheerily as she came, "Hurry up, Claire! Get into your uniform;
it is Scout night!"

"I don't believe I will go to the meeting tonight," said Claire, but
Rosanna exclaimed, "Oh, Claire dear, we don't want to miss it, do we?
Besides, your father said specially that you were to go, and we are
going to be late if we don't hurry, so he is going to drive us over in
the car. Won't it be fun to go back to my own home from somewhere else
to attend a meeting?" She slipped out of her little net dinner dress as
she talked and into her crisp, clean uniform, and Claire found herself
following Rosanna's example. When she stepped into the waiting car, her
father murmured in her ear, "No change!" and she sighed with relief.

It was a specially good meeting. Only one girl was absent, Mabel
Brewster, and the Captain was careful to explain that that was at _her_
suggestion. After the business meeting and the usual reports and the
giving of several badges of merit, the Captain said with a smile:

"I have been in Washington nearly all the week, girls, as some of you
know, and while there I had a very interesting Scout experience. I
wanted to consult with one of the most prominent Scout Captains there, a
lady named Mrs. Pain, the wife of a Washington artist. Well, I made
arrangements to call at her house and as luck would have it, it was the
night of a Scout meeting. Of course I was very glad to see how they
conducted their meetings and all that. I found Mrs. Pain most charming,
and her apartment quite delightful.

"A blond angel of a baby about three years old was skipping around here
and there. She was dressed in a complete Scout uniform and, girls, she
looked _exactly_ like a big doll! I thought of course she was Mrs.
Pain's child, and she is, but with a very interesting history. When I
spoke to Mrs. Pain about the pretty little thing, Mrs. Pain smiled and
gave me this paper. It is a copy of the Washington _Times_, and this is
what it says:

     "MABEL, FIRST CIRCULATING BABY IN WORLD, IS ONLY THREE, BUT SHE'S
     SOME GIRL."

    "This little story will introduce Miss Mabel Pain, three years old,
    the youngest and tiniest Girl Scout in the world. Mabel lives right
    here in Washington, at the Graystone Apartments, and she is the
    mascot of Girl Scout Troop No. 3, composed of Graystone girls.

    "Although only three years of age, Mabel has had a varied and
    romantic career, and if the remainder of her life holds for her as
    much excitement as she has experienced during her baby years, she
    will be quite a wonder long before she grows gray-headed. Indeed,
    Mabel already is a little wonder, for she can swim, hike three miles
    without getting tired, say grace as solemnly as a bishop, recite her
    A B C's backward, repeat the Girl Scout oath of allegiance to the
    flag, say all of the ten Girl Scout laws, salute with the snap of a
    West Point cadet, and do many other things the average child of six
    or seven would have great difficulty in doing.

    "And all this is the more interesting because Mabel was once a
    little waif, without parents and without a home. Her origin remains
    a mystery, and little Mabel herself has no recollection of her mamma
    and papa. Mabel was discovered when the girls of Troop 3 decided
    that they wanted to adopt a baby, a real _live_ baby that would coo
    and cry and kick and laugh, and all that. It was a big job for a
    group of girls to adopt a baby as a substitute for their
    dollies--and their troop leader probably would have vetoed the whole
    fine plan had the little girls not pleaded with their mothers and
    fathers and persuaded them to approve the project.

    "So a search was made for a baby to adopt, and little Mabel
    eventually was found. All the little girls clapped their hands, and
    danced in glee. They had a baby, and they were so pleased. But the
    question arose: Now that the girls had the baby, what in the world
    were they going to do with it? And thus it was that Mabel became the
    world's first 'circulating baby,' for the girls decided that they
    would keep the baby successively for a couple of weeks at a time at
    their various homes, the mothers first giving their approval, of
    course.

    "So Mabel lived one week with Harriet's parents, another week at
    Pauline's home, and still another week at Mary's residence. She
    shifted from home to home just like a book in a circulating library.

    "Everywhere she went she was looked upon as a sort of toy or pet, to
    be played with and humored, and then passed on to someone else.

    "So it went until Mabel landed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. B.
    Pain of the Graystone Apartments. Mrs. Pain is Captain of Troop 3
    and from the start she had taken a keen interest in the baby. Mr.
    Pain also fell in love with Mabel, and thus it came about that Mabel
    ceased to be a 'circulating baby,' for the Pains decided that they
    would like to keep her for good and all, and little Mabel was
    formally adopted.

    "The Pains are English people of culture and refinement, and as a
    result the little waif now has a wonderful home. Mr. Pain is an
    artist, and Mrs. Pain is a trained instructor of children and
    between the two, fate has made it possible for Mabel to develop into
    a very fine girl.

    "A girl cannot become a full-fledged member of the Scouts until she
    is ten years old and the girls under ten are formed into an
    organization known as the Brownies. But it wouldn't be safe for
    anyone to accuse Mabel of being a Brownie, for in her grown-up way
    she would immediately announce: 'I am not a Brownie at _all_! I am a
    regular Girl Scout!'

    "Mabel would be quite right in saying so. For although technically
    she is not a Scout, she attends all of the Scout meetings, goes on
    all the Scout hikes and does _whatever_ the rest of the Scouts do.
    She gets around the ten year age limit because of the fact that she
    is the mascot of the Troop. Mascots, you know, are always admitted,
    for most of them are cats and dogs and rabbits and birds--and they
    aren't supposed to know what's going on. But Mabel, you may be sure,
    knows everything that is taking place."

As Captain Horton finished, the girls all laughed and clapped their
hands.

"Is it really true?" "Did you see her?" "Was she cunning?" "Tell us more
about it!" were some of the clamored questions.

"Yes, it is quite true, although it does sound like a fairy story. And
I not only saw but heard her. Girls, I wish you could have heard that
darling baby voice reciting our promise! She was so sweetly solemn about
it. 'On my honor I will _twy_,' she said, and all the rest of it. Mrs.
Pain says she does everything as nearly right as she can, because she is
so proud of being a Girl Scout. And cunning? Indeed she was! Just
imagine a funny, dimply, blonde Kewpie dressed in Scout uniform, and
there you will have little Mabel Pain. I wish some of you could have
seen her salute; it would have been a lesson to you.

"I can't help thinking, girls, that the case of little Mabel is just an
instance of the far-reaching effects of a kindly act. I don't know which
girl first thought of that circulating baby, but that doesn't matter.
Little Mabel, just one of dozens of tiny tots in the asylum, was
destined to grow up merely one of many in the cold white dormitories,
tended by faithful attendants and nurses too busy and full of care to
love or mother their charges. Now, through the action of the Scouts, she
has a tender mother and a proud and loving father, and will no doubt
grow up to be a fine woman.

"I wish we could all do something as fine to help carry on. I want you
to be on the look-out every day of your lives for a chance. And when an
opportunity presents itself to you, seize it as a positive gift from
heaven. A gift not to the person whom you are about to benefit, but a
gift to _you_."

"Well, shall we have a circulating baby?" asked Jane.

"Not necessarily," laughed the Captain. "There are countless ways in
which you can help the old world on."

"But a baby must be such fun!"

There was a groan from two or three girls as they heard Jane speak, and
one black-eyed gypsy remarked bitterly that _she_ had a baby sister that
they could circulate at any time, as far as she cared. Jane laughed.

"That is the way she talks, Captain," she said, "but when that baby was
sick last winter Letty nearly went crazy."

Letty blushed. "_That_ is different!" she said.

"Of course!" answered the Captain. "Well, it is time for each of you to
think up some plan of kindness for vacation time."

"What would you advise?" asked Estella, wriggling.

"I do not advise at all," said the Captain. "I want you to do your own
planning because I want the credit to be all yours. I am sure everyone
of you knows some invalid, some poor child, some old person, or some
very poor sad or troubled neighbor who needs you. Keep your eyes open,
my dears, and listen carefully. There will be a hand beckoning or a
voice calling sooner or later. And if you should miss the summons, you
would always be sorry."

"When is Mabel Brewster going to bring you her report?" asked Jane.

"She is simply seeing how selfish she can be, isn't she, Captain?" asked
Estella.

"Not quite that," said the Captain, a sober look stealing over her
pretty face. "Mabel was dissatisfied with her life and had ambitions
that did not seem to be just what a girl should strive for, so her
mother and I thought it would be a good thing for Mabel, as well as for
all of us, to allow her to try her theories out and tell us the result."

"Well, _I_ think she is _perfectly miserable_," announced Jane bluntly.
"I don't think she likes it a _bit_! How she stands it at all I don't
see. And do you know, Captain, my brother says Frank sleeps every night
on that little hard settee outside her door because he is afraid someone
might try to get in; and as soon as school is out, he hangs around the
_Times-Leader_ office to walk home with her. She doesn't know it, of
course, and I suppose if she did she would be mad, but if I thought _my_
brother was a perfect angel like that I would feel so proud!"

"Why, what a dear he is!" said the Captain, the tears starting to her
eyes.

"_She_ doesn't deserve him!" said Jane.




CHAPTER X


Claire and Rosanna lingered after the meeting, talking with the Captain
and Mrs. Horton, but presently Colonel Maslin came for them, and they
said good-night and went away, Rosanna feeling as though she was doing
something quite out of the way and rather dreadful in going off with
another girl at that time of night. It must have been at least nine!

The two girls sat with the Colonel while he ate the lunch set before him
by the Chinaman--a cracker and a glass of buttermilk it was--and then
they said good-night and went laughing upstairs to Claire's
sitting-room. In the pretty bed-room Rosanna found her clothes laid out
neatly and the two took off their trim Scout uniforms and slipped into
comfy kimonos.

Rosanna found that when Claire was not brooding, she was as gay and
bright as any girl, and happiness transformed her face into a beautiful,
glowing countenance that made Rosanna happy just to look at it.

"I wish you always felt like this," she said after a funny story of
Claire's had sent her into gales of laughter.

"Like what?" demanded Claire quickly.

Rosanna was sorry that she had spoken. "Why, so jolly and merry," she
said.

The cloud settled over Claire's face again.

"Perhaps I should not have said that, dear Claire," continued Rosanna
gently, "but you don't know just how you _do_ look a good deal of the
time."

Claire shot a quick glance at her, and then looked away. "How do I
look?" she asked abruptly. "I thought I looked like most every girl."

"Well, you don't," said Rosanna. She studied the beautiful, unhappy face
of her friend, finding trouble in choosing her words. "It is hard for me
to tell you just how you look, only it hurts me when I see it."

"Try to tell me," urged Claire as though the subject interested her
deeply.

Rosanna floundered on.

"I don't know just how to explain to you, but you seem to be listening
to something that I cannot hear, and way down deep in the bottom of your
eyes there is a horror."

