Front matter (continued 2)

Then Mr. Harriman turned back.

“Absolutely confidential, Horton! No newspapers!” he said.

“Absolutely, sir, and thank you,” said Uncle Robert, bowing to the three. He commenced to suspect something!

Miss Hooker stooped to whisper something to Robert. As soon as the last person had left the hall, he obeyed the whisper, and taking the precious box, which was sealed with red sealing wax where the cover went on, he went behind the scenes. All the girls were there, as well as the sign painter and the two brothers. These three looked immensely relieved when a fourth member of their sex appeared. Mrs. Hargrave was there too, and she was inviting everyone to walk over to her house and have something to eat. She said she believed it was customary after the first presentation of a play.

When some of the girls said they would have to go home with their folks on account of getting home with escort, Mrs. Hargrave at once added that she had arranged with Mrs. Horton to send the girls home in their automobiles.

So very soon they were all in Mrs. Hargrave’s immense dining-room, sitting in chairs ranged round the room and being served chicken bouillon and sandwiches, and fruit salad, and olives, and cocoa, and ice-cream with whipped cream on top. All they could eat of each thing too!

“I can’t wait to see the inside of that box,” said Mrs. Hargrave after all the Girl Scouts and the sign painter and the two brothers had said good night and thank you, and had gone. “What if these children of ours do have to sleep half the day tomorrow? Telephone your mother, Miss Hooker, that you are here with me, and that you will be home presently, and we will go into the library and watch Robert count the money. And whatever is lacking, when it comes to settling for that operation, Mrs. Horton and I intend to make up.”

Robert Horton laughed.

“I have an idea that you are on the safe side of the bargain, dear lady,” he said. “I think this box will surprise us.”

“How much do you suppose is in it?” asked Miss Hooker as she started for the telephone. “A hundred dollars?”

“Five hundred at the least,” answered Uncle Robert.

Everybody started to hurry for the library at that as though the money in the box would have to be counted as rapidly as possible for fear it might fly away.

Uncle Robert happened to sit beside Miss Hooker again, but Rosanna sat on the other side. He cut the sealing wax and opened the box. There was all sorts of silver money there except nickels! There was not one nickel. Dimes, quarters, fifty-cent pieces, and silver dollars, but not a nickel.

Uncle Robert placed the coins in neat piles, then he commenced to stack the paper money. After he had done this, he sorted out five checks, which he laid by themselves quite respectfully, face down.

Then he drew out a pencil and paper and commenced to count. No one spoke. At the last, still keeping the faces of the five checks out of sight, he added them in, covered the paper with his hand, and looked up. He seemed dazed.

“How much do you think?” he demanded.

“Don’t make us guess, Robert,” said his mother.

“Two thousand, two hundred and thirty-four dollars and twenty-five cents,” he said slowly.

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Hargrave sharply.

Miss Hooker gave a gasp. The girls, perfectly round-eyed, sat silent.

“There it is!” said Mr. Horton. “Mr. Bristol and Mr. Cosgrove each gave a check for five hundred dollars, and Mr. Harriman wrote his for five hundred and fifty.”

Mrs. Horton sniffed.

“Dick Harriman never gave twenty-five dollars to anything like this in his life,” she said.

“Well, here is his check,” declared her son.

“So that is where the fifty came in,” said Rosanna, finding her voice. She repeated the conversation she had heard. Everybody laughed.

“Poor Dick!” said Mrs. Hargrave. “He doesn’t feel well, and his bark is so bad that I doubt if anyone ever before stopped to see what his bite was like until Rosanna tried. I reckon he is happier tonight than he has been for a long while. He would think it was a great joke, too, to cajole Henry Bristol and Clinton Cosgrove into giving that money. Well, they can afford it many times over, so it will do them all good.”

“Too bad Rick MacLaren isn’t here,” said Uncle Robert. “He has a sick patient on hand, and couldn’t come. I will tell him the first thing in the morning.”

“And these girls must go to bed,” said Mrs. Horton. “Are you going to stay with Rosanna, Helen?”

“I think I will just have to go home and tell mother and father about it if there is any way for me to get there,” replied Helen.

“If Miss Hooker feels like the extra walk, we will take you on our way to her house,” said Uncle Robert eagerly.

“I would love it,” said Miss Hooker obligingly.

Rosanna marvelled.

Miss Hooker lived blocks away from Helen, in the opposite direction, but as the older people said nothing, Rosanna kept silence. At all events the benefit was over, and her Uncle Robert would no longer feel obliged to spend all his time with a mere girl, because no matter how lovely, Rosanna knew that he didn’t care for girls.

A number of girls ranging in age from twelve to sixteen were busy repeating in a number of homes that night just how they had felt at different times during the evening, and explaining to less fortunate brothers and sisters how good everything had tasted afterwards. And Sunday morning, a great many mothers had a difficult time getting their Girl Scout daughters awake.

Rosanna had a long talk with Uncle Bob. She wanted to know what was going to be done about the money.

“I have been thinking about that,” said Uncle Robert. “I will put it in the bank the first thing tomorrow morning. I shall put it in the office bank for safe keeping until then.”

“Do you suppose it will take all of it for Gwenny’s operation?” asked Rosanna.

“No, I do not,” Robert replied, “but of course Doctor Branshaw is a very high priced specialist, and he sets his own fees.”

“If he knew that Gwenny was a poor little girl and that the Girl Scouts were taking care of her, I wonder if it would make any difference?”

Uncle Robert shook his head. “I don’t believe I would ask a favor of anyone, now that you have earned such a lot of money. Just go ahead and pay her way like good sports. At that, with the hospital charges and nurses paid, I think you may have a little left over. If we have, we will have to find the best way to spend it for Gwenny. I want to consult with Miss Hooker about it later if she is not too tired.”

“Consult again! Oh, poor Uncle Robert!” said Rosanna compassionately. “I thought that was all over with.”

“It is not as painful as you seem to think,” said Uncle Robert dryly. “At all events, my health is not breaking under the strain. I never knew you to fuss so, Rosanna. Just what have you up your sleeve anyhow? Don’t you like your Captain after all?”

“Oh, I perfectly love her,” cried Rosanna warmly. “You don’t know how sweet she is, Uncle Robert! And she is such a good Captain. Every girl in the patrol loves her and will do anything in the world for her.”

Seeing that Uncle Robert appeared to be listening, Rosanna went on warming to her subject.

“At the Rally, I heard one of the ladies say that our Captain was considered the best one in all the city. And she looks so young; just like one of the girls when she gets into her Scout uniform. When we are on hikes, she runs around and plays with us and joins all our games. Oh, yes, Uncle Robert, I do love her dearly!”

“I don’t know but what I do myself,” admitted Uncle Robert unexpectedly.

“Why, Uncle Robert!” said Rosanna in a shocked tone. “What a thing for you to say!”

Uncle Robert wondered if he had made a mistake. It was not the sort of a remark he would want repeated. So he made another mistake.

“Wasn’t it? A joke, Rosanna; just a merry jest. Thought you would laugh over it. Ha ha! Ha ha!”

“Ha ha!” repeated Rosanna to be agreeable. Sometimes Uncle Robert was rather disappointing. “But she is lovely anyway, and has loads and loads of friends, and, Uncle Robert, I think she has a sweetheart because boxes and boxes of flowers come to her, and she just keeps a little one to wear, and sends all the rest to the hospital. And lovely books come by mail and the fattest letters! One had poetry in it, too. I could tell by the shape of the writing down the page.”

“Don’t snoop, Rosanna,” said Uncle Robert sharply.

“I didn’t, Uncle Robert,” said Rosanna in a hurt tone. “She was sitting close to me on the sofa, and I couldn’t help seeing. She liked it too, because she smiled so sweetly and showed all her dimples, even the one that almost never comes out.”

“What a little ray of sunshine you are, Rosanna!” said her uncle strangely.

“Thank you; a Girl Scout ought to be,” replied Rosanna.

“Well, you are, all right, sweetness,” said Uncle Robert. He sighed deeply almost as though the ray of sunshine had not come his way at all. He kissed Rosanna and then sat her down rather hard in a deep chair. “I don’t know when I have felt so cheered up. And now, if you would like to call the garage and order the little car for me, I will go around to see Doctor MacLaren and tell him the good news of our fortune. And on second thoughts, I don’t believe I will have to consult with Miss Hooker at all. I think perhaps you are right. I have bothered her enough.”

“She has been very polite and kind about it all, hasn’t she?” asked Rosanna.

“Most polite and kind,” Mr. Horton agreed. “But we don’t want to wear her kindness out, do we, Rosanna? I will go see Rick, and in a day or two my part of this affair will be finished. And I won’t have to bother anybody. I am thinking of a little trip out West, Rosanna. I wish you could go with me.”

“I wish I could!” said Rosanna, “but grandmother wouldn’t want me to leave school, and besides I couldn’t leave the Scouts just now. Where do you think of going, Uncle Robert?”

“Nowhere in particular, unless—” he thought a moment. “It might be fun to look up some place where they had never heard of the Girl Scouts.”

