Mary Louise Stands the Test

CHAPTER II AT THE HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY SHOP

The Higgledy Piggledy Shop had proved even more successful than its owners had dreamed possible even in their most wildly sanguine moments. When Josie O’Gorman, the detective’s daughter—herself a budding detective—had gone into partnership with Elizabeth Wright and they had opened the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, it had been with the idea of building up a business gradually. But the first six months, indeed the first three months, had demonstrated to them and to Dorfield that such a shop was much needed in the town.

Elizabeth held up the secretarial end, doing all of the typing, correcting manuscript for would-be authors, writing club papers for aspiring females, and, occasionally, even love letters for bashful youths or maidens whose hearts were bigger than their heads or whose love burned too fiercely to make it safe for them to approach too closely to such inflammable material as scented note paper. Josie was the blanchisseuse au fin who laundered the fine laces and linen brought to the shop by their wealthy clients. And she did most of the research work in the books of reference from her father’s magnificent technical library. Another one of her duties was the matching of silks and wools. It was one that she did not relish much, as clothes and fancy work were her abomination, but her eye was so sure that she never made a mistake and Elizabeth found herself constantly making slight errors in shades when she undertook to do that part of the work.

The clipping bureau, that had been started with some trepidation because of the outlay necessary to subscribe to so many papers and magazines to enable them to carry on the work successfully, had developed into a thriving branch of the business. It was really astonishing to see how many persons were willing and anxious to pay so that, if their names appeared in print, they would be sure to know about it.

Irene Macfarlane still took entire charge of the fine needlework, orders for which poured in on the girls. She had not been content until she had learned to put in an invisible patch as well as the nefarious Hortense Markle whose whereabouts was still a mystery to the detective force. Certainly Hortense had been as much a party to the frauds practiced by her husband as Felix Markle himself; but she had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. After Mary Louise’s wedding, she had tripped away from the festivities gowned in palest diaphanous grey with stockings, slippers and gloves to match and a picture hat that could have been identified by everyone at the wedding, since it had been noted and admired by all the guests as being a work of real art. She had tripped away, and, for all the police could find out, the earth might have opened and swallowed her.

Josie always had a feeling that, sooner or later, the Hortense Markle mystery would be solved. She had the thought constantly in the back of her busy brain, but, since the men who were implicated in the wholesale robberies that had been committed throughout the whole of the United States, had one and all been caught, the police seemed to feel that the woman was not worth hunting for. Josie knew that it was the genius of the woman as much as that of her husband that had made the robberies so successful and she knew also that a character like Hortense Markle’s could not be downed but would, in the course of time, assert itself in other channels of wickedness. No doubt she had left America and was in some foreign country awaiting the release of her husband from the penitentiary. The love she bore her husband was the one good point in her character. At least, it was the only good point Josie was ready to grant her. With all Hortense’s charm, wit and beauty, artistic taste, and efficiency, she was, according to Josie and Mary Louise’s other friends, rotten to the core.

What they could not forgive in the fascinating Mrs. Markle was her treachery in regard to Mary Louise, the beloved of Dorfield. Mary Louise herself made excuses for the Markles, but then Mary Louise always made excuses for everybody.

“They were brought up wrong!” or, “They must have been greatly tempted!” or perhaps, “They inherited some weakness from their ancestors!” she would say when the exciting topic of the attempted robbery of all her wedding gifts was under discussion, as it often was at the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“Oh, gracious me, Mary Louise, you can’t see straight for sheer goodness!” Josie exclaimed at one of these occasions. “If the Markles weren’t wicked—as wicked as his Satanic Majesty—then their parents must have been, to bring them up so badly; or, if not their parents, at least some of their forbears from whom they inherited their traits. The blame has to go somewhere and it might just as well be put on Felix and the fair Hortense as on their dead progenitors. No doubt said Satanic Majesty is able to entertain the whole bunch of them in the lower regions.”

Mary Louise smiled and, taking from the book shelves a well worn copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, turned the leaves at random and read bits aloud.

“That expresses what I want to say better than I ever could,” said Mary Louise. “I can’t blame anybody very much because he or she may have been marred in the making.”