As Rosanna spoke, looking full at Claire, she trembled to see the horror
leap from the depths of those jade green eyes and blaze out.

"Why, what is it? What can it be?" she stammered, clasping Claire in her
warm arms. "Oh, dear Claire, there _is_ something that frightens you!
Tell me what it is. Does your father know? Oh, Claire, we are both
Scouts; let me help you!"

For a long moment Claire seemed not to breathe. She did not move. Then
with a gasping sigh, she gently unclasped Rosanna's arms and stood up.
She commenced slowly to unbraid her red hair. She did not speak, and in
silence Rosanna watched the gleaming, shining masses, released from
their prim daytime fashion, fall like a royal garment around Claire's
shoulders. Far below her waist hung the rippling locks. Claire inclined
her head as though she wished to hide herself and her troubles beneath
that veil. Then suddenly, proudly she flung up her head and looked
straight at Rosanna with cold, level eyes.

"No one can help me," she said quietly. "I will not deny that there _is_
something that troubles me, but that is all that I can tell you. I am
sorry I have let you see this much. I could tell you if I were any other
girl, but I cannot."

"I only want to help you, dear Claire," said Rosanna. "I hope that you
feel as though you can trust me."

"Indeed I do," protested Claire, her eyes filling with tears. "I never
have trusted _any_ girl so much."

"Then that is all right," said Rosanna, with her sweet smile. "I just
want you to promise me one thing and that is that if ever you feel as
though you wanted to tell anyone, or if you feel as though anyone could
help you, I want you to come to me."

"I will indeed promise that," said Claire, "but I do not think that that
time will ever come. I _want_ to tell you, but I cannot. And no one on
earth can help me."

"I don't believe I would say that, Claire," said Rosanna musingly. "You
never _can_ tell just who can help you until the time comes when you
need help, and then there it is, just as though you had called for it."

"I shall not call," smiled Claire stubbornly. "And please, Rosanna, let
us talk of other things."

Rosanna brightly changed the conversation.

"What I am crazy to talk about is, whatever is it you are putting on?"

"This?" asked Claire, holding out a fold of the gorgeous embroidered
garment she had slipped on. "It is a Mandarin coat; a real one. A real
Mandarin gave it to me. I was quite a little girl. It was while daddy
was stationed in China, and he and mother had a great many friends among
the really high-class Chinese.

"When we came away, the Mandarin sent a box by a half-dozen bearers. It
was a sort of chest with trays. There was a wonderful robe for mother
made of silk as shimmery and delicate as a cobweb. It is crusted with
gold embroidery and there are tiny shoes to match. Then there was a set
of real jade--hair ornaments, a necklace, pins, and this ring."

"I have noticed it," said Rosanna. "It is too lovely! And it is lovely
of your mother to let you wear it until she gets well."

Claire was silent for a moment, then went on: "In a lower tray there was
this robe for me, and dozens of the most wonderful toys and playthings
such as the royal children in China have, and which we over here never
see. Everything but this coat is packed away. Dad says the toys are most
of them really museum pieces, they are so beautiful and so rare."

"You ought to save them for your children," said Rosanna.

"When I grow up I shall give them to the Institute in Washington,"
Claire said with a frown. "That is the place for them."

Rosanna shook her head. "You are more generous than I could be," she
laughed. "What else was there in the chest?"

"Something queer; as queer as China itself," said Claire. "All wrapped
up in my Mandarin coat was a package with my name written on it. We
opened the wrapper and found a little case or casket sealed up tight
with wax and bearing the impression of the Mandarin's signet ring. There
is an inscription on the box. Chinese, of course, but daddy could read
it. It said, 'Some far day, one will give you a gift beyond all price.
Give them, in return, this casket as a token of your gratitude and
mine.'"

"What was in it?" asked Rosanna breathlessly.

"Why, we don't know," said Claire. "It was sealed, as I said, and I must
not break it, of course. I suppose the curious thing will go to the
museum, too, because no one will give me a gift 'beyond price.'"

"Oh, Claire, _don't_ be so unbelieving! You don't know what might
happen," cried Rosanna. "I never heard anything so exciting and so
mysterious! What do you suppose is in the box?"

"I can't guess," said Claire. "I shook it, but nothing rattled. It is in
a safe deposit vault. Perhaps it is just the box, because that is gold
and perfectly beautiful."

"How large is it?" asked Rosanna.

"About like that," said Claire, measuring off a space the size of a
commercial envelope.

"Well, I think I never heard anything so mysterious and exciting. I
should think you would just go around waiting to have someone give you
some wonderful present just so you could have the fun of giving them the
box so you could see what is inside."

"Dad says there is a catch about it somewhere, that people like
ourselves do not go around giving presents beyond price and that it is
exactly like a Chinaman to do something like that. The box, I mean. All
sorts of queer things happen in China."

"Tell me some more about what you did over there," begged Rosanna. "I
suppose we ought to go to bed, but I am so excited that I don't feel as
though I could ever sleep again."

So, curling up in a big chair, Claire told Rosanna stories of the
strange, mysterious East. Rosanna, thinking how very, very soon she too
would see that strange side of the world, sat shivering with delight.
Claire talked on and on. She was a good story-teller and everything was
as clear and real as though they were wandering hand and hand down those
strange and ancient ways.

Then Claire skipped lightly out of China into Honolulu, and thrilled
Rosanna with pictures of that fairy island of Hawaii. Rosanna forgot
China, forgot the mysterious box as though they had been wiped quite
neatly out of her mind.

"Oh, I'm CRAZY to go there!" she cried finally. "It must be _too_
lovely!"

"It is," declared Claire, and started off on a description of the
wonderful bathing at Wakiki, when:

"Well, well, what's this?" rumbled in the door.

Both girls shrieked and jumped and stared wildly at Colonel Maslin,
standing in the doorway.

"And I told the little Captain that I would take good care of her girl
if she could come over here to visit Claire," he said, shaking his head.
"I don't see how I am going to explain this. Of course, I will have to
'fess up and what she won't do to me--"

"She won't mind for once," said Rosanna. "It will be grandmother who
will mind. She always minds dreadfully when I stay up late."

"And I am awfully afraid of your grandmother," declared Colonel Maslin.

"I will protect you," Rosanna promised, laughing.

"You will both protect me by hopping into bed this minute," said the
Colonel. "In exactly two minutes I will return and put out the light,
and I want to see both girls with their eyes tight shut and fast
asleep." He turned and left the room and when he entered again the red
head and the black were snuggled down, each in her soft pillow, and two
pairs of eyes were tight shut, nor did they open when he dropped a light
kiss on each round cheek and tiptoed out.

Rosanna fell into a restless sleep, filled with fantastic visions and
presently she awoke. For a little she could not place herself. The
feeling of a strange bed confused her. Then she heard a queer muffled
sound, and sat up quietly. It did not come from the twin bed beside her
own. She reached cautiously over and touched the spread. Claire was not
lying there. The muffled sobs were farther away. Rosanna's eyes grew
accustomed to the darkness and she could make out a blur of white lying
near the window on the dark rug. Claire was lying there on the rug, and
Claire was crying; crying as though her heart was broken. Rosanna's
firm little jaw set itself still more firmly. She slid from her bed and
ran across the room. As she approached the sorrowing girl she breathed
softly:

"Claire, dear, dear Claire, I cannot stand it! You need not tell me why
you are so sad if you do not want to, but you must, _must_ let me love
you and comfort you."

The touch of Rosanna's tender arms, the loving kiss, and her heartfelt
words seemed to break down Claire's icy reserve. To Rosanna's surprise
and relief, she turned, wound her arms around Rosanna's neck, and
whispered brokenly:

"Oh, Rosanna, I _will_ tell you! I _must_ tell someone or I will die!"

"Of course, you must tell me," soothed Rosanna. "Come away from this
cold place first."

"No, no! I want to lie right here!" cried Claire.

"Why, of course you don't, dear," said Rosanna. "Please! Make believe I
am your really truly sister tonight, as well as your Scout sister, and
let's get into my bed and you can cuddle close and tell me all about
it."

Claire commenced to sob again, but Rosanna tenderly coaxed her into bed
and clasped her tight.

Claire did not speak; she lay in Rosanna's arms sobbing as though her
heart were broken.

Rosanna did not speak, and at last Claire controlled herself.

"I was sure you were sound asleep," she said, "or I would have gone down
into the study, but I hate to go around the house in the night. It
frightens me."

"I should think it would," said Rosanna, staring into the dark and
hugging Claire closer.

"But I get to thinking and I can't sleep. I suppose that is why I am so
much paler than most of the girls. I am awake so much, because I am too
unhappy to sleep."

"But that is all wrong," said Rosanna. "Why are you so unhappy, Claire?"

"Can't you guess, Rosanna?"

"Is it your mother?" asked Rosanna.

Claire shivered violently. "Yes," she breathed.

"Oh, Claire!" said Rosanna, her own tears wetting Claire's forehead.
"Oh, Claire, is it as bad as that? Is your mother so _dreadfully_ ill? I
thought she just had nervous prostration or something like that. That is
what most people have, isn't it? I am so sorry! So dreadfully sorry!
Perhaps there is a mistake. Sometimes doctors think people are awfully
sick and going to--going to die, and then they get well as ever."

Claire laughed a sudden, jangling, harsh laugh that frightened Rosanna
more than her sobs. She turned her lips close to Rosanna's ear, as
though she hated to breathe aloud the words she struggled to utter.

"Mother is not going to die," she said finally. "She is insane!"




CHAPTER XI


Rosanna gave a little cry of sympathy and pain, but she did not speak
and Rosanna simply held her close and patted her back, whispering,
"There, there!" over and over until at last the cries subsided, and
Claire, spent and tired, lay quite still.

"Are they _sure_ they can't cure her?" Rosanna whispered finally.

"There is no hope," said Claire. "She seems to get worse all the time.
She scarcely knows daddy now, and doesn't seem to care whether he comes
to see her or not. For a long time she wanted to see him."

"Did she know what the matter was?" asked Rosanna.

"No, not that we know, only she is so sad, when she is herself, that
daddy thinks she knows."

"Oh, I do feel _sure_ that she will get well!" said Rosanna.

Claire sadly shook her head.

"There is no hope," she repeated. "We have had doctor after doctor, all
the big specialists, and they can't do a _thing_. And oh, Rosanna, she
was _so_ pretty and so bright! We were _so_ happy!"

"How did you find out about it?"