“Perfectly splendid!” said Rosanna. “That would be doing a good deed. You could tell the people about us, and start a patrol. I must tell Miss Hooker about this; she will think it is so nice of you. She appreciates kind acts, even if she doesn’t like men.”

“It is not worth mentioning, Rosanna,” answered Uncle Robert. “Besides, I didn’t have just that in mind. However, I hear the car and will leave you before—before I do anything I regret.”

He went off, and Rosanna watched him through the window as he started his car. He was real jerky with it, and it sputtered and missed, and went off with a leap.

“He is all tired out,” thought Rosanna.

CHAPTER VIII

Time passed, a great many things happening. Gwenny, accompanied by her mother (there being plenty of money for everything), was taken away to the place of her great trial. When the question arose as to what should be done with Mary and Tommy and Myron and Luella and Baby Christopher, Rosanna thought of Minnie, always so good and kind. She went to see her, and the result was that Minnie volunteered to stay at Gwenny’s and run the little house and take care of the children as long as Mrs. Harter was needed in Cincinnati. Both Doctor MacLaren and Mr. Horton went with Mrs. Harter and Gwenny, and made the journey as comfortable as they possibly could. The great Doctor Branshaw, after seeing his patient, said that she must have at least a week of rest under his own eye before he would be willing to try the operation. So Gwenny was settled in a sunny room at the hospital where she at once became the pet of the ward and Doctor MacLaren and Mr. Horton came home.

Late in the afternoon, the very next Sunday, Mr. Horton came into the house looking the picture of gloom. He scarcely spoke to his mother and Rosanna but rushed up to his room and immediately there was a sound of things being dragged around, and many footsteps. And the door opened and shut a great many times. Mrs. Horton wondered what that boy was up to now and went on reading. But Rosanna listened with a black suspicion growing in her mind.

And, sure enough, Mr. Horton came down presently to announce that he was going away for a few weeks. He was getting stale, he said, and needed a little change. When he saw Rosanna’s round eyes fixed on him, he looked away but repeated that he felt stale.

“It is that War,” said his mother, as though the war should be severely reprimanded. “Before you went into that war, you were always contented. Now nothing contents you for long.”

“Perhaps you are right,” admitted Robert absently. “At all events I can be spared from the office just now better than at any other time, and I am going to go away.”

And go he did an hour later. Mrs. Hargrave and Elise came in presently to take Sunday night luncheon.

“Where is Robert?” asked Mrs. Hargrave, seeing that no place was set for him.

“Gone off for a vacation,” said his mother.

“Dear me, isn’t he well?” asked Mrs. Hargrave.

“Perfectly, but he just took one of his notions and went.”

“Anything—er—happened, do you suppose?” questioned Mrs. Hargrave. “Anything—er, you know. Misunderstanding?”

“Possibly,” answered Mrs. Horton. “That is what I suspect. But I don’t know anything.”

“Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Mrs. Hargrave, folding her fine old hands together. “It is too bad! Can’t something be done? Why, Robert is the finest boy in this world! He is just what I dream my son would have been if I had had one. Do you suppose one could say anything to the other person?”

“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Horton. “I don’t know, you see. I only suspect.”

So Uncle Robert went away, and Gwenny was off at the hospital, and Rosanna and Helen spent all their time drilling Elise in the requirements of the Tenderfoot examination. Elise was quick to learn, but she found more difficulty in learning this because her knowledge of English was of course limited. The girls were anxious to make a brilliant showing with their recruit.

Over and over they drilled her in the Tenderfoot examination, at the last requiring her to write the answers to the examination paper which read as follows:

TENDERFOOT EXAMINATION,

WRITTEN

1aGive the Scout promise.

bWhat does the Scout motto mean?

2 Give the Scout laws in order.

3aWhat is the purpose of the Scout movement?

bWhat does a Scout’s honor mean?

cGive the meaning of one law.

dHow and when should the Scout salute be given?

eExplain the Scout badge.

4aWho made the American flag?

bWhy was a flag needed?

cIn what city was it made? What year?

dName the committee appointed to design it.

5aQuote General Washington’s words about the flag.

bWhen was the flag officially adopted?

cDescribe the first official flag of the stars and stripes.

6aWhat do the stars represent? The stripes?

bFor what do the colors, red, white and blue stand?

cHow many stars has the flag now? What day is Flag day?

dWhen is a new star added and why?

7 Give fully the respect due the flag.

8aWhat should Scouts do when the National Anthem is played?

bWhat should Civilians do at Retreat? Scouts?

9aWhat is the United States Government?

bWho is at its head?

cName the Commissioners of the District of Columbia.

10aWrite America.

bWrite The Star Spangled Banner (omitting 3rd stanza).

Then followed the demonstration of knots and knot tying. Over and over they drilled her, and Elise was an apt pupil. Her delicate little fingers seemed to know of themselves what to do.

“I am glad she is to write that examination,” sighed Helen the day before Elise was to go to Captain Hooker and take her examination formally. She was to be examined on Friday afternoon, and at the meeting Saturday night she was to become a Tenderfoot Scout member of their patrol.

“What difference does it make whether she writes the exam, or recites her answers?” returned Rosanna. “She speaks brokenly, of course, but that does not matter.”

“All it matters is that no one could hear her speak of General Washington the way she does in her funny broken English, without wanting to scream. It is so funny.”

Funny or not, Elise went through her examination most successfully and Saturday night accompanied Helen and Rosanna to the meeting at Miss Hooker’s house. Their little Captain had fitted up a room specially for her girls, where they could keep their various documents and where the seats, the neat desk for the secretary, and the standard for the big silk flag did not need to be disturbed in the intervals between meetings.

Elise was thrilled beyond words.

As they entered the room she saw that the two girls saluted their little Captain. Not knowing if she was expected to salute before becoming a Scout, Elise dropped a shy curtsey and followed Rosanna to a seat where they awaited the full number of Scouts and the shrill whistle from the Lieutenant which brought the meeting to order.

“The first whistle means Attention,” whispered Helen.

Once again it sounded.

“That is for Assembly,” whispered Rosanna on the other side, as all the girls rose.

Leaving Elise in her seat, the Scouts formed in double ranks at a distance of forty inches between ranks and an interval of sixty inches between patrols.

The eight girls who formed a patrol took their places in groups as signified by the crosses.

PatrolPatrolPatrol

××××××××××××

××××××××××××

Captain× ×Lieutenant

Elise found out afterward that number one in the front rank of each patrol is the Patrol leader, and number four the Corporal.

At the command “Company, attention!” from the little Captain, now standing so straight and so stern that Elise scarcely recognized her, the Company as a whole stiffened to attention.

The Lieutenant, a tall, pretty girl of nineteen, then commanded, “Corporals from Patrols!” and the three Corporals stepped forward two paces, made two right turns, and stood facing the center of the patrol. The Corporals then snapped out together, “Attention! Right Dress!” after which they faced left, took two paces, made right turn, right face, and looked critically down the line to see that it was perfectly straight. After two short left steps to straighten the rear line, they faced right, took four paces forward, and with two right turns got back in position facing patrol and called the command “Front! Count off!”

The Corporals then one after the other called the roll of her Patrol, and finishing that, turned and reported to the Lieutenant that the Patrol was formed, after which they returned to their places in the ranks, and the Lieutenant, saluting the Captain, reported, “Captain, the Company is formed.”

Inspection then followed. Each girl, saluting, stepped forward and her hair, teeth, hands, nails, shoes and general appearance was scrutinized.

Elise watched all this with great interest, interest which deepened as the Captain commanded “Color guard, march!” and three girls stepped from the ranks and stood side by side for a moment, then at a word of command marched to the flag. There they saluted and marched back; when the Captain and the Lieutenant faced about, and the Captain in her silvery voice said:

“The Flag of your Country; pledge allegiance!”

With one voice the girls united in the beautiful pledge to the flag, “I pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Elise looked at the silken folds of the glorious red, white and blue with tears in her eyes. How glad she was to make that pledge! Had not that flag, the flag that was now her own, floated over the shell-racked fields of France? Oh, she loved it!

The color guard returned, and the fresh young voices rose in the first verse of America.

“Scouts, your promise!” said the Captain.

“To do my duty to God and to my country.

To help other people at all times.

To obey the laws of the Scouts.”

the voices rang out.

“The laws!” said the Captain.

Again the chorus of girls repeated:

A Girl Scout’s honor is to be trusted.

A Girl Scout is loyal.

A Girl Scout’s duty is to be useful, and help others.

A Girl Scout is a friend to all, and a sister to every other Girl Scout.

A Girl Scout is courteous.

A Girl Scout keeps herself pure.

A Girl Scout is a friend to animals.

A Girl Scout obeys orders.

A Girl Scout is cheerful.

A Girl Scout is thrifty.

“Dismissed!” said the little Captain and, breaking ranks, the girls went to their seats where they sat talking in low tones until the sharp sound of the Lieutenant’s whistle called them to attention again.

“Now I do come,” said Elise to herself, and her heart commenced to hammer in quite an alarming fashion. But it was not quite time for her to rise. Looking at Rosanna, she saw her give a slight shake of the head, and Elise leaned back in her seat while all the business of the meeting was settled and plans made for some aid for a poor family living near.