“Right dangerous doctrine for us to practice in regard to ourselves,” said Josie. “It’s all right to feel that way about the other fellow, but, if we get to feeling that way about ourselves and excusing our every fault because we were made that way, we’d be a mighty lopsided bunch. For my part, I’d rather think of myself as wet clay—never dried and baked—always wet and pliable, and with it my own job to mould myself into some kind of useful and even beautiful shape. I don’t want to blame a soul but myself for my shortcomings.” She put a book back in place with a vigorous push.

Mary Louise had come to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop to try to throw off some of the misery and gloom she felt enveloping her. She longed to tell Josie about her predicament, but Elizabeth Wright was present and Irene had just come gliding in her wheel chair from the dumb waiter, an arrangement Danny had perfected so that the lame girl could come to the shop whenever she wanted to and not be dependent on anyone to be carried up stairs. Entering from the rear of the building, she merely wheeled herself into the large dumb waiter and, with a few pulls of the rope, landed on the second floor.

Mary Louise shrank from discussing her trouble concerning her grandfather with Irene because of the fact of her living next door and of Uncle Peter Conant’s being such a friend of Grandpa Jim. The poor girl had become very sensitive and, because of Colonel Hathaway’s feeling against Danny, feared perhaps his friends were sharing that feeling. She was sure her grandfather quite freely expressed his opinion of Danny to anyone who would listen to him. That in itself was very unlike Grandpa Jim, who had always been reticent about his affairs even with an old and tried friend like Mr. Peter Conant.

Josie has such a level head. Perhaps she could suggest something to do. At least, it would be a relief to talk it over with her. It seemed strange and wrong for anything to have come into her life that she could not discuss with Danny, but she felt that it would be rank disloyalty to poor Grandpa Jim if she mentioned the trouble to him. It was plain to see that the young man was puzzled and hurt by the Colonel’s treatment of him and now was becoming irritated and impatient. It seemed absurd to accuse Colonel Hathaway of being not quite himself since the stand he had taken in regard to his grandson-in-law was the only evidence of it. He attended to his affairs as usual, looking after his investments with punctilious care, clipping coupons, seeing that his property was kept up with all repairs necessary, and reinvesting his money as bonds matured. He had even made quite an extensive sale of real estate, selling at a large profit and investing the money to great advantage, so he declared, in some mines. This particular investment had caused Mary Louise more sorrow than she had known before in all her life. It seemed to the girl that even the death of her mother had not brought such intense suffering.

The Colonel had come home after selling a large number of bonds, loudly proclaiming, “I’ll tie it up, too, so that rascal can’t get his clutches on it. The worthless fellow!”

Mary Louise did not understand that her Danny was the rascal and worthless fellow and had asked in some astonishment “What rascal, Grandpa Jim?”

And he had answered sadly, “You poor child, I mean your husband.”

She had burst out crying and Colonel Hathaway had taken her action as proof that she was being abused by Danny and had continued his invectives against that innocent and long suffering young man. Vainly Mary Louise had endeavored to stem the flow of his abuse.

“Women always take up the defense for their worthless husbands,” he had said, “but it makes no impression on me. He is a rascal and I don’t care who knows I think so.”

Danny had overheard the remark and it had added fuel to the fires of his resentment. He had rushed from the house without waiting for dinner, and Mary Louise regretted the fact that he had given the front door an ear-splitting slam. This gave Colonel Hathaway a real grievance which be aired during the miserable meal that followed. As soon as it was over, Mary Louise had fled to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“How is everybody?” called Irene as her chair rolled smoothly across the floor. It was the best one of its kind that could be bought and moved so easily that the girl could wheel herself many city blocks without the least fatigue. It was a present from Colonel Hathaway, with whom the lame girl was a great favorite. He was constantly doing something kind for her.

“We are fine,” answered Josie, “and glad to see you. A job of mending has come in that must be done immediately. It beats me how rich people wait until the last minute to attend to their own affairs and then come with a great rush for poor people to do their part. It is a set of real lace curtains—exquisite things—but there are many small breaks to be darned and Mrs. Sears wants it rushed through as fast as possible so they can be hung in time for the reception she is giving next week. She might just as well have brought them six weeks ago,” grumbled Josie.