"She commenced to have headaches," said Claire, then added haltingly,
as though she could not bear to tell even Rosanna about it, "and she
grew so angry about everything: awfully angry, so daddy was afraid she
might hurt me. She did once or twice, but I never told. She just hit me
with things, you know. Then the doctors said she must go away, my
pretty, pretty, loving mother, who used to love me so! Why, she was
_never_ happy for a single minute unless daddy or I was with her. And
she used to be so full of fun and tricks, just like a little girl. And
oh, Rosanna, now I have to think of my mother in a sanitarium, with just
nurses to look after her. Daddy's heart has broken and so has mine. And,
Rosanna, that is not all. I am going insane, too."

After a stupefied pause, Rosanna bounced violently up on her knees and
shook Claire roughly.

"Claire, _what_ a thing to say!" she exclaimed. "How _can_ you say
anything like that? Never, NEVER say it again."

"It doesn't matter whether I say it or not," said Claire, "it is going
to happen, and it will kill daddy. Why, Rosanna, I have the most awful
tempers you ever dreamed of and when they come on I don't know or care
what I do or say. I feel too awfully afterwards, of course, but I go
into a sort of frenzy and can't control myself. I hate to tell you all
this, Rosanna; you will not understand it perhaps, but if I do not tell
someone, I shall die! I cannot bear it alone any longer. We have kept
it so quiet about mother. No one in the Army suspects. We always say she
has had a nervous breakdown."

"Well, I can never tell you, Claire, dear, how dreadfully I feel about
it all," said Rosanna, kissing her friend's wet cheek. "But I am glad
you have told me. We will bear it together, and I am sure that will make
it easier for you. And as far as you are concerned, I am perfectly sure
that is nothing at all but imagination." She slid down and once more
took Claire's head on her loving little arm. "You are so tired, dear,"
she said. "Let us rest awhile, and then when you feel better, I will
tell you about _my_ mother and father. Wouldn't you like to hear about
them?"

"I would love to," said Claire. "Oh, it _is_ easier to bear now that you
are sharing it with me," she murmured.

"Rest," said Rosanna softly, catching a sleepy note in the tired voice.
Then suddenly, "Where is your mother now?"

"At a place called Laurel Hill Home, just outside of Cincinnati," said
Claire, and in two minutes her regular heavy breathing told Rosanna that
she was sound asleep.

And in about two minutes more two girls, cuddled close, were dreamlessly
sleeping.

When they woke the following morning they found the blinds drawn so
there was a soft twilight in the room, but on the pavement outside they
could hear the shuffle and patter of many feet going to the Christian
Science temple near by.

Claire rubbed her sleepy eyes, then leaned over and patted Rosanna.

"Will you ever forgive me for keeping you awake all night?" she asked
wistfully. "What a _selfish_ girl I am!"

"Indeed, you are not!" declared Rosanna. "Goodness me, what time is it?
Do I hear people going past to church?"

"You do," laughed Claire.

"Well, I was sure we put up all the shades before we went to bed."

"We did, but daddy closed them before he went up to Camp. He always does
that if he thinks I had better sleep late, and leaves a letter for me.
He is _so_ good, Rosanna. I wish he had a nicer child."

"Well, I suppose one can be almost any way one _wants_ to me," replied
Rosanna. "I was so bad and ungrateful once that I'm sure anyone who
wants to try can change themselves. I am not so very good yet, but I
can't help knowing that I am much nicer than I was." Both girls laughed.

"Yes, I am sure you are very nice, indeed," said Claire. "I could never
be as nice as you are."

"Don't make fun of me," pouted Rosanna, her eyes twinkling. "Let's hurry
up and go to church. The Christian Science Church has service an hour
sooner than the others, so we will have time if we rush."

They _did_ rush, and a brisk walk brought them to the arched door of the
old ivy-covered church just as the long line of choir boys walked slowly
down the aisle.

Rosanna heard nothing of the very excellent sermon. It was the first
time she had had to think quietly of what Claire had told her in the
night. She went over it all carefully, her tender heart aching for the
poor girl beside her. If there was only _something_ she could do. She
wanted to help. But what could anyone do in a case like this? If all
those wise doctors said that there was no help for poor Mrs. Maslin,
surely there was nothing for a poor little Girl Scout to do.

Finally she closed her eyes tight, very tight, and a fervent little
prayer for guidance squeezed itself out of her heavy heart.

"Please, _please_ show me what to do!" she begged, and at once, right
then, the rector spoke loudly:

"What have _you_ done?" he demanded. "Have _you_ made an honest effort
to solve your problems, to unravel your tangles, or have you supinely
left it all with your Creator? Believe me, you must make an honest
effort yourself. Ask yourself if you are really trying to do what there
is for you to do."

Rosanna was so startled that she grew red and sat up very straight. Then
she reflected that it was a good thing that she had heard that much of
the sermon. She had prayed for help, and she must be awake and ready to
receive it when it came. Moreover, she herself must look for a way.

All the way back to Claire's she pondered, and was so silent during
dinner that the Colonel accused her of being sleepy. After dinner the
Colonel said he had some letters to write, but later he would take them
to the Country Club for supper. So the girls decided to write also, and
settled themselves on either side of the big library table.

Claire was soon busy writing to a schoolmate in Honolulu, but Rosanna
dawdled over her paper.

Then all at once it came to her. Bright as day, clear as a bell, she
knew what she wanted to do and how to do it. Her thoughts flew back to
the time when Doctor Branshaw, over there in Cincinnati, had operated on
poor little lame Gwenny and had made her well; actually well. She
wondered if people with hurt or lame brains could not be operated on.
And that was another thought. Had Mrs. Maslin ever been hurt, or had she
just--well, just gone so naturally?

"I have been thinking about your mother," she said suddenly,
interrupting Claire. "What do you suppose made her so--I mean the way
she is? Did she ever get hurt?"

"Not enough to harm her," said Claire, starting. "No, never! She had an
awful fall with her horse once, that stunned her for half an hour. I
was with her and I was frightened almost to death. But she was all
right again in no time, and it did not hurt her at all except where she
bumped her head. She would not let me tell daddy because he always
worried over things. Her hair was so thick that it didn't cut her, but
it was a hard blow and she had an awful headache for days, but that was
all. No, she was never hurt."

"I wondered," said Rosanna, and commenced to write. And this is what she
said:

     "_Dear Doctor Branshaw_:

     "You said to the Girl Scouts of our Troop once that we must be sure
     to tell you if ever we found another Gwenny. Do you remember? And
     we all promised that we would.

     "Well, I have. But this girl is not a bit like Gwenny. She is
     beautiful, and has loads and loads of money, and is perfectly well.
     But oh, Doctor Branshaw, she is really sadder than Gwenny, because
     she has no brothers and sisters, but a lovely father whose heart is
     broken and her mother is insane. The doctors say she will never be
     any better, but just go on getting worse and worse always. But I
     prayed about it, and I know that you can cure her. You would be
     glad to if you could see this girl. Her name is Claire Maslin, and
     her father is a colonel in the Army and is stationed here. She is
     not like a girl at all except once in awhile when she forgets, and
     she thinks she is going to go insane too, when she gets older. She
     feels it coming on, but I am sure she is mistaken. But every girl
     needs her mother, don't you think so? And so please cure Mrs.
     Maslin. She is at a place right there in Cincinnati, and the
     address is on the slip of paper pinned to the top sheet.

     "I know that you are very busy, but it will make you feel as good
     as you did about Gwenny when you have cured Claire's mother,
     because I feel as though she needs her very, very badly. Although
     Colonel Maslin is truly lovely, of course he can't really be a
     mother.

     "So _please_ do this, Doctor, as soon as you can possibly get the
     time.

     "Your loving little friend,

     "ROSANNA HORTON.

     "P. S. Claire is a Girl Scout."

Rosanna sealed the letter and addressed it and leaned back with a sigh
of relief. Claire glanced up, and seeing that Rosanna was through her
writing said slowly:

"Rosanna, if you were with me, I don't believe I would ever have another
of those awful spells. I feel so different when I am with you. You make
me feel so brave and quiet. Dad says he wants me to go to the seashore
this summer and I want you to come with me."

It was on Rosanna's lips to say that she was going on a wonderful voyage
across the sea, but she remembered her promise to Uncle Bob and
stammered, "Oh, that would be lovely, Claire, but I would have to see
grandmother about it."

"Oh, _make_ them say yes!" begged Claire. "I _need_ you, Rosanna. I
truly do! Of course, if there is something else you want to do, it is
all right, but I do want you awfully, dear Rosanna, and I am sure we
will have a good time."

"I know it would be perfectly splendid," said Rosanna, wondering why
everything had to happen at the same time. "I will ask about it
tonight, and then I can tell you tomorrow."

"Good," said Claire. "And I will go to dad's study right now and tell
him that he must beg your family to let you come."

"All right," laughed Rosanna, "and while you are telling him, I will go
and change my dress."

She ran lightly upstairs and Claire, humming a little tune in her new
happiness, skipped to her father's private office and opened the door.
What she saw stopped her like a blow. Her father sat at his desk, his
head buried in his arms. His wife's picture was clasped in one hand. His
shoulders shook with sobs.

Rosanna looked up with a smile as Claire entered, but Claire did not
return it. She closed the door carefully, almost as though she thought
it might break, then leaning against it, stood looking into space.

"What did he say?" asked Rosanna.

"Nothing; that is, I didn't speak to him," said Claire. Then with a
rush, "Rosanna, I can't invite you to the seashore after all. I shall
not go. I shall stay with dad. He is down there with mother's picture in
his hand, _crying_. I never saw him cry, Rosanna. It's awful! He is
always so brave. I never saw him cry. I cry enough, but somehow it's
awful for _dad_ to cry. You see I can't leave him, can I, Rosanna?"

"No," said Rosanna, "you can't leave him."

"He is always so cheerful and bright that I never thought about his
feeling it like this. Oh, how selfish I have been! I do not deserve to
be a Girl Scout at all. I came to the place in the Manual the other day,
where it tells about loyalty to parents, and I wouldn't read it at all,
I was so sorry for myself. I just don't deserve my badge. I shall tell
the Captain to deprive me of it."

"Nothing of the sort!" said Rosanna firmly. "You will simply do
differently, that's all."

"Indeed I will! My darling daddy! I didn't know what to do, Rosanna, so
I just came out. I shall not let him know a thing, but I shall tell him
that I mean to stay here with him. And I can be near you, Rosanna, and
you will help me."

The two girls looked at each other. Claire's eyes were pleading and
wistful, her mouth trembled and she breathed as though she had been
running. Rosanna stared until Claire went out in a sort of a mist like
the fade-outs in the movies. And in her place Rosanna saw the tumbling
waters and the white sails of all the ports of the world! And her heart
went down, and down, and down! Then she saw Claire again, and she was
saying, "You _will_ help me, won't you, Rosanna?"