One thing Elise noticed particularly. The girls present were widely different in looks, and Elise with her delicate perceptions saw plainly that they belonged in widely differing classes, so called. A few of the girls, Rosanna among them, had the carefully cared for and delicately nurtured look of the very rich. More were like Helen, clean, carefully groomed and almost precise in her dress and accessories. Others were very evidently poor, with rough little hands that already told the story of hard work and few toilet creams. But whoever they were, they saw no difference in each other. They were Girl Scouts in the fullest and best sense of the word: sisters pledged to each other, and living up to that pledge in all earnestness and honor.

Elise, waiting for her summons to go forward, and understanding nothing of the business that was going on, threw her thoughts backward. She saw herself the idolized child of the gay, rich young couple in the great château, where long painted lines of powdered and frilled and armor-clad ancestors looked down at her from the long galleries, and where dozens of willing servants danced to do her bidding. Then the picture changed, and with the roll of drums and the thunder of cannon she saw the hated foe march across her land, destroying as they came. Father, mother, grandmother, home, riches; all went down as under a devouring tide. Then the promises of her Monsieur Bob, and after long, long weary days spent with the ladies of the Red Cross came the journey into the Unknown, that trip across an ocean that was to forever separate her from a past that was too terrible for a little girl to have known.

To have found refuge in Mrs. Hargrave’s tender arms, to have won such love and such friends—to be able to be a Girl Scout—

Elise turned her eyes, brimming with sudden tears, to the flag.

“Never, never will I zem disappoint!” she whispered tenderly, using as best she could the unfamiliar words of her adopted tongue.

CHAPTER IX

At last Elise saw the Captain glance in her direction as the whistle blew once more for attention and the Captain commanded, “Fall in!” A look of serious interest appeared on the faces of the girls as they formed in a horseshoe, the Captain and the Lieutenant standing in the gap and the American flag spread out before them.

Elise, with Helen beside her, walked to a place just inside the circle and stood facing the Captain. In the Lieutenant’s hands were the staff and hat, the shoulder knot, badge and neckerchief of the Tenderfoot Elise.

She could not refrain from a glance at them. How she had longed to wear all those things; the insignia of everything she had learned to admire and look up to in the girls of America!

“Salute!” said the Captain.

All saluted Elise, who stood waiting for some order, she did not know what.

“Forward!” said the Captain to Helen, and the two girls stepped to the center.

Regarding Elise with a long, careful glance, and speaking carefully, so the little French girl should miss nothing of the full meaning of her words, the Captain asked:

“Do you know what your honor means?”

“Yess,” said Elise, finding her voice after what seemed to her an endless time. “Yess, it does mean that always I shall be trusted to be faithful and true and honorable.”

“Can I trust you,” asked the Captain, “on your honor, to be loyal to God and your country, to help other people at all times, and to obey the Scout Law?”

Elise, coached by Helen and Rosanna, made the half salute in unison with the whole company, as she answered, “I do promise on my honor to be loyal to God and my country, to help other people at all times and to obey the Scout Law.”

“I trust you on your honor to keep this promise,” answered the Captain.

The circle of girls listened with respectful and solemn interest. Well they realized that the vow being given was not an empty or idle one. They knew that it entailed hard work, self-denial, and many hardships. Yet they gloried in it, and silently renewed their own vows as they heard the Tenderfoot make her promises.

“Invest!” came the Captain’s next order.

Stepping forward, the Lieutenant gave Elise her staff, and put the hat, handkerchief and knot on her, and smiled as Elise said, “I thank you!” in her pretty way.

Then, at a whispered word, she marched up the line to the Captain who pinned on her trefoil badge and explained that it was an emblem of her Scout “life.” If for any misbehavior, the trefoil or “life” must be taken away from her, she would become a dead Scout for the time the Captain ordered and for that time in disgrace.

The new Scout was then initiated into all the secret passwords, a proceeding which filled Elise with despair; she felt that she would never be able to remember the queer words and phrases.

Then with the ceremony of marching back to their proper patrols the ceremony was over, and in a moment the formal meeting was dismissed.

The girls crowded around, all anxious to meet the new Tenderfoot and welcome her. They talked to her so hard that Elise felt her head whirl. She was glad to hear the voice of the little Captain suggesting a song. She handed a leaflet to Elise, but the girls knew the songs, and gathering in a circle they wanted to know which one to sing.

“Sing The Long, Long Line,” suggested the Captain, and the girls sang:

THE LONG, LONG LINE

(Tune: The Long, Long Trail)

Recruiting song.

Do you feel a little lonely?

Are your friends too few?

Would you like to join some jolly girls

In the things you think and do?

Don’t you know your Country’s waiting?

Have you heard her call?

See, the Scouts are crowding, crowding in,

Where there’s room for one and all!

Chorus

There’s a long, long line a-growing,

From north to south, east to west,

There’s a place awaiting in it, too, that you’ll fill best.

We are sure you’d like to join us

If you knew what we can do

And we’d like, O how we’d like to make a good Girl Scout of you.

It certainly sounded sweet as the fresh young voices blended, and Elise thrilled as she listened. She was having such a good time! All the girls seemed so friendly and so sweet, with the exception of one girl who hung back and on whose face there rested the shadow of discontent and dissatisfaction. Elise found herself wondering about her; she seemed so out of place in that happy, merry throng. But none of the other girls appeared to notice that one of their number sat apart and occupied herself rather ostentatiously over a book.

They were all so busy making the evening pass pleasantly for the charming new Tenderfoot who responded so prettily to their advances that no one spoke or looked at the silent Scout, but presently Elise noticed that the little Captain sat down beside her and compelled her attention. Even then the girl looked as though she preferred to be let alone.

For a long while, the girls sat and told Elise about their work and play and the camping in summer and the delightful hikes all the year. Finally it came time to go home and some one called for another song.

“Which shall it be, Elise?” asked Helen. “You choose one of the songs.”

“I see one follows the air of the Old Colored Joe,” said Elise. “I do know that loving song. Please to sing that; and if I may, I will try to sing it also.”

“Of course we will sing that, you dear,” laughed the tall young Lieutenant, and together they sang:

WE’RE COMING

(Tune: Old Black Joe)

Camping Song.

I

Come where the lake lies gleaming in the sun;

Come where the days are filled with work and fun.

Come where the moon hangs out her evening lamp;

The Scouts are trooping, trooping, trooping back to camp.

Chorus

We’re coming! We’re coming! To the lakes, the hills, the sea!

Old Mother Nature calls her children—you and me.

II

Come where we learn the wisdom of the wood;

Come where we prove that simple things are good,

Come where we pledge allegiance to our land;

America, you’ve called your daughters—here we stand.

Chorus

We’re coming! We’re coming! ’Til we spread from sea to sea,

Our country needs us—wants us—calls us—you and me!

“That is so most lovely,” said Elise as the song was finished, never for a moment realizing that her own pure and bell-like voice had added richness and beauty to the song.

The other girls looked at each other and smiled. Here was indeed a find. Never had there come a Scout to the council with such a wonderful voice. They felt that the pretty young Tenderfoot was a great acquisition to their number. So they all crowded around and said good night,—all but the silent Scout who had not joined in the jollity. Elise and Rosanna and Helen filled the two automobiles that were waiting for them with the girls. Never, never had those big cars been so crowded. Certainly they had never held happier passengers. But there was no noise or boisterousness, no singing or whistling. The girls chatted in tones that were agreeably low and as each one reached her destination, she thanked Rosanna or Elise. When the last passenger in the Hargrave car had been set down, Elise leaned back in a corner and thought deeply. She was happy beyond words.

To do good to someone every day; that was part of her pledge. Such an easy part! But it was hard not to be good when everyone was so good to her. Then suddenly she thought of the sulky face of the girl at the meeting.

All the time she was telling Mrs. Hargrave about the installation and the songs, and trying them over for her, she saw the dark, discontented face before her. She could not feel perfectly happy because somehow the face seemed to send her a message. “Help me; help me!” Elise heard in her soul. But what could she, a stranger, a girl who could scarcely speak the new language, what could she do for that girl? And besides, why did she need help? Elise, whose bright eyes saw everything, had noted the beautiful silk stockings, the texture of the black hair ribbon, and at the last, the expensive fur that edged her coat. Also a car had come for her, in which she went off alone. It was not poverty, at all events, decided Elise. She could walk; she was not lame like the poor little blond in the corner. As Elise thought it over, she puzzled more and more. She decided to ask Rosanna or Helen next day; then a better decision came to her. She would find out for herself. No one should tell her. Then if she made any mistake, why, the mistake would be hers.

But the next day but one the plot thickened. She went over with Rosanna to see Miss Hooker about some Scout work, and as they stood on the steps waiting for the door to open, it did open with a jerk, and the girl Elise had been worrying about dashed down the steps and into her limousine. Her face was disfigured with tears.

“Dear me!” said Rosanna. “What do you suppose has happened to Lucy Breen? She has been crying.”

“Assuredly. The petite pauvre one!” answered Elise sadly.

Rosanna with her usual directness asked Miss Hooker the moment they entered what was the matter with Lucy.