“Well, I guess I can do them in time,” laughed Irene. “Let me see them. Why, I’ll have to appliqué these corners on net. Just see how shot with holes they are! Anyhow, it is easier to appliqué than to darn.”

“It all seems terribly hard to me. I can mend only with hammer and nails and a glue-pot,” declared Josie. “I suppose you want me to go out and match the net. Let me see the mesh.”

“That would be mighty good of you,” said Irene. “Do you want me to give you a tiny sample? I could snip it off under the casing at the top.”

“No, I can remember it! That’s the kind of memory I have and so had my father. He had a photographic mind and I seem to have one too. Come on, Mary Louise, and go with me.”

Josie’s keen eye had seen from the first that something was worrying her dear friend and she divined that her advice and sympathy were wanted and that Mary Louise had been disappointed to find Elizabeth in the shop. She had also detected a shade of annoyance at Irene’s entrance. It had taken sharp perception indeed to realize this, for Mary Louise’s manner had been as courteous as ever with the other girls and her greeting as affectionate. But little escaped the sharp eyes and ears of Josie. The warp and woof of the lives of her acquaintances were as clearly defined in her mind as the net of the curtains she was to match. Something was wrong with the tapestry Fate was working on the life of dear Mary Louise. Josie knew it for sure and she determined to find out if possible and to help her if she could.

CHAPTER III JOSIE INTERVENES

“What is it, honey?” asked Josie as they left the rickety old building, the second floor of which was occupied by the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“What’s what?” asked Marie Louise.

“What’s the matter?”

“The matter?”

“Yes, honey, you can’t fool your great-aunt Josie! There is something that is making you pale and thin and sad-eyed—something that keeps your eyes swimming in tears half the time. There is no use in pretending you didn’t come down to the shop to see me alone if possible and talk over something that is worrying you to death. Now is there?”

Mary Louise smiled, “Well—y-e-e-s! But how did you know?”

“By a pricking in my thumb, perhaps! Anyhow—out with it!”

Mary Louise breathed a sigh of relief. It was rather nice to have Josie be so direct and uncompromising and businesslike. She had come to see her in hope of getting a word alone with her, but, when the opportunity arose, she had half determined not to take advantage of it. She had not known just how to begin and now Josie had taken the bit between her teeth and there was nothing to do but sit tight and let Josie have her way.

“I know you hate to start but you’ll feel better when once you begin. Is it something about Danny?”

“Partly!”

“Anyone else?”

“Grandpa Jim!”

“Aren’t they getting along as well as they used to?”

“Oh, Josie—I am nearly dead about the way Grandpa Jim is treating Danny. I can’t make it out at all. He used to be crazy about Danny and wanted me to marry him and seemed to love him like a real son—but lately he is so strangely unkind to him.”

“How does Danny take it?”

“At first, his feelings were hurt and he didn’t know what to do about it, but now he is angry and impatient and just sees as little of Grandpa Jim as possible. He hardly ever comes home to dinner and, when he does come home, it is awful because Grandpa Jim makes the most terrible insinuations about money and all kinds of things and Danny just flings himself out of the house and then Grandpa Jim says he is neglecting me. Whenever I go anywhere with Danny, Grandpa Jim gets furious with him and says Danny monopolizes me so that I have no time to give to my poor old grandfather who has made every sacrifice for me.”

“The Colonel is nutty, just plain nutty, I think,” suggested Josie without mincing matters in the least.

“Oh don’t say it! Please don’t say it!” cried Mary Louise. “He is as clear headed as can be and attends to his business just as he always has and he plays chess with Uncle Peter and can beat him as often as he gets beaten. A man who was not quite in his right mind couldn’t do that.”

“Well, honey, I should think you would rather your old grandfather was off his bean a bit than just plain mean and cantankerous. I fancy you think I put it pretty baldly,” noticing how her friend winced at her words, “but I see no other way to put it. Have you talked it over with Danny?”

“Oh, Josie, I just can’t talk it over with him because it would be so disloyal to poor Grandpa Jim! Think of all he has done for me! Think of what he sacrificed for my mother and how he was willing to go on and sacrifice himself forever for me if it had not been for the wisdom of your dear father.”