And Rosanna's heart came up, and up, and up. It was filled with splendid
sacrifice and high resolve, and loving kindness; but she only said,
"Yes, Claire, I will be here, and I will help you."

Rosanna had made her choice.




CHAPTER XII


When Rosanna went home that night after supper at the Club and a long
drive up the River Road, she realized for the first time just how great
a sacrifice she _had_ made. All the Ports of the World to see, and now
she might never, never see them! A thousand things might come up to
prevent another such a journey.

She fairly ached as she thought it over. And she wondered how the family
would receive the news she was about to spring.

To her surprise very little was said. Her grandmother immediately wanted
to know if this was more Girl Scout business, and when Rosanna said yes,
she simply nodded as though that answer settled the question in a
perfectly satisfactory way. Cita said, "Oh, Rosanna!" looked as though
she was going to say something also, and stopped. Uncle Robert said,
"Well, I'll be swamfoozled!" Being "swamfoozled" had a strange effect.
Uncle Robert picked Rosanna up bodily, hugged her very hard, kissed her
very hard, and then sat her down hard in a chair. Then everyone just sat
and thought.

"That Claire kid is sure having a hard row to hoe," said Uncle Bob
finally.

"Worse than death," said Mrs. Horton, thinking of young Mrs. Maslin.

"The Colonel told me about it," said Cita.

Uncle Robert heaved a sigh. "Well, sweetness, I believe _absolutely_ in
you Girl Scouts living up to your promises exactly as it seems right to
you. If you feel that staying with this girl is of enough importance to
lose out on this trip overseas, I have confidence enough in your
judgment to know that it _is_ important. And if it is a case of helping
that poor kid through a pretty black place in her life, there is nothing
else for you to do. I reckon it will come out right in the end for both
of you. And I am proud of you, Rosanna."

With a funny formality he bowed and shook her hand. Rosanna somehow felt
well repaid. Uncle Robert never did anything like that unless he was
very, very much in earnest.

Very little else was talked about for the next three days and then other
things came up to crowd it out of the front of Rosanna's mind.

For one thing, Uncle Bob found that he could not go as soon as he
thought, and that put off the packing, so Rosanna had time to get used
to the idea of being left behind without all the misery of seeing the
trunks filled. Claire, who did not know what a sacrifice Rosanna was
about to make for her, made happy plans and dozens of them. Colonel
Maslin, surprised at Claire's sudden refusal to plan for the seashore
trip, insisted on a reason and was made very happy by the knowledge that
his cold and moody daughter really loved her unhappy father more than
she did her own pleasure.

Late in the afternoon of the third day Rosanna was called to the
telephone. It was a long distance call from Cincinnati and for a full
five minutes Dr. Branshaw talked to her.

Rosanna was very thoughtful when she hung up the receiver and went down
to ask Claire who was sitting in the rose arbor, if she was going to
drive to camp after her father. Claire was, and together they started.
On a sunny corner, up by the Reform School, they saw Mabel Brewster
standing.

She looked warm and dejected, and Claire stopped the car and asked the
young newspaper woman if she cared to ride with them.

Mabel accepted with very little enthusiasm, remarking as she did so that
she had to be back at the office at a quarter before six.

When they reached Camp, Rosanna slipped her hand in Claire's and said
coaxingly, "Claire dear, I want to see your father all by himself. Will
you mind?"

"A secret?" asked Claire, laughing. "Dear me, how exciting this is!
Shall I ever know what it is about?"

"If you are a good girl perhaps," said Rosanna, skipping toward the
Colonel's office. When she found herself seated facing Colonel Maslin
across the big flat-top desk, her courage failed her for a minute, then
she plunged into the story.

"I don't know if I have done right or not, Colonel Maslin," she said.
"All I thought was that Claire is a Girl Scout and we are bound to help
each other. And I did not stop to ask anyone's advice."

"What can it be?" said Colonel Maslin, smiling.

"Claire told me about her mother," resumed Rosanna. "And what she is
afraid of, you know; and I felt as though there must be _some_ way to
help. So Sunday morning, you know, we went to church; and I just sat
there and thought and _thought_, and then I prayed. I did not hear a
word of the sermon, but right away Doctor Ford just shouted at me, and
asked if _I_ had been trying to _do_ anything. And that I had better had
if I expected God to help me. But even then I didn't know what to do.
When we were writing letters after dinner, it all came to me. You know
the little Gwenny I told you about, and the doctor in Cincinnati who
made her perfectly well?

"Well, I wrote him a letter right then. I asked him to please cure Mrs.
Maslin as soon as he had time, because Claire is a Girl Scout. This
afternoon Doctor Branshaw telephoned me. He says he can't go ahead and
take care of Mrs. Maslin unless you tell him to. He can't have anything
to do with it at all unless you say so. But he knows the doctor where
Mrs. Maslin is, so he went up to see her and he asked me if I knew how
long since Mrs. Maslin fell."

"She never had a fall," said Colonel Maslin positively.

"Yes, she fell from her horse about six years ago," said Rosanna. "It
gave her fearful headaches."

"How do you know all this?" demanded the Colonel.

"Claire told me. She was with her mother but she promised not to tell on
account of worrying you, and it didn't amount to anything."

"Good heavens!" muttered Colonel Maslin. "Go on!"

"I told the Doctor about that, and he said if you wanted to consult him,
to telephone him."

Instead of answering, the Colonel took down the telephone receiver and
inquired about trains to Cincinnati. Then he rose, came to Rosanna, and
very solemnly kissed her on the forehead.

"I shall take the nine o'clock train for Cincinnati to see this doctor
of yours, and I think it would be well if we kept our hopes to ourselves
for awhile. It would not be kind to raise Claire's hopes again."

"That is what I thought," answered Rosanna. "She will just think our
talk is something about vacation. Oh, Colonel, I am so _sure_ that
Doctor Branshaw will cure Mrs. Maslin! If you had seen Gwenny, you would
feel just as I do, I am sure."

"Claire's mother is ill in a different way, my dear," said Colonel
Maslin sadly, "but we will hope for the best. As soon as I return from
Cincinnati, I will tell you just what the doctor says. I would try
anything in the world--but we must go now."

Together they went out to the car, Colonel Maslin looking so thoughtful
that Claire declared that she didn't see how they could either of them
bear to leave her out of the secret. They drove down to the
_Times-Leader_ office with Mabel, and on the way home Claire said that
Mabel was awfully excited. She had written a poem and had left a copy of
it on the Editor's desk.

"She says," said Claire, "that she knows it is good, and if the
_Times-Leader_ pays a dollar a line, the way lots of the magazines do,
she will get a hundred dollars for it."

"Great Scott!" said Colonel Maslin. "How long is it?"

"Twenty stanzas, five lines each," said Claire. "She made them four
lines each at first, then she put on a sort of refrain, on account of
the extra dollar."

"A very businesslike young poet," said Colonel Maslin. "I would like to
see a sample of that poem. I am not sure that I would have time to read
twenty stanzas, but I could get a good idea of it from eight or ten
verses, no doubt."

"Well, we will see it all, if it is published," said Claire. "Mabel says
she will not allow them to print it unless they pay her price for it.
She says good work is always worth its price."

Colonel Maslin shook his head solemnly. "That beats all!" he said. "I
suppose by now she has her check and is wondering what to do with the
one hundred dollars."

Nothing like that was happening to Mabel!

Since the fatal Sunday when she had refused to attend the office boy's
picnic, he had regarded her with such scorn that it was apparent to the
whole force. Mabel's small, shy overtures of friendship were simply
scoffed at. He did not leave her alone; he put himself in her way for
the pleasure it gave him to stalk off again, with a grin on his face and
his snub nose in the air. Reams of society notes which Mabel had
written, only to have them discarded by Miss Gere, he picked out of the
waste baskets and laid on her desk, saying loudly, "I think these are
yours, Miss Brewster."

When she went out at night, she found him hanging affectionately over
Frank's shoulder, but at the sight of her he turned and strutted off.

Mabel was sure that the City Editor was watching her more than he had at
first, but her conceit took that as a compliment. Miss Gere's manner had
not changed, but Mabel heard her sigh often.

Miss Gere _was_ sighing over Mabel, but Mabel did not guess that. She
would not have believed such a thing possible.

She did not like the manner of the office boy, however. It hurt her
pride. When she reached the door of the office, it was deserted
excepting for Jimmie who, with his face pressed close to the dingy
window pane, was watching something in the street below. In a corner
near the door a temporary cloak-room had been made by running up two
flimsy partitions. They were only six feet high but there was a place to
fix one's hair at a little glass and keep coats and hats out of the
dust. Mabel tiptoed quickly into this haven and decided to wait there
until someone else came in. She sat down noiselessly on the rickety
chair but immediately she heard steps and voices. Before she could rise
she heard a sentence that froze her. She forgot that listening is a
despicable trick. She just sat transfixed! The voice was that of the
Editor and he was evidently talking to Miss Gere about her, because he
said:

"Why, today I found a poem on my desk, with a letter. Why, Miss Gere,
that kid ought to be home under her mother's wing, and here she is
trying to be sophisticated, and writing drivel that would shame a child
six years old!"

Miss Gere laughed.

"Don't be so severe, Chief," she begged.

"I am _not_ severe!" he said savagely. "You are not fair with her. If
that girl has no more feeling for her mother and no appreciation of her
brother--Why, do you know that youngster sleeps outside her door every
night to take care of her, for fear someone might frighten her? She
_needs_ a good scare _I_ should say. Sleeps there on the floor!"

Miss Gere interrupted. "Not quite as bad as that," she said. "I happen
to know that there is a settee there."

"Well, what's a settee for a growing boy?" growled the Chief. "Well, if
she has no affection, no gratitude and evidently no natural love for her
own people and only an _ordinary_ brain, what's the use of bothering
with her? _I_ don't want to see her hanging around. I know she is under
your charge, Miss Gere, but I wish you would let me fire her. I want to
tell her to go home and ask her mother to forgive her, and see if she
can get a little sense into her head, and try to live and act according
to her years. Where in time did she get such notions?"

"She reads a good deal, I believe," said Miss Gere. "Cheap magazines and
silly novels."

"Well, fire her! As far as I go, the experiment is over!" He walked over
to his desk. "When she comes in tomorrow, send her to me. I will at
least have the comfort of telling her what I think of this poem. You
will hear the truth about your imagined talents for once, Miss Mabel
Brewster." He slammed down the top of his desk and stalked out without
saying good-night.

Jesse, quite pale under his freckles, came over to Miss Gere.