Miss Hooker hesitated. “You really ought not ask a question like that, Rosanna,” she said finally, “but perhaps I ought to tell you. You will all have to know.”

“Please don’t tell me, Miss Hooker,” Rosanna begged with a deep flush. “I thought perhaps someone had died or something like that.”

“No, but for a week Lucy must be a dead Scout herself.”

“How awful!” cried both girls, and then were silent.

“I prefer not to tell you why just now, but of course this will not make you shun her. You must show all the kindness and consideration that you can for her, and be with her all you can.” More than that Miss Hooker did not seem to want to say, and the girls, saddened and quiet, finished their errand and left.

A day or two later, going with Mrs. Hargrave to the Red Cross rooms down town, Elise thought she saw Lucy Breen shrink out of sight behind some portières at the back of the store that the Red Cross used as a sales room.

Elise acted on a generous impulse. She went back through the store looking at one thing and another until she in turn came to the portières. Behind them was a space used for a sort of store-room for articles brought into the shop, and as Elise looked curiously through the curtains as though wondering what lay beyond, she saw Lucy standing in a corner, crowded against the wall. Elise nodded gaily.

“Are you what they call making the sort of things in here, Lucy?” she cried. “Is it not fun to see what the good kind people give away?”

She stepped into the store-room as she spoke, smiling and nodding. “Yes, it is droll, some of the things,” she chattered on, as though Lucy was doing her share in the conversation. Finally, however, like a little clock, Elise ran down. She could not think of a single thing to say further, and she trailed off, looking shyly into Lucy’s dark face.

Lucy was smiling a set and bitter smile.

“Don’t you think you had better get out of this and leave me?” she asked. “Perhaps you don’t know that I have lost my badge. I shall be a dead Scout for a week, and I don’t care in the least whether I ever wear it again or not.”

Elise came close and laid a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, but the girl shook it off.

“Don’t!” she said pettishly.

“I knew that you had resigned your badge for the so small time of a week,” said Elise gently, “but one week soon passes.”

“Do you know why I lost it?” asked Lucy harshly.

“No,” said Elise, “and I do not so much care. That is for you to know, and our dear Captain. I am just so so sorry that you are unhappy. But you will be happy again. Always unhappiness goes away. We do not forget, but it ceases to wound. And if the fault makes you so unhappy, why, certainly you will never, never so do again; will you, dear Lucy?”

To her surprise and dismay, Lucy turned and, hiding her face in her arms, leaned against the cracked old wall and sobbed.

“Oh, I am unhappy!” she cried. “I am unhappy, and I don’t know what to do! Sometimes I think I will run away!”

“Oh, don’t do that; don’t do that!” cried Elise. “Think of your dear mama and your father. Oh, you could never have a fault that would make you need to do anything that would make them so unhappy!”

Lucy laughed her bitter little laugh.

“I think I will tell you what has happened,” she said, “and then you can see just how I feel.”

“Can you not tell to someone more wise than I?” asked Elise, her dismay growing. “I will be so glad to listen, but for advice, I am so ignorant, so what you call it? I speak your English so poorly, that maybe I say to you the wrong thing.”

“You needn’t say anything,” said Lucy. “You were so good to come and speak to me, and I want to talk to someone. I had advice from Miss Hooker but I shall not take it.”

“Was it not good advice?” asked Elise, who thought every word that Miss Hooker uttered was a pearl of wisdom.

“I suppose so,” said Lucy with a sneer, “but she does not understand. Oh, Elise, I shall die, I am so unhappy.”

“No,” said Elise softly, “you will not die so. If it could be, I would be dead long since but I am not, and I am happy—so very, very happy just as my most dear ones who are dead would wish me to be. So it will be with you.”

“I want to talk to you,” said Lucy.

“Let us sit here then,” said Elise, “where no one comes. There is a what you call ‘meeting’ which my maman is here to attend. It goes on in the upstairs, and she told me it would meet for an hour or two. Tell me all your woe.”

She pulled Lucy down on a pile of velvet curtains and patting her hot little hand, said softly, “I wait.”

CHAPTER X

“When I was only two years old, my real mamma died,” Lucy commenced, “and papa’s sister, who was a great deal older than papa, came to take care of us. I had a brother five years older than I. Aunt Mabel was so kind to us, and let us do just as we pleased about everything. I don’t see why things could not have gone on like that always, because as soon as I grew up I intended to take charge of the house and run it for papa. I am thirteen now so it wouldn’t have been long before I could have done it. But when I was ten years old, my brother died, and after that, papa stayed away from the house all he could, although Auntie Mabel was always talking to him about his duty to me.

“Well, one day, when I was eleven years old, papa came home, and the very minute I saw his face I knew something had happened.

“‘Goodness, papa,’ I said, ‘you look as though you had had good news!’ ‘I have, my dear,’ he said, and then somehow as I looked at him I had such a funny feeling. All at once I didn’t want to know what made him look so glad. So I just sat there and said nothing.

“‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’ he said, and I said, ‘I don’t know whether I do or not.’

“Papa came over and put his head down on my shoulder the way he used to when he called me his little comforter, and said, ‘Oh, yes, Lucy, you want to know! Please say you want to know what your daddy has to tell you.’

“So I said, ‘All right,’ and Elise, he was going to get married! Oh, I just hated it! He told me lots about the lady. She was from Boston, and that was why I had never seen her, and had never heard about it. She had never been in Louisville. He said she was beautiful, and she did look nice in the picture he had in his pocket case, and he said she was just as lovely as she could be. I just sat there and let him talk, and finally he said, ‘Well, chicken, what do you think about it?’ I don’t know what made me say what I did. Somehow it popped out before I thought. I said, ‘Are you sure she isn’t marrying you for your money?’

“And papa sort of stiffened up and looked hard at me, and finally he said in a queer voice, ‘Good Lord, how old are you?’ I said, ‘I am eleven,’ and he said, ‘Well, you sound like Mrs. Worldly Wiseman, aged fifty. I suppose you will feel better if I say that the lady has more money than I have, and that I will be lucky if people do not claim that I have been the fortune hunter.’

“‘Well, what is she going to marry you for?’ I asked. ‘She says she loves me,’ papa said. I said, ‘We don’t want her here! We are getting along all right.’ Oh, I didn’t mean to be so ugly, but somehow I hated to have papa marry anyone, and I didn’t know this lady. So papa went off awfully cross at me and the next person was Auntie Mabel. Papa had told me first; he thought he ought to, and then he went up and told Aunt Mabel. She came down pretty soon. I was right there in the big chair, trying to imagine what it would be like to have a stranger in the house.

“Auntie said, ‘Well, Lucy, what do you think of the news?’ I said, ‘It is nothing to us; we can keep in our rooms most of the time.’

“‘I can’t,’ said Aunt Mabel, ‘because I shall leave when she comes. Not that I have the slightest objection, but all the same off I go. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but Henry waited so long that I hoped he was going to let well enough alone. But men are all alike!’ And she did go, Elise, the very day before papa brought the lady home. And I couldn’t go because there was no place for me to go and Auntie wouldn’t take me with her because she said it would make papa angry. So I had to stay whether I wanted to or not. It was perfectly awful!”

“Poor, poor Lucee!” murmured Elise, patting the hand she held.

“I was expecting to see a lady ’most as old as Auntie, and papa came up the steps with somebody young. Why, she was awfully young, and had as much powder on her nose as anybody. I was looking through the curtains, and when I saw them coming, I ran upstairs and hid. Papa hunted and called, but I wouldn’t answer, and I heard him getting angry, and then she said, ‘Don’t mind, Henry; it is the most natural thing in the world. Let me find her, I know just where to look,’ and papa said in the silliest way, ‘Go ahead, darling, the house is yours, and the child too if you will have such a bad one.’

“Well, Elise, she came up those stairs and straight to the table I was under, as though someone had told her! The cover went down to the floor, and she lifted it up, and said ‘Coop!’ but I came out crosser than ever, and we had a horrid time.

“So that is the way it went. Worse and worse all the time. Papa was not cross with me because she wouldn’t let him be, and I felt pretty mean to think a stranger had to tell my own father how to treat me. At first she tried to act so sweet to me, and used to want to play with me. I told her I thought it was silly, but she said she had lots of brothers and sisters, and they always romped around together and had a fine time, and she said if I would only be friends we could have such larks. I told her I hoped I was polite and all she said was to wonder where I got my disposition.

“At first they used to make me stay down with them at night after dinner, but by and by I was allowed to go upstairs. I said I wanted to study. I always kept a study book open on the table, and would go to reading it as soon as they came up. Papa used to come in once in awhile, and she was always asking me if she could help me with my lessons. She said she used to help her brothers.

“After a year, one of the brothers came to visit. He was a real nice boy, and I would have liked him only he was so silly about her; used to want to be with her all the time, and put his arm around her and all that! We had a real good time though, and I thought that I had been real nice to her before him until the day he went home. I was in the library, and he came in. I was just going to ask him to put his autograph in my album when he said: ‘Gee, you are a disagreeable little mutt! My sister would half kill me for saying it, but honest, I don’t see how she stands you!’