“Yes, honey, I am thinking of that. Don’t you know your grandfather loves you better than anybody in the world and he would die rather than hurt you, that is, if he is in his right mind? Don’t you realize that this poor old man who is deliberately wounding you every moment of the day—because he would ordinarily know that there can be no wound deeper than the one he is inflicting when he says hard things about your husband—don’t you know that this is not your real grandfather but a sick man, your grandfather with his brain not functioning properly? Just as my father refused to let your grandfather go on sacrificing himself uselessly for your poor mother, who had passed beyond his care and solicitude, so I am trying to make you see that you must not let your dear Danny be sacrificed just because you refuse to face the truth.”

“Josie, you are hard on me!”

“So I am, but not as hard on you as you are on yourself. Can’t you see, Mary Louise, you are being as unfair to Grandpa Jim as you are to Danny? Can’t you see that the real Colonel Hathaway would die before he would do what he is doing if he had his senses about him? He really should see a doctor. Why don’t you get that young Dr. Coles to look in on him?”

“It would make him furious. He likes Dr. Coles but, if he should come to see him professionally when he had not sent for him, he might be rude to him.”

“Well a little rudeness isn’t going to kill a nerve specialist. That’s what Coles is I believe. Get him to come in a kind of friendly way and see if he thinks your grandfather is normal.”

“You don’t think it would be underhanded?”

“Sure it would be underhanded! But sometimes being underhanded isn’t such a bad thing to be.”

So persuaded by the astute Josie, Mary Louise agreed to stop at Dr. Coles’s office and have a little talk with him concerning her grandfather.

“Don’t tell him what you think is the matter,” Josie whispered while they waited their turn to see the young doctor. “Just tell him you are a little uneasy about the old gentleman and for him to step around in a friendly way and look him over. Then, when he gives his verdict, you have a plain talk with Danny and make him realize it is not the true Colonel Hathaway who is behaving this way. Danny has disposition enough to carry it off without a murmur if he knows you know that your grandfather is simply suffering from a slight—er—er—derangement.”

“All right! I’ll do what you say if Dr. Coles thinks he has some brain trouble that is making him do this way. I do hope Grandpa Jim’s mind is not really failing.”

“Well, I’d a deal rather his mind would fail than his own kind heart. I’d hate to think that my dear old friend was just plain mean for meanness’ sake. I’d much rather think he was a bit batty.”

Mary Louise sighed and smiled in spite of herself. Josie was so simple and natural and spoke her mind so honestly and directly that there was no getting hurt with her, although it did seem a little heartless for her to speak of Colonel Hathaway as “off his bean” and a “bit batty.”

Dr. Coles was as direct as Josie and immediately grasped what Mary Louise wanted him to do and promised to do it that very evening.

“I’ll make an evening call, coming in quite naturally and asking to see you and Mr. Dexter as well as the Colonel,” he suggested.

“Exactly!” put in Josie. “Stethoscopes and blood pressure tests can follow later.”

“Now I feel better,” sighed Mary Louise as they left the doctor’s office. “Let’s go get an ice cream soda. I haven’t had the heart for one for weeks.”

“You poor lamb!” laughed Josie. “One does have to feel kind of perky for ice cream sodas.”

The sodas were enjoyed, the net for the curtains matched, and the two girls made their way back to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“Sorry to be so long but I fancy you have been busy enough on the other darns,” said Josie. “Anything happened?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “a lady came in and wanted a mourning bonnet made in a certain way. You see ladies don’t wear bonnets any more, not even old, old ladies. Everybody wears hats. This dear old lady complained that she was too old for hats and the girls in the stores laughed at her for requesting an old-fashioned bonnet. She had heard that we did anything and came to us.”

“Too bad you had to turn her down.”

“But Josie, I didn’t. I just took the order on a venture. I felt there must be somebody we could get to do it. She left an old one to be copied as to shape, but she wants the new one trimmed a little more.” Elizabeth dived into a box and produced a little rusty black crêpe bonnet with a widow’s ruche and a package of fresh new crêpe.