"My land!" he said. "What ails the Old Man? Somebody on the _Journal_
must 'a' got a scoop away from him. Say, he gave it to her good, didn't
he?"

"She deserves all that, Jesse, but he was rather wild about it."

"_I_ don't think she deserves such a call," said Jesse. "And I don't say
that because she ever fell for me, because she didn't. She hates me
worse'n a stingin' adder, but I bet she's a darned nice girl if it
wasn't for this foolishness about a career. She's a Girl Scout, too, and
has a whole sleeve full of Merit badges. You can't fake those, you know.
She's due to get a fierce bump, and if she doesn't get it here, she will
the next place. Gee, I'm glad I'm not her!"

"She _is_ a little goose," said Miss Gere, who had had a hard day and
was tired out. "And she has the sweetest mother in the world."

"Don't I know? I'll say I do!" said Jesse fervently. "She chaperoned a
picnic last week for us, and before the picnic was half over all of us
fellows had forgotten the picnic, and the girls and everything, and were
sitting around Mrs. Brewster, listening to her talk. I'll say she is all
right! And Miss M. Brewster _wouldn't go_! Well, I am sorry for her. She
must have a good streak somewhere. Are you going now, Miss Gere?"

They went out together, and Mabel could hear their voices echoing along
the empty corridor. She was shaking. Somehow she got out of the building
and turned toward Third Street. Frank was not in sight, having been
told by Jesse that his sister was not in the office. She hoped fervently
that she would not meet him. As she passed a grocery she remembered that
her larder was empty, but she did not want to eat ever again. She wanted
to get into her room and shut the door on the whole world.

_Her_ world had tumbled. As she made her way blindly past the closed
stores and around by the trolley terminal she felt a touch on her arm.
She turned, and a young rowdy fell into step with her, and pushed his
battered hat rakishly over his eyes.

"Hello, girlie!" he muttered in a hoarse voice. "Seen you comin' an'
made up my mind you hadn't no date. I like your looks. How's a sody?" He
took Mabel by the elbow.

She wrenched herself free, and with a gasp ran fleetingly up the street.

So this was what Frank had been saving her from! Such creatures as the
one who had just spoken to her! She looked behind, and saw to her relief
that the fellow was not trying to follow her. She choked down her sobs
and hurried on. When she reached the apartment she locked the door
behind her with trembling fingers, and for the first time looked under
beds and in clothes-presses; everywhere where an intruder might lurk.
But she was quite alone.




CHAPTER XIII


Mabel Brewster may live to be a very old woman but she will never like
to look back at that one night in her life. She could not eat anything;
she could not read, although a nice trashy novel invited her. She could
not sleep. And it was well.

Mabel had come to a place where she was forced to balance her books. She
had been _so_ anxious to be a business woman, a professional woman, a
Free Soul, that she had not looked once on the debit side of the page.
And sooner or later we all must do this.

She was very, very unhappy, embarrassed and ashamed; but her mind was
made up. All she longed for was light--the coming of day so that she
could carry out the plans she had formulated.

She sat thinking, thinking until ten o'clock, then with a queer little
smile as she noticed the time, she went to the door with caution and
turned the key, and slowly, very slowly opened the door.

It was true. On the cramped, uncomfortable settee, curled up asleep, was
Frank. Mabel stared. So it was true--her brother--just as they had said!
For one wild moment her resolves vanished. She felt an overpowering
impulse to run away, to disappear so the dear people whom she had
utterly failed would never again see her face. But it vanished as
quickly as it had come.

She stepped to Frank's side and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.
Instantly his arm shot out in a sweeping blow and he leaped to his feet.
The doubled fist missed Mabel by a bare fraction.

"Don't hit me, dear," she said gently. "Come inside and go to bed
properly. You see I know all about you at last. I can't thank you for
being so good to me, but I am going to be a better sister to you,
Frank."

Frank, looking rather sheepish at being caught, followed his sister into
the room. He looked about it curiously. He had never been through the
apartment, wishing to show by his absence that he disapproved of the
whole thing. Now, however, he was embarrassed and needed a subject for
conversation.

"It is not bad here," he said gruffly.

"I think it is _perfectly horrid_!" said Mabel. "If you and mother will
let me, I am coming home tomorrow."

"To stay?" asked Frank incredulously.

"To stay forever and ever!" said Mabel. "It will take me that long to
show you what a goose I have been, and how I mean to be different. Oh,
Frank, there is _no_ such thing as a person living all for herself.
_Never!_ I wonder if there was ever such a silly, conceited, _selfish_
person in the world before."

"Well, my goodness, Mabe, I wouldn't knock myself like that," said
Frank uncomfortably. "If that's the way you feel, why, it's all right. I
know mother will be tickled to death to have you home again. She feels
pretty bad about your being away. She is lonesome as the dickens for
you. But she is so sweet she wouldn't let you know it."

Mabel burst into tears.

"Oh, I have been lonesome too!" she cried. "I have been perfectly
miserable! Oh, Frank, I don't see what ailed me!"

"Why not pick up some of your things and go home tonight?" suggested
Frank hopefully.

"No," she said. "If I am going to turn over a new leaf I will have a
good many things to do tomorrow. Oh dear, it is going to be perfectly
awful, but I deserve it. We had better go to bed now, Frank. There is a
bed all made up in the little room next to mine. Oh, how scared I used
to be here all alone!"

"I wouldn't bother to think about it," said Frank. "I bet we will have a
good time after this, Sissy. We will understand each other better. And I
have learned a lesson myself; and that is to stick by my mother just as
close as ever I can."

"Here, too!" said Mabel. "Oh, I wish it was morning! I wish tomorrow was
all over!"

"Can I help?" asked Frank, as he stooped to unlace his shoes.

"No, thank you," said Mabel grimly. "I started this thing, and I am
going to finish it."

"Well, good-night then," said Frank, giving his sister a hearty hug and
kiss, which Mabel returned joyfully. The days when she had turned a cold
cheek to her brother or had given him a chilly peck were past forever.

Next morning, Mabel, instead of wadding her nice hair up in buns,
braided it neatly in her old fashion, put on her neatest and most
girlish dress, and went down to the _Times-Leader_ office. All the
reporters had received their assignments and had gone out. The City
Editor sat at his desk inside the magic railing that Mabel had planned
to pass. She caught her breath, then walked up and rested her hands on
the rail. When he saw her the Editor rose. He felt as though he wanted
to look as tall as he felt, when he said what he intended to say to this
pert young person.

"Well, young lady," he commenced, but Mabel, nodding her head,
interrupted him.

"Yes, sir, I know just what you are going to say," she said, fixing her
eyes bravely on his. "I never meant to eavesdrop, but I was here in the
cloak-room last evening when you said what you did to Miss Gere. About
me, I mean, and my selfishness, and my bad poetry and all of everything.
And it is all true. I am glad I heard you. It is perfectly true. But I
have been finding out since I came in here that I don't amount to
anything. And I have been so bad to my mother that perhaps she won't
want me to come home at all. I am sorry you have had to bother with me,
and of course I don't deserve any wages. I just wanted you to know that
I am going to go home and beg my mother to forgive me, and if she _will_
let me come back, I am going to try to show her that it did pay to let
me make this experiment after all."

Mabel choked, but before the dumbfounded Editor could sit down nearer
Mabel's level and feel as small as he _wanted_ to feel, she went on:

"I think mother will let me try again. She is that sort. And you needn't
be afraid; I will truly, _truly_ be a good girl, and I'm so sorry." She
turned and bolted for the door and collided violently with Jesse, who
had entered just behind her with a letter for the Editor. Mabel righted
herself and gave the boy a jerky little nod.

"You heard what I said, didn't you?" she asked. "Well, I mean it! And I
am sorry I was horrid to you. It was just because I was a conceited
little prig, and you needn't speak to me again ever!"

She dodged around the boy and was out of sight.

"_Cummere!_" roared the City Editor all in one word, but Mabel ran
breathlessly down the dusty stairs toward the street. She simply could
not stay up there and wait for Miss Gere. She would write her a letter
or go to her house. Just as she reached the bottom of the last flight
she heard someone pounding down four steps at a time. It was Jesse, and
when he reached her, he laid a desperate clutch on her sleeve.

"Hey, you've got to listen!" he panted. "Gosh, I won't let you go off
without telling you I think you have got more grit than any girl I ever
saw. No matter what you ever did to me, I'm strong for you now all
right. Don't you forget that! And I want to shake hands with you if you
don't mind."

He put out a grimy paw and pumped Mabel's hand vigorously up and down.

Mabel found herself unable to speak. She dragged her hand away and
rushed out of the building, tears blinding her eyes but a strange warm
feeling in her heart. She walked up the street thinking of Jesse; Jesse
who had been so utterly scorned.

How splendid he seemed now! How generous and friendly and loyal! And
when you really looked at him, he was not homely. He had freckles, of
course, and his nose was snub, and his hair seemed to be all cowlicks:
but the teeth that his wide grin disclosed were dazzling white, his blue
eyes simply crackled they were so full of twinkles, and his hand,
despite the grime, was warm and friendly. Mabel felt her heart lift a
little. It looked as though she had one friend after all.

Unfortunately she had not understood the roar sent after her by the
Editor. It was a pity, because that Editor was quite her ideal of
everything great, and it would have comforted her to know that, as she
scurried up Third Street, he was sitting hunched up in his chair,
listening to Jesse's vigorous words as he told of the look on Mabel's
face and her tear-filled eyes as she ran away from him. It would have
comforted Mabel indeed if some kind fairy had whispered to her that she
was one day to be on terms of the greatest friendliness with that same
Editor, with the privilege of entering his magic railing any time she
liked. But no such thought came to comfort her and she rushed on, her
feet trying to keep pace with her eagerness to reach her mother.

What she said to that dear mother, what tears they shed together, and
what plans they made for a new and happy life together, any girl who has
made a mistake and has owned up everything in the safe circle of her
mother's arms will easily guess.

A couple of hours later Mabel and Frank were at the miserable apartment
cleaning up and packing Mabel's things. Mabel was happy. She was going
home. She was going to be just a _real girl_ and a _good Scout_, and she
felt as though she wanted to prance for joy. There was a Scout meeting
that night and it was up to her to attend and make her report And so
greatly had her point of view changed and so high had her courage grown
that she did not mind one bit.

It did seem as though there had never been as good a supper as that
happy family sat down to enjoy. Oh, what a good supper it was! After the
chilly canned meats, and olives and delicatessen cakes that Mabel had
been subsisting on, to have fluffy hot biscuit, flaky potatoes, tender
asparagus, and perfectly broiled beefsteak--Mabel nearly cried with
happiness. They all helped to get it, and Frank sang at the top of his
voice while he set the table.