“Of course I just walked out of the room. I knew then that she had been telling things about me. And I knew that must be the reason why papa was so different to me.”

“But was he?” asked Elise wonderingly.

“Yes, he was, and Miss Hooker says it is all my fault. I had been coldly polite to her for a good while before that. I read about a girl who was abused by a stepmother and the girl was too noble to abuse her in return. She was just ‘coldly polite,’ the book said, and so was I. But after that horrid boy went home I let myself be as mean as I could.”

Elise nodded. “I saw it in your face,” she said.

“And the more I thought of it, the more I was able to act ugly. It is so funny, Elise, the way she makes everybody like her. Papa just gets worse all the time, and the servants adore her, and she is so popular with all the people who come to the house. She makes them all like her—all but me.”

“We will talk about that later,” said Elise.

Lucy sighed. “Well, things have been getting worse and worse, but I think we have both tried to keep it from papa. We hate each other, but we don’t want him to know how bad things are in the house. Papa is not happy, though. Oh, he has talked and talked to me and threatened to send me to school, and I always tell him I wish he would. But the other day the worst happened. Papa had gone to the office, and I was reading in the library, and she was walking around and around, fussing and singing under her breath and sort of acting happy. It made me so mad. Presently she saw me looking at her, and she said, ‘Don’t you wonder why I am singing?’ and I said, ‘No, I had not noticed.’ She went right on: ‘I have had some good news, wonderful news, and I wonder if you would like to hear it, Lucy?’

“I said, ‘I am not at all interested,’ and went right on looking at my book. She came over and leaned down on the table close to my face, and stared and stared at me. She said, ‘Look at me, you bad, difficult, cruel child, look at me and tell me why you are bound to hate me so!’ I never saw anyone look so angry. Then her face changed and got pleasant again, and she said, ‘What have I done? Your own mother, if she can see this house and its unhappy inmates, knows that I have tried to make friends with you.’

“I remembered how furious the girl in the book was when her stepmother spoke of her mother, and I raised my hand and slapped her.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Elise, covering her eyes. “The poor, poor lady!”

Lucy went doggedly on.

“Of course I had no business to do that. She went to her room, and stayed there all day, and when papa came home he went right up. I was on my way to my room, and I heard him say, ‘I don’t believe it is a headache at all. I think Lucy must have been annoying you,’ and she said, ‘No,’ and papa said, ‘I shall send that child away to school.’ And she said, ‘No, give us one more chance. I am going to see Miss Hooker, her Scout Captain, and see if her influence is strong enough to make Lucy see things in the right way.’ As soon as I heard that I made up my mind to see the Captain first, so I went over and that was the day I saw you on the steps. We had had a long, long talk and she said I was all wrong and took away my trefoil. So here I am a dead Scout, and I am so unhappy that I don’t know what to do and I am going to run away. I want you to have my pony. I am going to send it over to your house tomorrow.”

“No, no, no!” cried Elise. “Everything is wrong; so wrong! Oh, let me think! That poor, poor lady! I am so, so sorry for her.”

“Sorry for her!” cried Lucy. “There is no need to be sorry for her! I am the one to be sorry for. She has everything.”

“Why has she?” asked Elise. “She has nothing that you have not. She has your most dear papa; so have you. You both have a most lovely home, everything beautiful, friends, comfort. You are safe in a great land, where no enemy may come and keel all you love. You have both the same things. You share them.” She sat thinking. “Yes, she is the one to be sorry for, because she is so disappoint. When she go to marry your père, she have something promised that she never gets and so she is full of mournsomeness.”

“She has everything papa can get for her,” said Lucy bitterly. “I wish you could see the pearls he gave her the other day.”

“Pearls!” said Elise scornfully. “What are pearls? He promised her something only you could give her, and now she has it not, and she is sad, and you are sad; everybody sad. What do you call her?”

“I don’t call her anything,” said Lucy stubbornly. “I wait until she looks at me and then I say what I want to say.”

“Foolish, foolish one,” said Elise, “That is what no one likes. Besides, it is what you call rude not to speak the name. Most rude!” She saw a frown deepen on Lucy’s brow and gently pressed her hand.

“You wanted to tell me, did you not?” she said softly. “Now I want to tell you what I have not so many times told because I cannot speak of it unless my heart feels like it does bleed. I have had such sorrows, and have seen such dreadfulness; I have been so cold, and hongry, and frightened. I have lived in the wet underground for so long time that all this makes a differentness in me from you. Something in me feels most old and weary. I keep it shut up because my darling Maman Hargrave wants me a happy child, and I want it for myself, but I do feel the oldness when I see others unhappy when they could so easily be full of joy. No, let me talk!” she added, as Lucy tried to speak.

“I must say this, I feel it on me, to save that poor lady her happiness. I shall be sorry for you some other day, but now I am most sad for her. When she marry your papa, she think all the time that she is going to have a most sweet daughter because that is how your dear papa would tell her of you, and then what happens? You know.

“Oh, Lucee, dear, dear Lucee, there is one thing you must give to her, right now today quick.”

“What is that?” said Lucy, startled by Elise’s vehemence.

“LOVE!” cried Elise, her sweet voice thrilling. “Love! So easy, so sweet! Please, my Lucee, do not turn away. I know I am right on account of the oldness in my heart. That tells me. Think how most glad your own mother is to have the pretty one taking such good care of your papa and of you. Does she select your clothes?”

“Yes,” said Lucy.

“They are always the prettiest,” said Elise. “No other girl is so chic—what you call stunning. And so modest, so quiet. And you yourself say everyone but you loves her. You too must love her, and the best of all. You must! You are a Scout, and so you do always the right thing. Where is she now?”

“Home, I suppose. I came down to bring some of my last winter’s dresses. Oh, Elise, even if I could, it is too late. I can’t go back to the beginning again and start over.”

“Of course not,” said Elise wisely. “It is a most bad waste of time when we try going back to beginnings. It is better to start right from here. Anywhere is the best place to start. When you go home you start then! You start here by making some new sweet thoughts in your heart. Dear Lucee, please try! Please, for the sake of your Elise who also has to try to be always happy and not remember those blackness behind her. Won’t you, please? I know I am right. Will you try to give her love?”

Lucy, the tears pouring down her cheeks, leaned her head against the shoulder near her.

“I don’t see how I can,” she said huskily. “But I will try. I am so sick of everything the way it is.”

“Of course you are!” said Elise. “One is always seek of wrong. It makes a blackness over everything.”

“What will I do? How will I begin?”

“I cannot tell you,” said Elise. “You will know what to do. Something will tell you. Something always tells. I think it is le bon Dieu. Just trust and you will know what to do and to say. Come, let us go. I hear the meeting talking itself down the stairs. Is your car waiting?”

“Yes,” said Lucy dully as she allowed Elise to lead her through the store. “Oh, Elise, I don’t love her, and I don’t know what to do!”

“It is because of the hatefulness you put in your heart long ago that you do not love her,” said the wise, sad little girl who had suffered beyond her years. She stood at the door of the limousine and smiled at the little girl who sank back so wearily.

“Don’t forget it is now we make those beginnings. And you owe her what your dear papa promised her, your love.” She stepped back with a wave of her hand as the machine started away.

Lucy’s heart throbbed violently as she approached her home. Her one hope was that Mrs. Breen was out, so the moment might be delayed. But as she passed the door of the library she saw Mrs. Breen lying in a low lounging chair. How pale she looked! Lucy was quite startled to see the look of suffering and weakness on the beautiful young face. She had been too blind to notice what had been worrying her father of late. Was it her fault? Had her actions brought her self-made enemy so low? Lucy was shocked.

She went up and put away her wraps. Still she did not know what to do or what to say. Twice she passed the library door. No thought came to her. She went in, not speaking, and selected a book at random from the nearest shelf. Mrs. Breen did not speak but her great blue eyes seemed to follow Lucy appealingly. Then Lucy found her courage. What she said was rough and crude but it came from the heart—an honest statement and appeal for tolerance and understanding. She came, clutching her book, and stood facing Mrs. Breen.

Her voice sounded so husky and shaken that she did not know it for hers.

“Mamma,” she said, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. “Mamma, you know I do not like you, but I am going to try to love you!”

And then, clasping her book with both hands, she fled.

CHAPTER XI

Years had passed before Mrs. Breen and Lucy ever found the courage to speak of that day when Lucy had hurried from the room, leaving Mrs. Breen too surprised to follow her, or even speak. She sat thinking, so glad and so happy and so proud of the courage shown by Lucy. She heard the front door close softly and was not surprised, a little later, to have one of the maids come and tell her that Miss Lucy had telephoned that she was at Mrs. Hargrave’s, and would stay for supper with Elise.

Mrs. Breen sat thinking for an hour, then the right thought came to her. She hastened to the telephone and had a long talk with her husband, and after a good deal of argument, she went to her room, packed a small trunk, ordered the car, had a talk with the housekeeper, and went out. She drove to her husband’s office, and he ushered her into his private room.

“Now what is all this?” he demanded.