As soon as supper was over and the dishes stacked in the kitchen, Mrs.
Brewster made Mabel get on her Scout uniform, and Frank walked over to
the Hortons with her.

The girls were all glad to see Mabel, and there was a sort of stir of
excitement as they one and all remembered that on her return to the
Scout meetings Mabel was to tell them all about her experiences in the
big world of labor.

Mabel was so anxious to get her story over with that she could scarcely
wait for the business part of the meeting to be finished. The Captain
was anxious, too. As she had had no chance to see Mabel before the
meeting opened, she could not guess what Mabel intended to say, although
she had an inkling that the experiment had turned out exactly as she had
hoped it would.

When Mabel's chance finally came, when the Captain had given her
permission to speak, and she rose from her chair and faced the roomful
of girls, she found that her heart was beating heavily and her breath
coming fast. But she did not hesitate.

"I reckon the first thing to tell you about my experiment in living for
myself alone is that it will not work. I don't believe that anyone in
the _world_ can actually live as selfishly as I tried to. A girl needs
her mother every minute, and she needs whatever else she has in the line
of a family.

"Well, to begin at the beginning, I had been reading a lot of silly
novels, and every time I could I went to see a movie about elopements
and girls who were misunderstood by their families. You see I am going
to make this a real honest confession instead of just a report. If I
just said that I failed, why, some of you perhaps would think you could
do better than I did, and try it for yourselves. But you needn't waste
your time. Only I don't believe any other Girl Scout would ever be as
silly as I have been.

"Well, to begin again, I went over to an apartment that a friend of ours
was leaving vacant, and there I stayed all alone. Some of you girls came
to see me, but you didn't act as though you were very crazy over it and
I finally learned why. Of course I know how to cook quite a few things
but it was not much fun trying to fix meals for just one, and I
remembered all the time how I used to grumble at home because I had to
get things for Frank once in awhile. And all the while I was there in
that apartment my dear brother was sleeping on a mean little settee in
the hall because he was afraid I would be scared or sick." Mabel paused,
and her eyes filled with tears. Then she continued:

"Mother arranged for me to take a position under Miss Gere, the Society
Editor of the _Times-Leader_, I thought I was going to do wonders but I
found that Miss Gere had to rewrite almost everything I turned in, and
no one wanted to be interviewed by a school-girl, anyway. There was an
awfully nice boy in the office. I thought I was a great deal better than
he was, and I snubbed him awfully, and come to find out, he is a great
friend of Frank's and I am dreadfully ashamed of the way I treated
_him_. Everything went from bad to worse. I finally got so I didn't have
anything for meals but cooked stuff from the delicatessens, and at that
I spent everything I made. I just bought me one hat. It costs awfully to
live and buy food. I don't see how grown people do it. Oh, well, I will
skip a lot of details. But I was sick as I could be of my experiment,
and wished myself back home a million times a day; but I was too
stubborn to give in. Besides, I still thought I was a little wonder at
writing. But yesterday! I was in the cloak-room, and overheard the
Editor talking to Miss Gere, and oh, girls, he said the most _awful_
things about me and the way I worked, and the wretched stuff I wrote,
and oh, _everything_! What he thought of me for my disloyalty to my
mother, trying to get out and shirk my duty just when she needs me, and
everything! I don't believe he left out anything! And girls, it is all
true. Every bit!

"Well, he and Miss Gere went out, and I went home and sat down and
thought about everything. I never felt so small. And however small I
felt, I knew it was my really true size. The size I belong. About an
inch high.

"And presently I looked into the hall, and there was Frank all crunched
up on the settee. I woke him up and asked him to forgive me, and I felt
a little better.

"Well, this morning I went down to see the Editor, and before he had a
chance to tell me what he thought of me, I hurried up and told him what
I thought of myself. He looked sort of surprised. But before he could
say anything, I dashed out. And when I was almost to the door
downstairs, down came that boy. He had heard everything and he came all
the way down to say he thought I was _brave_, and to shake hands with
me. It made me feel a little better.

"I 'most ran all the way home, and I felt lonelier and littler all the
way, and when I opened the door and saw my mother I just fell on her. I
forgot I was going to say that my experiment had failed and that I
wanted to come home. I forgot everything I had planned. When I saw how
sweet she looked and how _motherly_, I just cried and cried, and all I
said at all was, 'Oh, mother, _am_ I your little girl? _Am_ I your
little girl for always?' And all she said was, 'Always and always and
always, my darling!'"

Mabel's voice trailed off to a husky whisper. Her eyes were downcast as
she twisted a button on her blouse, and she did not see that half the
eyes were wet. But they were friendly eyes. Not a girl there but liked
Mabel a thousand times better for her brave and outright confession.

"That is all," said Mabel after a pause. "Mother says it is wiped out
and all past, like a fever, but I shall not forget it. I don't _want_ to
forget it. And I want you, every one of you, to come right out and tell
me if you ever see me acting conceited or snobbish or silly, because I
will _not_ go back and be the old Mabel."

"Well, Mabel, you are a brick!" said Jane, springing up. "I know we are
going to be the best of friends in the world. I didn't like the old
Mabel a bit either!"

"I don't think there _was_ any old Mabel," said the Captain quietly. "It
was always this Mabel, sensible and true, but mistaken and sadly on the
wrong track. And I am so proud, Mabel, to see how you have profited by
this lesson."

"Thank you very much," said Mabel: then added grimly, "But new Mabel or
old, she deserved it all. And I hope I never have to see that Editor
again."

But she did.




CHAPTER XIV


A day or so after this memorable meeting of the Girl Scouts things
commenced to happen so rapidly that Rosanna was fairly dizzy.

Uncle Bob's affairs straightened out and the family set off for New
York, where they were to take passage for France, their first stopping
place. Rosanna, with a heartache that she could not control, went over
with her modest little trunk to stay with Claire. It was a tremendous
sacrifice for the little girl to give up this marvelous journey, and all
her fine generosity and tenderheartedness failed to save her a few deep
pangs. But if ever a girl was repaid, it was enough to pay _anyone_ to
see the wordless gratitude of Claire.

When Claire found that the Hortons were going abroad and that Rosanna
intended to remain with the Maslins, it was necessary to tell her
something of the reason why, for of course she could not understand the
common sense of Rosanna remaining with her. So Colonel Maslin explained
that a new doctor was going to try the effect of an operation on her
mother. Doctor Branshaw did not want to operate until he was sure that
his patient was in good condition, so he insisted on waiting for awhile
and to Claire this waiting would be the greatest strain of all. So much
depended on the operation. Her mother, her beautiful, gay, young mother
restored almost from the dead, or else.... Claire stopped there. She did
not feel herself strong enough to think of anything but her mother
getting well.

The doctor and Colonel Maslin agreed that it would not do to worry
Claire, and so the wistful and frightened girl was thrown more and more
on the kindness of Rosanna. Claire was frightened. It dawned on her that
perhaps her mother might die in this terrible operation that was coming.
Rosanna did not fail her. She carried Claire out of her despairing moods
by her own cheerful, hopeful presence and, thanks to her, the time
passed quickly.

School ended and vacation commenced. The summer heat beat on Louisville,
and even the shady byways and lanes running through the beautiful parks
were breathless. Colonel Maslin begged the girls to go into the country
but Claire refused to leave him.

The Troop of Girl Scouts went off for a week's camping, but as Claire
would not leave her father, Rosanna decided not to go. The girls
returned, sunbrowned and bubbling with funny accounts of the trip. Every
evening a row of them came and sat on the Maslin porch, and told new
stories.

Claire and Rosanna almost felt as though they had been present. When
Jane and Estella and Elise and Helen came, all talking at once, it was
hard to figure out just what _had_ happened.

But the funniest one of all was Mabel Brewster. Whether it was her
experiences on the staff of the _Times-Leader_ or her evident happiness
in her return to her home, it was hard to say; but she had become a fine
story-teller and was the life of the party. She always saw the funny
side of things and could tell a joke on a girl without being bitter.

There came at last hot and stifling days when the thunderheads piled
high in the west and the leaves hung sagging on the branches. The girls
kept within doors in a desperate effort to keep out of the worst of the
heat. At noon Colonel Maslin came in, looking troubled and worn. He sat
down on a wicker chair near the girls, who were flat on the floor
propped on their elbows, trying to read.

"Claire, I have just had a telephone call from the doctor," he said. "He
wants to see me. Will you come? I think you had better."

"Of course, daddy!" said Claire at once. She got up. "At what time does
our train go?"

"I thought we might drive over," said the Colonel. "It would be so hot
on a train a day like this. Will you come too, Rosanna?"

"I would love to," answered Rosanna.

"Just tell Chang to get ready, will you, dear?" asked the Colonel of his
daughter. She left the room, and they heard her calling to Chang in the
distance.

"Rosanna, the time has come," said the Colonel in a voice which shook a
little. "We won't tell Claire until we reach Cincinnati, but this
weather is undoing all the weeks of preparation, and the doctor says the
operation must take place immediately. Mrs. Maslin has been feeling so
well that he is very anxious to try the experiment when she is at her
strongest and best. He promises nothing. It may result in her death, but
we must try it, Rosanna, if only for Claire's sake."

"Does she--Mrs. Maslin know about it?" asked Rosanna.

"She knows nothing, my dear," said the Colonel sadly. "Just sits and
looks into space all day long. And she was the gayest, brightest,
happiest creature. They called her the most popular woman in the Army. I
can't tell you what she was to us." He bent his fine head and a sigh
that was nearly a sob shook his shoulders. "We may lose her," he
whispered.

"No, indeed!" said Rosanna. "I know Dr. Branshaw is going to make her
perfectly well again. _I_ don't feel worried at all. I feel so happy I
don't know what to do. So _glad_! Oh, Colonel, just think! Claire will
have her mother again. You can't think how a person wants her mother. It
doesn't matter how many other people are good to you no one is like a
mother. I am sure this is so, because you know _my_ mother is dead, and
I feel so lonely and empty, even when I have my grandmother and Cita
and Uncle Bob. Somehow nobody's shoulder feels the same as a mother's.
My mother died when I was a baby, but I know it, just the same."

Tears started to Colonel Maslin's eyes as he listened to the brave,
uncomplaining little girl.

"You are quite right, my dear," he said. "And I pray that your doctor
will give Claire's mother back to her. If she is cured, it will be your
gift. Not one of the specialists we have had ever discovered the piece
of bone pressing on her brain."

"She will be well," declared Rosanna. "I wish the operation was all over
with."