“I told you over the telephone what happened in the library,” Mrs. Breen said. “My dear, I am so happy and so proud of Lucy! But there will be the most distressing awkwardness for a little, unless something out of the ordinary happens to help her out. Now I have never been away without you since we were married. So I have decided to give the child a chance to regain her poise and strengthen her new resolutions. Something has changed her, and I am contented to accept it without question until the time comes when she will tell me of her own accord. I will go home for a week, and you must spend all the time you can with Lucy. And when you feel like it, speak well of me.”

“That will be a hard job,” said her husband, smiling.

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Breen. “Another thing, to keep her interest in me, if you should decide to repaper my room and want to surprise me, I would be perfectly satisfied with Lucy’s taste.”

So when Lucy came in that night, dreading the next step toward the right, she found only her father reading under the library light.

“Hello, Donna Lucia,” he said, looking up. “Did you know that we are orphans?”

“No,” said Lucy. “What has happened?”

“Mamma decided very suddenly that she had to go home to Boston to attend to some matters, and she did not have time to telephone you or call around at Mrs. Hargrave’s. But she managed to stop in at the office, and she has left me in your charge.”

Lucy heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, she would have a little time to herself anyway.

A couple of days later Mr. Breen approached the subject of the new wall-paper. He merely approached it, because at the first mention Lucy fairly flung herself on it and appropriated it. The very thing, she decided. She thought that room was about as shabby as it could be. Could she select the paper? Of course she could! She knew exactly what mamma would like.

At her use of the word mamma, Mr. Breen’s heart leaped. He had been a patient, but very unhappy man, and the thought that his little household might become united was the greatest happiness he could imagine. So he grumbled out that he was glad of that, because he never could tell the least thing about the silly strips of paper they showed in the stores, and Lucy could go ahead and get whatever she wanted.

But the following morning, when a van backed up to the door and a couple of men commenced to take away all the prettiest wicker furniture in the house he demanded some explanation.

“Why, they have to be painted for mamma’s new room,” said the practical Miss Breen. “You said I could go ahead, and I have gone!”

“All our furniture has gone too, I should say,” said Mr. Breen.

“Just the best of the wicker,” answered Lucy. “I thought and thought all last night, and I have decided just what would be the loveliest thing in the world for her, with her violet blue eyes and golden hair. So when you were shaving I telephoned for the men to come and take the chairs and tables and that chaise-longue and they are all going to be painted.

“And today you had better write her that you think it would be a good thing, as long as she is there, to stay another week. Don’t let her suspect, but don’t let her come home.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Breen with a twinkle in his eye, but outwardly very meek. “Just as you say. Send the bills to me.”

“Oh, I was going to,” said Lucy with the happiest laugh he had heard from her for months.

Mr. Breen did not come home for luncheon, and every day Lucy managed to have Elise or Rosanna or Helen take that meal with her.

Lucy worked like mad and nearly wore the workmen out, she hurried them so. Mrs. Breen decided to make a longer stay, but even then there was but little time, because Lucy had decided that all the woodwork must be re-enameled. When that was done and the paper on, she cast aside the old rug with scorn, and took the three girls downtown to buy others. As the days went on, Lucy found that her point of view was wholly changed. She was so intent on the beautiful surprise she was planning that it seemed to sweep her mind clean of all the dark and unworthy feelings that had filled it. She even wrote to Mrs. Breen at a suggestion from Elise, a pleasant friendly letter, ending, “With love, Lucy.”

And to her surprise Mrs. Breen answered the letter at once, with a long one all about her visit, and enclosing funny little cartoons of each one of the family, including the boy who had spoken his mind to Lucy. Strange to say, Lucy was able to acknowledge the truth of the young man’s remark.

“Some day,” said Lucy to herself, “if this turns out all right, I will tell him that he was perfectly right.”

Lucy was coming to think, with a sense of deep chagrin, that she herself had been the one in the wrong. And being an honest girl and wanting very humbly and deeply to live up to the pledge of the Girl Scouts, she was growing most anxious to make good her faults.

So she drove the painters and paperhangers and upholsterers almost wild, and had the happiness of seeing the beautiful room all settled and in order two days before Mrs. Breen was expected. It had a hard time staying settled however, because Lucy spent all her time after school trying things in new places to see if they looked any better. Her father vowed that he would go up and nail the things down, but he was just as proud and pleased as Lucy.

With all the planning and plotting, and various jaunts to the shops together, and to some movies and once to the theatre, Lucy and her father had entered a new epoch in their lives. They too seemed to have forgotten the past.

As Elise said, they found that they could make a beginning anywhere. And once begun, they found that it was like a door that had opened into a beautiful place full of happiness and sunshine—a door that closed softly behind them and shut out all the despair and gloom on the other side.

When the day came for Mrs. Breen’s return, Mr. Breen insisted on Lucy coming to meet her, and Lucy, in whom some of the old dread seemed struggling to awake, went silently. But when she was suddenly caught in a warm embrace, before even her father was greeted, and when a sweet voice said, “Oh, what a long two weeks it has been, Lucy! Do say you have missed me!” Lucy felt that all was indeed well with her world.

Mrs. Breen had brought another brother with her: a shy, awkward boy, evidently frightened to death of Lucy, a fact which of course set her completely at her ease. They drove home, and Lucy and her father dogged Mrs. Breen’s footsteps up the stairs when she said she would go and take off her things. Not for worlds would they have missed seeing her first look at the newly decorated room. And it was worth all the trouble to witness her delight and appreciation.

So Happiness and Love and Understanding came into the Breen home. Lucy wore her trefoil with a new gratitude and a new understanding. Elise felt a happiness that she had thought she could never feel, for she had helped a sister Scout through a dark and dreadful place in her life. Mrs. Breen was so happy that she sang and sang all the day long, and when one day a baby boy set up a lusty roar in the beautiful room that Lucy had made, it was Lucy who named him, and Lucy who assumed such airs of superiority in speaking of “my baby brother” that the girls grew to avoid the subject of children in general as it was sure to bring from Lucy some anecdote to prove the vast superiority and beauty of the Breen baby.

Rosanna was happy too. Uncle Robert had been away longer than Rosanna liked. She was surprised to find how much she missed Uncle Robert. And much as she loved him, and wanted him to be happy, she decided that it was really a good thing that he did not care for girls. The various uncles who did like girls she noticed had a way of marrying one of them and leaving home for good. That was a poor plan, thought Rosanna, as she felt the silence in the big old house. No number of girls could make the whistly noises Uncle Robert could when he ran upstairs three steps at a time or dashed down again. No one but Uncle Robert could tootle so entrancingly on the flute, or pick out such funny records for the Victrola. No one in the world would think to bring one a box of candy and leave it hidden in his hat, or just outside the door for one to find after dinner. No other Uncle would remember a little girl’s birthday once a month with a new dollar bill.

Rosanna, driven by a real loneliness to confide in someone, spent much time with Miss Hooker and while Rosanna honestly thought she was attending strictly to Scout business, the conversation was sure to slip around to Uncle Robert. Miss Hooker never appeared to join Rosanna in her talk, but it was surprising what a good listener she proved to be. The only time she said anything was when Rosanna would enlarge on the way Uncle Robert felt about girls. Then Miss Hooker would always assert that she thought he was perfectly right, because she herself thought very little of men. Silly creatures she said they were, at which loyal Rosanna would always declare, “But Uncle Robert isn’t.”

Miss Hooker would answer, “Possibly not,” in a manner that insinuated that perhaps he wasn’t, and perhaps he was, but Rosanna let it go.

However, Rosanna was happy because Uncle Robert had written her that he was coming home in a day or two, and that she might get ready to look in the left hand pocket of his overcoat, and whatever was there she could have. When she told Miss Hooker she was grieved to hear her say that she was not sure that she would be around to see the surprise, because she was planning to go away herself, and wasn’t it too bad?

“I should say it was!” said Rosanna. “Why, then you won’t see Uncle Robert either!”

“No,” said Miss Hooker, “but it really doesn’t make any difference. I don’t suppose I am any more anxious to see him than he is to see me.”

When Uncle Robert appeared and came up the front steps three at a time as usual, Rosanna was at the door to meet him. She jumped into his arms and hugged him until he begged for mercy.

As she let him go, she happened to think of the left hand pocket, and had to think which was the left. While she was deciding, she heard a funny noise, and there in the pocket was a fuzzy head. The most adorable little head! It was a tiny baby collie, looking like a small bear. Rosanna had him out in a second, and Uncle Robert left her with her new pet while he went to speak to his mother.

That night he came up to show Rosanna how to put her puppy to bed for the night, and when the little fellow at last snuggled down in his basket, and went to sleep, Uncle Robert settled down in his favorite chair and lighted a cigarette and wanted to hear all the news.

“What shall I start with?” asked Rosanna, listening to the soft breathing of the little collie.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Uncle Robert. “Begin with Miss—er Gwenny.”

“Why, you needn’t call her Miss,” said Rosanna. “You never used to! I thought first you were going to say begin with Miss Hooker.”

“Ridiculous!” laughed Uncle Robert, cocking his eye up at the ceiling. “Begin with Gwenny, of course.”