She wished it more than ever the next day when they swallowed a heavy
apology for a breakfast and drove to the hospital where Mrs. Maslin had
been taken. Rosanna will never to the end of her days be able to look at
certain magazines without a shudder. The two girls sat or walked
restlessly around the bare waiting-room, turned over the pages of the
periodicals on the prim table, or gazed silently out of the window where
they could see the usually impassive and unmoved Chang pacing restlessly
up and down beside the limousine.

Occasionally Colonel Maslin came in, made a brief comment, and dashed
out again. Each time he left Claire whispered, "Poor father!" little
guessing that her father, rushing back to the operating-room, was
whispering to himself, "Poor Claire! My poor baby!"

Somehow or other time dragged on, the anxiety growing with every moment
until at last, looking more haggard than ever, Colonel Maslin entered
and took his daughter in his arms.

"It is over, darling," he said huskily. "It was very bad. She may not
live. You must be brave. She is coming out of the ether, and the doctor
wants us to be with her when she becomes conscious. Can you be _quite_
calm and natural?"

"You know that I can," said Claire quietly. "Come, dad!"

They left the room and Rosanna, forgotten, clasped her hands
passionately. "Oh, _please_ save her! _Please_ make her well! Claire
_needs_ her mother," she prayed over and over.

In the silent room upstairs Claire caught a blurred impression of
whiteness and watchfulness. Her mother's bloodless hand lay on the
counterpane and a doctor watched the fluttering pulse. Another doctor
stood ready to administer an injection in case the feeble heart should
fail. A couple of nurses moved swiftly but noiselessly here and there.
They made way for the man and girl and beckoned them close to the bed.
Colonel Maslin dropped on one knee and standing with her arm around his
neck, Claire looked at her mother whom she had not seen for so long.

Her head was closely bandaged, but oh, how beautiful and how dear she
was! After what seemed an endless time there was a flutter of the white
eye-lids, and they lifted slowly. For a moment the beautiful eyes
stared blankly. Hope died in Claire's heart. Then the weary eyes found
them, looked at the Colonel, studied Claire in a curious way, and then
seemed to embrace them both. A faint smile flickered across the face,
and a faint whisper trembled on the air.

"My two sweethearts!" Mrs. Maslin said, and as though even that was too
great a tax drifted off into unconsciousness again.

"She is all right," said Doctor Branshaw. "Better go now, Maslin. I will
see you downstairs."

Tears were pouring down the Colonel's face as he rose and with a long,
adoring look at his wife, left the room, Claire clinging to his hand.
But out in the long corridor, the door safely closed behind them, Claire
gave a deep sigh and quietly fainted.

The Colonel picked his daughter up, turned into the first unoccupied
room and laid her on the bed. Then he hurried after a nurse. When Claire
came to herself, Rosanna, rather pale, was holding her hand. She was
trying to swallow something bitter, and her father stood near her,
looking as though he was to blame.

"Oh, I am _so_ sorry, daddy!" she said as soon as she could speak. "I
feel all right. What a silly thing for me to do! How is mother?"

"If you are going to behave yourself now, dear, I will go and see," said
Colonel Maslin. He kissed her and hurried off. Claire, feeling
strangely weak but so happy, turned to Rosanna.

"She knew us!" she said. "She knew us both, and now, even if she dies, I
will always have that to remember."

"She will not die!" Rosanna declared for the hundredth time.

"There are worse cases than your mother's," said the nurse comfortingly.
"If she stands the shock, she will be all right, and I am sure she will.
Don't you worry or think she is not going to be well. You want to send
thoughts of courage and strength to her instead of thinking that she
must die."

"That sounds like some of the new religions," said Rosanna.

"It is not," said the nurse. "It is just plain common sense. Just you
try it!"

"I don't need to," said Rosanna. "I know Mrs. Maslin will get well, and
Claire will know so, too, when she gets over being frightened."

Claire did get over being frightened, although for many days her
mother's life hung by a thread. They stayed at the nearest hotel, and as
Colonel Maslin had been given leave of absence they had the comfort of
his presence.

As time went on and it became a certainty that Mrs. Maslin would live
and be her own self again, Claire was allowed to see her mother. At
first her visits were limited to a skimpy five minutes once a day,
spent under the eyes of a stern nurse who watched the time and put her
out without mercy. But as the days wore by and the invalid grew
stronger, Claire was allowed to spend many happy hours with her mother.

Came a day when the Colonel was obliged to return to duty. And after a
talk with her mother Claire went with him, Rosanna of course
accompanying them. Rosanna had had a good time after the first period of
worry, during which she never left Claire for a half hour. And Claire
was grateful. Rosanna did not guess how grateful. She did not guess how
often Claire talked to her mother and father about the Girl Scout's
loyalty and devotion. And Claire was naturally so quiet that it was hard
for her to tell Rosanna just what she thought about it all. But Rosanna
did not mind. She knew without words what her companionship had meant to
Claire during her time of trial.

Rosanna knew from that strange inner source that tells us so much and
leads us so unerringly that she had done right to give up the chance to
see the Ports of the World. And she was glad. Her sacrifice had proved
to her, at least, that being a Girl Scout meant more than the happy
companionship along the woodland ways in summer, or the friendly
striving for merits in winter.

One little thing worried her: her task was to be finished sooner than
she had thought. When Claire's mother came home, Rosanna did not want
to be there. For one thing, she wisely felt that Mrs. Maslin would want
Claire all to herself, and she knew that Claire would have no time or
thought to give anyone else, even a friend as well loved as Rosanna knew
herself to be.

Rosanna did not know where to go. The Hargraves had gone down to the old
home in Lexington; Mrs. Culver and Helen were visiting in Akron, Ohio.
Rosanna thought harder and harder as the days passed, and the bulletins
from the hospital grew better and more encouraging. At last the doctor
actually set a date. In three days Claire could have her mother. She was
to come home slowly and carefully in the limousine. And there must be
weeks and weeks of unbroken rest in her own home, with her devoted
husband and loving child and the adoring Chang to anticipate every wish.

Then Rosanna had an inspiration. Her old nurse and maid, Minnie, was
married and living with her nice, hard-working young husband in a
rose-covered cottage in the Highlands. Rosanna knew that they would both
be perfectly delighted to receive her.

She closed the book she was reading and went to the telephone. As she
reached it, the bell jingled.

"Hello!" she said listlessly.

A voice vaguely familiar answered, "Is Miss Rosanna Horton there?"

"This is Rosanna," said she.

There was a slight pause, then the voice said in a queer _mincy_ way,
"Oh, yes, Miss Rosanna Horton. Well, can you tell me, please, where Mr.
Robert Horton is?"

"He is in France," said Rosanna.

"Are you _sure_?" said the voice. "I heard that he had returned to this
country on business and was here in Louisville. I heard he had come to
see a niece of his."

Rosanna had heard enough. She commenced to jump up and down.

"Oh, Uncle Robert, Uncle Bobby, where are you? Oh, hurry, hurry!"

"All right, sweetness," said Uncle Bob in his own voice. "I am right
behind the house in the garage. I thought I would let you down easy."

Rosanna did not hear anything after "garage." She dropped the receiver,
went through the house like a whirlwind, and was clasped in Uncle
Robert's arms, where it must be confessed she shed some real and
comforting tears.

Rosanna's sacrifice had not been so very easy, you know.




CHAPTER XV


Uncle Bob had very little to say until Colonel Maslin came in and they
gathered around the dinner table. Then, with a smile, he commenced his
little story.

"Rosanna has been asking me about a million questions. It would take a
week or so, hard labor, to answer them all, and then Colonel Maslin and
Claire would want to hear about things, so I will make my little speech
now.

"We were all settled for the summer in a beautiful old place in the
older part of Paris. Just the sort of a place you would love,
Rosanna--high walls, and a park with sheep cropping the grass, and
woods, and all that. Deer, too. It's too bad you are not there."

Rosanna flushed. "I don't mind, Uncle Bob," she said, and Claire
squeezed her hand.

"Well," continued Uncle Bob, "Culver's invention is a bigger thing than
we thought, and we thought it was pretty big. I was being worked to
death with meetings and presentations and contracts, and all that. It is
the one thing that commercial Europe needs today, and there was more
work than I could carry.

"Besides that, there was a lot of blueprints, material and so on that I
needed, and I wanted to get a look at Rosanna here. I'll say, sweetness,
that your poor old Uncle Bob missed you something scandalous! So as long
as I had to come as far as New York I thought I would run along and see
you all.

"Culver is going back with me. He is the one man to help out over there,
and it is too much for me. Besides," he added abruptly, "I thought if
she didn't have any pressing engagement on hand, I would take Rosanna
back with me."

"Oh, Uncle Bob!" cried Rosanna. "It is too good to be true! Are you
truly in earnest?" It was almost what Rosanna had said months before
when Mr. Robert had first announced the trip, and he must have
remembered it, because with a smile he answered, "Hope to live and _haf_
to die, Rosanna!" and Rosanna seemed satisfied.

"Oh, Rosanna, I am _so_ glad!" cried Claire. "You have been so good to
me, and now you will still have your good time, only it will be much
better because you have been so good to me. I am so glad, and mother
will be so glad too when I tell her. Do you know about my mother, Mr.
Horton?"

"Your father told me this afternoon. We met downtown, and I congratulate
you with all my heart."

"It is all due to Rosanna," said Claire softly. "Not one of the
specialists or doctors discovered anything wrong with her skull, and I
was so young when she fell from her horse that I never once connected it
with her trouble. I should think you would be the next happiest girl in
the world, Rosanna. _I_ am the happiest."

"I am very, very happy," confessed Rosanna. "It seems too good to be
true that I am to go to France and the other places after all, and it is
so good to go and remember what a happy summer you are having with your
mother. I wish Helen Culver was here, so I could tell her how fortunate
I am."

"You won't see her until you reach New York," said Uncle Bob with a
twinkle in his eye, but looking very severely at the end of his
cigarette.

"New York!" stammered Rosanna.

"That's right; I forgot to mention that she is going with us."

Rosanna leaned back in her chair and gasped.

"Uh, huh," said Uncle Bob. "Mrs. Culver wants to stay with her sister
who is seriously ill, and so poor Helen will have to go with us."

"Oh, my!" gasped Rosanna.

"Everything is settled," said Uncle Bob.

"Oh, my!" said Rosanna again. "When do we go?"