“Well,” said Rosanna, “we have only had two letters from her mother. One was soon after you went away, and said that Gwenny was very comfortable indeed, and had a fine room, and was making a great many friends. The doctor couldn’t tell when he would operate, because he would have to take Gwenny any time she happened to be at her best. That was about all of that letter. The next one was just the other day. And Uncle Robert, they have operated! They telegraphed for Doctor Rick, and he is there now. But Mrs. Harter wrote that the operation was over and Doctor Branshaw thinks it will be perfectly successful.”

“Well, that is perfectly splendid!” said Uncle Robert. “Did she tell you how Gwenny stood it?”

“Yes. She said for a couple of hours they were afraid her heart was going to stop, but that Doctor Branshaw stood right over her, and had everything ready to start it again if they could. He stayed with her all night. You ought to hear the way Mrs. Harter talks about him. She thinks he is a saint, as well as the greatest doctor in the whole world.”

“He assays pretty well toward solid gold,” said Uncle Robert.

“Mrs. Harter says they don’t know when they will be able to get home, but already Gwenny sleeps better and is beginning to want to eat. She never did, you know.”

“That is certainly fine news,” said Uncle Robert. “Anything else happened while I was away?”

“You know that Lucy Breen?” asked Rosanna.

Uncle Robert shook his head.

“She has turned out to be a real nice girl, and Helen and Elise and I go over there a lot. And her mother (it’s really her stepmother, only Lucy is mad if you call her that) is perfectly lovely. If you could only marry her, Uncle Robert!”

“Thank you, Rosanna, but Mr. Breen looks husky and he might object.”

“Oh, that was a joke,” said Rosanna. “Like the time you said you pretty near loved Miss Hooker. I wish you could have heard her laugh when I told her that.”

“Oh, you told her, did you?” said Uncle Robert.

“It was so funny I had to.”

“What did she say?” asked Uncle Robert, sitting up suddenly.

“She said she thought you were the most amusing person she had ever met and that no one could possibly take you seriously. I agreed with her.”

“I’ll bet you did!” said Uncle Robert.

“She has gone away,” said Rosanna as an afterthought. “She went today. I told her I was sorry she wouldn’t be able to see what you brought me, and wouldn’t see you either, but she said it didn’t make any difference as she wasn’t any more anxious to see you than she supposed you were to see her.”

Uncle Robert laughed a short, queer laugh.

“Well, Rosanna, just you watch what happens now! I will just pay her up for that.”

“What do you care?” asked Rosanna. “I don’t see what difference it makes. She likes you all right; she thinks you are so funny.”

“I will show her how funny I can be,” said Uncle Robert. “Where has she gone?”

“To Atlantic City,” said Rosanna.

“I may see her there,” said Uncle Robert. “The doctor says the sea air would be great for me.”

“What ails you?” said Rosanna anxiously. “You look perfectly well.”

“A little trouble with my heart,” said Uncle Robert soberly. “It acts like the very deuce, Rosanna. Part of the time it feels sort of—sort of, well, sort of empty, and then it has spells when I get to thinking hard and beats as fast as it can. It is awful, Rosanna.”

“I should say it was!” said Rosanna, “Oh, Uncle Robert, do try to get it well! If anything should happen to you, I would think it was that benefit. You had to work so hard.”

“I think myself that had something to do with it,” said Robert, “but of course I only did my duty, and I don’t blame a soul.”

CHAPTER XII

There was a long silence during which Rosanna studied her uncle closely. She even forgot the puppy. What if anything should happen to Uncle Robert? As she looked at him it flashed over her that she cared for him with all her heart. She would not know what to do without him. She felt very sad, and when Uncle Robert looked up and surprised the worried expression on her face he laughed, and said:

“Cheer up, sweetness! I am all right, and I want you to promise me that you won’t tell mother what I have just told you. I don’t want to worry her.”

“I promise, Uncle Robert; and I always keep my promises,” said Rosanna.

“That is a good thing,” said Uncle Robert. “I wish I had known that before. I would have had you make me some.” But he wouldn’t explain that remark, and soon went out, not seeming to care for the rest of the news which, being all about the Scouts, Rosanna had left until the last as the most important.

The Girl Scouts were very busy now getting ready for Christmas. There was a cast-iron rule in that particular troop that all Christmas presents should be finished and wrapped up three weeks before Christmas.

So with all their own work well out of the way, they were busy as bees making tarleton stockings and collecting toys and dolls for the particular orphanage they had assumed the care of. Louisville is full of orphanages, and every year the girls were in the habit of choosing one of them for their attention. They dressed a tree, and secured presents for each of the children. These presents were often dolls and toys that had been cast aside by more fortunate children, but the girls took them and mended and painted and dressed them until you would have been surprised at the result. At least they never offered anything that looked shabby. The stockings were filled with popcorn and candy, and a big golden orange gladdened each little heart.

Rosanna worked harder than anyone. School went right on as it always does whether or not Girl Scouts are busy at other things, and every spare moment was spent with the dear little puppy that her uncle had brought her. Mr. Horton still complained to Rosanna about his heart, but was unable to go east as he had planned. He often asked Rosanna if Miss Hooker had returned, although Rosanna had told him a good many times that she did not expect to come back before spring.

But news came from Gwenny. She was so much better that she could come back. As Miss Hooker was away, and Uncle Robert always seemed to have time to do things, the Girl Scouts made him a committee to go and pay the doctor and the hospital bills, and see that Gwenny and her mother reached home safely.

Uncle Robert dashed off to Cincinnati that very night. The next day he returned without Gwenny, and with a queer look on his face asked Rosanna to ask their Lieutenant, who was in charge of the troop, to call a meeting that very afternoon or evening. Rosanna called Miss Jamieson up, and between them they were able to get word to all the girls. Rosanna was as excited as any of them, because Uncle Robert would not tell her what the matter was. When the girls all gathered in Rosanna’s sitting-room, he came in, looking very mysterious and important.

“I have news for you girls—quite remarkable news, I think. To begin, I went down to Cincinnati and found Gwenny so improved that I actually did not know her. Of course she is still in a wheel chair, and will have to stay there most of the time for the next year but every day she goes through certain exercises, and soon will begin to take a few steps. Doctor Branshaw assured me that she will some day be as well as any of you. They have taught Mrs. Harter just how to rub her, and help her with her exercises.

“After I had seen Gwenny I went down and paid the hospital bill. It came to a little over two hundred dollars. I have the items in my pocket. Then I went to Doctor Branshaw’s office, and asked him for his bill. He said, ‘Sit down. I want to have a talk with you.’ Well, girls, he wanted to know all about you, and the work you are doing, and how many there are of you in the troop that is taking care of Gwenny. I told him about the benefit, and he said he had heard about that from Gwenny, and her mother as well.

“I didn’t want to bore him, so after we had talked you pretty well out, and over, I asked him again for his bill, and he said, ‘Horton, there is no bill.’ I said, ‘Well, sir, whenever you will have it made out, I will give a check for it. The money the girls made is banked in my name for the sake of convenience.’

“‘How much is there?’ asked the doctor. I thought he didn’t want to charge over the amount we have so I told him. He fiddled with a pencil for awhile, then he said:

“‘Horton, I make the rich pay, and pay well, but I do not intend to ask those girls of yours a cent for this operation.’”

A great “O-o-o-o-h!” went up from the girls.

Uncle Robert went on.

“Then the doctor said, before I could thank him, ‘I wonder if the girls would mind if I make a suggestion,’ and I assured him that you would like it very much.

“‘Well then,’ said the doctor, ‘here it is. Gwenny will require a great deal of care for many months to come, rubbing and so forth. Why don’t those good girls take the money and buy a little house somewhere on the edge of the city, or on a quiet street, where the Harters could live and where Mrs. Harter would not have to work so hard to earn the rent? From what she says, the boys earn nearly enough to feed the family. What do you think of that?’

“I told him that I thought it was a splendid idea, and would see what could be done about it. Then he made the finest suggestion of all. He said that another week in the hospital would be of great benefit to Gwenny, and why didn’t I come home and see you and if you all approve, we can buy a small house and settle it and Gwenny can be moved right there.”

A shriek of delight went up, and everyone commenced to talk at once.

“Order, order!” cried Mr. Horton. He could scarcely make himself heard.

At last after much talking, it was settled that Mr. Horton should look at a number of houses, and when he had seen them he was to select the three that seemed most promising and take all the girls to see them. But he stipulated that a couple of older ladies should look them over with him, and Mrs. Breen and Mrs. Hargrave were chosen by unanimous vote.

“Now, girls, how are you going to thank the Doctor?” he asked.

No one knew and finally Rosanna suggested that it would be well to think it over. So they all trooped home, Uncle Robert promising to make a report at the end of three days.

It was a long three days, but it passed finally, and Uncle Robert appeared with an account of three little bungalows that seemed all that he had hoped for, and more. One of them he thought was the one for them to take, as it was right on a good part of Preston Street where the children could easily get to school. It was brand new, and had never been occupied. Indeed it was not finished but would be within two or three days. After the girls had seen the three houses, Mr. Horton said he would tell them which one Mrs. Hargrave and Mrs. Breen liked the best. Of course all the girls piled into the automobiles of the girls who had them, and made the rounds, and equally of course they all decided on the Preston Street house which was the very one that Mrs. Hargrave and Mrs. Breen had liked. It was all done except the plumbing in the kitchen, so Mr. Horton went right over to see Minnie who was still keeping house for the Harter children. Minnie heard all about the new plan, and Mr. Horton asked:

“Now, Minnie, do you feel like moving these people all over there, before Mrs. Harter and Gwenny come home, or is it too much to ask you?”

“Just you fetch me a moving van the day you want we should move,” said Minnie, “and I will do the rest.” She cast an eye around the dilapidated, shabby room. “My, my! What a piece of good luck for the deservingest woman! I tell you, Mr. Robert, the time I’ve been here has been a lesson to me. The way she has scrimped, and saved, and patched, and turned, and mended, and went without! My young man and me on his wages ought to put away fifty dollars every month of our lives. And so I told him we was going to do. Of course I will move ’em! And Mr. Robert, if it was so I could go around and see the house, perhaps I could tell better how to pack.”

“That’s right, Minnie. Suppose we go over now,” said Mr. Horton.

Minnie was overjoyed when she saw the little house, and at once picked out a room for Gwenny. The other children could double up, but Gwenny should have a room to herself. Minnie seemed thoughtful all the way home, and finally said, “Mr. Horton, up in your garret, there is a pile of window curtains that don’t fit anywhere, and they will never be used. I have handled ’em a million times while I worked for your mother. And there’s a square table with a marble top that your mother can’t abide the sight of, and a couple of brass beds put up there when they went out of date. If your mother would spare any of those things I could fix that house so tasty.”

“I don’t suppose she wants any of them,” said Robert heartily. “I will speak to her about them when I go home, and after supper Rosanna and I will take a joy ride over here and tell you what her answer is.”

The answer was that Mrs. Horton was only too glad to get rid of the things Minnie had mentioned, and suggested that before settling the house Minnie might go through the attic and see if there was anything else that she thought would be of service. Mrs. Horton, knowing that Minnie would know better than she could, just what the Harters would appreciate, refrained from making any suggestions; and Minnie found many treasures in the attic. There were portières, and a soft low couch, the very thing for Gwenny to rest on in the pleasant sitting-room, and the beds, and a table and two bureaus. And she found two carpet rugs.

She set Mary and Myron to work with a pot of cream colored paint, and in two days the shabby old dining-room table and shabbier chairs were all wearing bright new coats.

As soon as ever she could, she called on Mr. Robert for the moving van, and moved everything over to the new house. Settling was a joy, there were so many to help. All the Girl Scouts wanted to do something, and between them they outfitted Gwenny’s dresser (a walnut one that was put through the paint test and came out pretty as could be). The two carpet rugs were laid down in the living-room and the dining-room, and looked scarcely worn at all after Minnie had finished scrubbing, and Tommy and Myron had whipped them. The dining-room rug was dark blue, and how that table and those chairs did show up on it. The springs were broken down in the couch Minnie had picked out, but she turned it over and her young man nailed a new piece of webbing underneath, and in five minutes it was as good as new. Rosanna helped her as much as she could. When they were busy putting up the curtains Minnie said, “Rosanna dear, I think your Uncle Robert looks thin.”

“I think he does too,” said Rosanna, but remembering her promise would say no more.

“In love,” said Minnie, wisely nodding her head.

“Of course not,” said Rosanna. “He doesn’t like girls.”

“No, he doesn’t. Oh no!” said Minnie. “Of course he is in love! Do you mean to tell me, Rosanna, that you don’t know that he is in love with little Miss Hooker? Don’t tell me that!”

“I do tell you,” said Rosanna. “He doesn’t even like her, sweet as she is.”

“My good land, hear the child!” said Minnie, sitting down on the top step of the ladder, and letting the stiffly starched curtain trail to the floor.

“Do you remember the day she came to see you when you were sick after your accident, and your grandmother had said you could be a Girl Scout? Do you remember that your Uncle Robert was there when she came in? Well, believe me, Rosanna, your Uncle Robert fell in love with her that very day and hour and minute, and that’s the truth.”

“I wish it was,” sighed Rosanna. “I do wish it was, but he truly does not like her. I don’t know why.”

“Well, that beats me!” said Minnie, picking up the slack of the curtain again, and sadly hanging it. “I certainly am disappointed, for she is the sweetest little bit I ever hope to see, and it would be a mercy to see that good, kind, nice actin’ young man get the likes of her rather than some high nosed madam, who would look down on all his humble friends (as friends we are, Rosanna, as you may well believe).”

Rosanna did not answer. She was too low in her mind. She knew that Uncle Robert did not care for anyone, but what if someone should grab him anyhow? Rosanna felt that life was full of perils.

Two days later the little house was in perfect order, and Uncle Robert went again to Cincinnati after Gwenny. It was decided that no one should meet them on account of tiring Gwenny after her journey, so Uncle Robert carried Gwenny to the automobile and took her home to the little new house, her mother looking back with her sweet, anxious smile from the front seat of the automobile. When they reached the Preston Street house, and Mary and Myron and boisterous Tommy and little Luella all filed out quite quiet, but brimming with happiness, Mrs. Harter could only stare.

“This is Gwenny’s house, Mrs. Harter, deeded to her. Come in!” said Mr. Horton, as Minnie rushed out and led the dazed woman into all the glories of the new home.

Mr. Horton carried Gwenny straight to her own room, and laid her down on the sparkling, gleaming brass bed, where he left her listening to Mary’s rapid explanations. When he went downstairs he found Mrs. Harter in the kitchen, crying silently.

“Now, now, Mrs. Harter, you must not do that!” he said. “Brace up like a good woman! Gwenny will need a lot of care for a few days, and you will need all your strength.”

“Oh, but I am so thankful that my heart feels as though it would break!” said Mrs. Harter.

Mr. Horton laughed. “It won’t break,” he said. “Minnie, shall I take you home?”

“Thank you, sir, but my Tom is coming over a little later. I have supper all fixed, so we will have a small feast to celebrate, after Gwenny is attended to and safe in bed, so I will get home nicely, thank you.”

“Good night then,” said Mr. Horton. “Don’t let those Girl Scouts run over you, Mrs. Harter.” He raised his hat and ran down the steps whistling.

“There goes one good man,” said Minnie solemnly. “Come, dear, and take off your hat in your own house, and see the ducky closet under the stairs to keep it in.”

And so it was that Gwenny came home.

Mr. Horton sped to his own home as fast as he dared drive the car, the chauffeur sitting silently beside him. Robert was too happy to let anyone else handle the wheel. Once more he dashed up the steps three at a time, whistling. Rosanna was at the door.

“Be careful of your heart, Uncle Robert,” she whispered, looking around to see that her grandmother was not within hearing. “Were they pleased?”

“Were they?” said Uncle Robert. “I should say they were! Everybody perfectly happy! Gwenny staring around her pretty room, and Mrs. Harter crying in the sink. Yes, everybody is happy. Teedle-ee, teedle-oo!” warbled Uncle Robert.

“How good and kind you are, dear Uncle Robert!” said Rosanna tenderly.

“Yes, ain’t I?” said Uncle Robert, deliberately ungrammatical. “Oh, yes, I be!” he went on chanting, as he sat down and fished out a cigarette. Then changing to a sober tone, “Rosanna, whom do you think I found in Cincinnati? Up there at that Hospital as large as life?”

“I don’t know,” said Rosanna.

“Well, if you will believe me, there was that bad little bit of a Miss Hooker, who had come back from Atlantic City to see that Gwenny was all right. She helped me bring them home. And Rosanna, perhaps I didn’t get even with her, for what she said about my being funny! You know I told you I would. I did! It was hard, hard work but I done it, I done it! Tra-la-de-lu-de-lu-de-i-i-i-i-i!” yodeled Uncle Robert, whisking the ash off his cigarette.

“What did you do to her?” asked Rosanna in a small, fearful voice.

Uncle Robert looked very sternly at Rosanna.

“What did I do?” he asked. “What did I do? Well, I made her promise to marry me; that’s what I did! Pretty smart uncle, hey, Rosanna?”

CHAPTER XIII

Rosanna sank feebly down on the hall bench, and to her own surprise and Uncle Robert’s dismay burst into tears.

“Well, who next?” said Uncle Robert. “Mrs. Harter crying in the sink, and you weeping all over our nice hall. Oh dear, what a wet, wet world!”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Rosanna, choking back her sobs. “I am perfectly happy, only everything turns out so differently from everything else!”

“I suppose you are right,” granted Uncle Robert. “You must be if you know what you mean.”

“I am not sure what I mean,” said Rosanna, “but I am so glad, glad, glad that you are going to marry that dear darling Miss Hooker instead of that high nosed madam!”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Robert. “High nosed? Who is she?”

“I think it is someone Minnie made up,” said Rosanna. “She said what a shame if she married you.”

“Well, she didn’t and won’t,” declared Uncle Robert with conviction. “And as far as nose goes, my girl has only enough nose so that one knows it is a nose. Get that, Rosanna?”