"It will take me about a week to get ready," said Uncle Bob. "As soon as
you can get packed, Rosanna, you may come down to the Seelbach with me.
I know Claire will have a lot to do to get ready for her mother. I
notice whenever any of our family goes away and gets ready to come back,
it is a signal for a mad bout of housecleaning. Everything the poor
innocent absentee has or owns is torn up and hung out on the line, and
beaten and dusted, and sent to the cleaners. And then all the chairs are
set in new places so you don't dare come in in the dark and throw
yourself down on your favorite divan, because it isn't there. Perhaps a
tea-wagon full of china catches you or a frail, skiddy smoking stand,
but the divan is gone."

Everyone laughed.

"You _are_ abused," said Rosanna.

"It is true," persisted Uncle Robert. "And when the absent one comes in,
everyone stands around waiting to hear him or her say, 'Oh, my, how nice
it looks.' Anyway, Rosanna, you come down and join me, and as soon as we
hear from Culver, who has already gone to see his family, we will be off
for New York. It will be hot traveling."


"I won't mind," said Rosanna, "and you really don't need me any longer,
Claire, dear, and I think you ought to have your mother all to
yourself."

"She will have to be very quiet for a good while," said Colonel Maslin,
"but we won't mind that. Just to see her here or, if she is resting, to
know that she is with us, will be happiness enough for us."

"I should think so!" said Rosanna. "Well, Uncle Bobby, I will come down
tomorrow, and you can commence by taking me to the movies."

"Hear that?" cried Mr. Horton. "Indeed, your grandmother said, says she,
'Robert,' she says, 'see that Rosanna goes to bed at sharp seven every
night. And also,' says she, 'no movies, or ice-cream sodas, or such!'"

"That sounds so like grandmother!" laughed Rosanna. "Well, I will see
about things. Oh, Claire, dinner is over, let's go start packing now. I
am _so_ excited!"

The girls excused themselves and raced upstairs, where Rosanna commenced
laying things in neat piles on the divan to be placed in her trunk the
first thing in the morning. There was a good deal to do the next day.
Cita had sent a list of things she wanted Rosanna to see about, and Mrs.
Horton had gone off without her favorite pair of glasses which she
thought might be found in one of a number of places she named. So the
house had to be opened, and Rosanna found the glasses, not in any of the
places mentioned, but on the telephone stand where Mrs. Horton usually
lost them. But as Rosanna looked there first, it really didn't matter.
She reached the Seelbach just in time to dress for dinner. It was great
fun.

Uncle Bob sent up word that he would meet her at half-past six and
Rosanna, feeling thrilled and grown up, finished dressing and sat down
to wait. When Mr. Horton came in, he brought a little box with a bunch
of sweet peas for Rosanna to wear. He was that kind of a man.

Time did not hang heavily on Rosanna's hands for the next few days. She
spent one day with Mabel, and another in Lexington with Elise Hargrave.

Uncle Bob made but one rule, and that was an ironclad one. She must lie
down for an hour each day. Uncle Bob did not want to start across the
ocean with a worn-out little girl.

Jane and Estella came to see her, and there was talk of a picnic on Bald
Mountain, but there was no time to put it through. One afternoon Rosanna
gave a tea. It was a Girl Scout tea and was suggested by Uncle Bob, who
seemed able to attend to an enormous amount of business and run the
affairs of a little girl as well. It was served in the sitting-room that
Rosanna and Uncle Bob shared. Elise came up from Lexington, and Rosanna
found that about fifteen of their Troop were still in the city. The
hotel people set a very pretty table for her, and Uncle Robert came in
at noon with a box which he himself carefully opened. Inside were rows
of tiny kewpie dolls dressed like little Girl Scouts. Rosanna was
delighted.

"They just need one thing," said Uncle Robert, getting out his fountain
pen and carefully inking some little dots on their sleeves.

"There!" he exclaimed when the deed was done. "Any Girl Scouts of
_mine_ must have Merit badges."

Every one came, and after the first little stiffness it was a great
success, especially when Uncle Robert came in bringing Colonel Maslin
with him. You wouldn't believe how nice two grown men could be to a lot
of Girl Scouts.

Jane was the first to say she must go. "We will see you tomorrow," she
said, but Uncle Bob shook his head.

"It is good-bye today," he explained. "I am through with the business
that brought me over on this side, and we will take the 8:40 through
train tonight for the East, if Rosanna can get ready."

"I can be ready in an hour!" cried Rosanna. "Especially if Claire will
stay and help me."

Claire looked at her father. "Of course I will help you, Rosanna dear,
but I must go home first. Is the car here, dad?"

"Yes; I thought we could take some of these young ladies home," said the
Colonel.

"And I will take the rest," offered Mr. Horton. There was a gust of
good-byes and good wishes, and Rosanna was alone. It was almost six
o'clock.

Rosanna had kept her trunk nearly packed, and by the time Claire
returned the things that had been in her dresser were laid on the bed
ready to put in the trays. Claire brought her a gorgeous embroidered
kimono, a good-bye present from Mrs. Maslin. Just the loveliest thing
to wear to the dressing-room, thought Rosanna, revelling in its deep
color and beautiful handwork. The girls worked swiftly, and before Uncle
Bob returned for dinner everything was ready, even to Rosanna's coat and
hat and gloves and little change purse. She had put on her plain pongee
traveling dress, fine cotton stockings that exactly matched her brown
oxfords with their sensible low heels, and looked every inch a
well-dressed traveler. Everything was simple and there were no tag ends,
ribbons or floating lace collars to get mussed and untidy.

After dinner Uncle Bob excused himself to attend to some last things,
and Claire and Rosanna returned to the rooms. There was an empty-looking
spot where Rosanna's trunk had stood. Rosanna gave a last look at her
things on the bed. Hat, coat, gloves, purse, suitcase; all there.

"Oh, _do_ come into the sitting-room!" cried Claire. "Everything is as
all right as you can make it. Dad and Mr. Horton will be coming in
before you know it, and there is something I want to tell you."

"Something nice?" asked Rosanna, following Claire into the sitting-room,
and curling up in the big armchair she had wheeled around to face its
mate.

"I hope so," said Claire with a queer little smile. "Now, Rosanna, I
want you to promise on your Scout Honor that you will not interrupt me."

"Word of honor!" promised Rosanna.

"Remember!" warned Claire. "Well, there was once a girl, a Girl Scout,
who was very troubled and unhappy. And she had a _perfectly horrid_
disposition and every time she went into a tantrum or had the blues she
excused herself by thinking that because her dear mother was thought to
be insane, she was going to be so too, and she never tried to control
herself. She wouldn't make friends, and 'most _hated_ other girls
because she thought they were so much luckier than she was. Oh, Rosanna,
she treated her darling daddy just awfully. She feels so ashamed when
she thinks of it."

Rosanna opened her mouth, but Claire laid her hand over it.

"Remember!" she warned. "So she met, through the Girl Scouts, a girl who
tried to be her friend. And the bad, sad girl grew to see how much
better it was to be gentle and keep her temper under control. Then one
day Rosanna--for that was the nice girl's name--discovered the reason
why this girl's mother was sick and why her poor head had gone wrong.
She found out why Claire's mother could not speak or remember anything
and why she sat all day and stared and stared into space, and never knew
her little girl any more.

"Well, anyway, now Claire's mother is _well_, all _well_, and just as
sweet and bright and loving as ever, and _so_ happy! But surely not so
happy as Claire is to have her mother back.

"And once, Rosanna, a wise old man who must have looked into the future,
gave Claire a gold box to give to the one who should give to Claire a
'gift beyond price.' My mother is that, Rosanna. The Mandarin's box is
yours!"

Claire drew a packet from her pocket and laid it in Rosanna's lap.
Rosanna clasped her hands over it. "Oh, Claire!" was all she could say
at first. Then, "But it was the doctor's operation that cured her; it
belongs to him."

Claire shook her red head and smiled. "No, it is yours by rights. All
the doctors failed to discover the injury to her head. The box is yours,
dear, dear Rosanna! Open it and see what the old Mandarin has hidden
there."

Rosanna undid the paper and exclaimed over the wonderful carven casket.
But Claire urged her to open the box, and with a nail file Rosanna broke
the fine cords that held the seal. She pressed the tiny knob on the
front, and the glittering cover sprang open. A little object wrapped in
silk lay inside. It proved to be a queer carved figure seated on a sort
of stool. It was exquisitely colored and overlaid in parts with gold
leaf, and the funny brown face wore a beaming smile. A large cloak of
gold leaf enveloped it, and this had a ruby set in the front like a
large clasp.

"I know that figure," said Claire. "It is the god of good luck. I can't
remember his name."

"See the way that cunning cloak or robe is fastened with a jewel," said
Rosanna, fingering the ruby. There was a little click, and the cloak
parted and flew open, disclosing in the unexpected hiding-place another
small carved box.

With trembling fingers Rosanna opened it. There, inside, rested the mate
to the beautiful jade ring that Claire always wore.

"Oh, how lovely! How perfectly lovely!" cried Rosanna. "Just like yours!
Oh, I have always almost envied you that gorgeous ring."

"If it is like mine, there is another surprise in store for you," said
Claire, taking the jewel in her hands and pressing on the stone with a
swift turning motion. Sure enough the stone raised on tiny hidden
springs, and disclosed an opening or socket about the size of a silver
three-cent piece. "What is that for?" asked Rosanna.

"We don't know, but dad thinks these rings are royal, and this place was
made for a single dose of poison to be concealed in case the wearer was
going to be tortured or something like that. But I don't like to think
of anything so horrid. I keep mother's picture in mine." She opened the
ring, and showed a tiny colored miniature of her mother.

"It is too perfect!" sighed Rosanna.

"There is one thing I hope you will never forget, Rosanna," said Claire,
"and that is why the Mandarin gave you the box. Just to thank you, you
know, because you have given me a gift beyond price. This is what has
come of your sacrifice. I wish I could tell the old Mandarin about it."

"I will if I see him," laughed Rosanna.

Just as the train started off with Uncle Bob and Rosanna, Claire threw
her arms around Rosanna's neck and whispered, "Oh, Rosanna, you _do_
know that I love you, and thank you with every breath, don't you?"

"You thank me too much, dear Claire," said Rosanna, "and I love you
too."

The whistle blew, the conductor waved his arms and called, "All aboard!"
Rosanna threw kisses after Colonel Maslin and Claire as they fell
behind. They rolled slowly out of the city. Night fell. The
white-jacketed porter went up and down the aisle looking his charges
over. He pounced on Rosanna's hat and put it in a paper bag. Rosanna
scarcely noticed. Nothing about her seemed real. The jarring train, the
lights, the people, all seemed like a dream. Yet it was real, and she,
Rosanna, was moving eastward, ever eastward to her grandmother, to Cita,
to dear Helen, and the Ports of the World!


THE END





End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scout's Triumph, by Katherine Keene Galt



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