“She was a sweet old lady,” put in Irene. “I wish I had time to do it for her, not that I am much of a milliner.”

“Do let me do it,” begged Mary Louise. “I just know I can although I haven’t made a hat for years. I used to get the most gorgeous results for my doll family. I make outrageous inside stitches, but the outsides look fine.”

“Oh, would you? That would be scrumptious!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “When can you do it?”

“Right now! All I want is a thimble and some scissors. I’ll run round to the five-and-ten-cent store for a bonnet shape. I noticed this morning that they had a window full of them. I can get one nearly like this one and then cut it down to be exactly like it. Let me see how this one fits me so I can judge the size.”

Her hat was off in a moment and the sad little bonnet put on over her pretty curls.

“It fits exactly!” she cried, making a little moue at her image reflected in an antique gilt mirror. Antique mirrors were among the wares the Higgledy Piggledies dealt in.

Mary Louise was off in a jiffy, eager to make the purchase and get to work. It made her happier to have something definite to occupy her until she could get the doctor’s verdict concerning her grandfather and, also, until she could have the heart to heart talk she was planning to have with her Danny.

Irene shook her head sadly when her dear friend’s eager footsteps died away as she flew down the stairs to the street.

“Dear, dear child,” she said solemnly. “I do wish she had not tried on that queer old mourning bonnet.”

“It gave me a turn too,” confessed Josie.

“I wondered if you felt funny about it,” said Elizabeth. “My old nurse used to tell us that it was the worst luck in the world to try on mourning unless you were already wearing it. Of course, she was an ignorant old woman but she used to say it was a sure sign of trouble coming. Were you thinking of that, Irene?”

“I am ashamed to say I was. Under those wretched widow’s weeds there was something about her sweet face, that certainly has been pale and pensive lately, that made me feel strangely superstitious—but I hate myself for giving it room in my mind.”

CHAPTER IV MARY LOUISE—MILLINER

With deft fingers Mary Louise fashioned the little bonnet. She had purchased a piece of fresh white crêpe ruching which she tacked in the front.

“Now, a lining to keep my huge stitches from showing and there we are!” she cried.

“Lovely!” gasped Elizabeth. “I don’t see how you did it. I can’t trim a hat to save me. My mother can’t even trim a hat to look like anything, although she thinks she can. There is nothing Mother confesses not to be able to do.”

The girls laughed. Mrs. Wright’s idiosyncrasies were well known to the group. She was a managing lady who had unbounded faith in her own prowess and judgment.

“I guess I’ll take the bonnet to the little old lady on my way home,” suggested Mary Louise. “I’d like to see her try it on.”

“That would be fine,” said Josie, who had been busily engaged all afternoon with her laundering. “I’d go with you, but this last dozen napkins must be polished off. Don’t they look lovely and glossy? I just love to iron. It is such wonderful work to let you think while you are doing it.”

“Yes, and I’m afraid I’d think scorched places on the fine damask,” laughed Elizabeth. “What must Mary Louise charge the little old lady?”

“Charge her! Why nothing, goose! Of course, I did it just for the fun of doing it,” blushed Mary Louise.

“Oh, that would never do,” put in Josie, sternly. “Such a thing would ruin our trade. In the first place, the little old lady won’t think it is done right if it is free, and then she would tell other persons that we do work for nothing but it is not good and, before you know it, we’d be overrun with charity practice. No indeed, my dear Mary Louise, the bonnet must be paid for and it must be well paid for. Of course, I have no idea what it’s worth. What would you have to pay to have such work done? You know, Irene. Your aunt must have bonnets made.”

“Well, Aunt Hannah did have a bonnet made only last week and it was not nearly so chic as this one and she furnished all the material and just the work on it cost four dollars.”

“Heavens! Four dollars! I couldn’t possibly have earned four dollars in about two hours. Why I could make a living at that rate, even if I worked only two hours a day. It couldn’t be worth that much!”

“Well, you know perfectly well, Mary Louise, if you were having the work done, you wouldn’t hesitate to pay twice that much,” scolded Josie. “You’ve got to put yourself in the other fellow’s place. Just pretend you need the money and charge what it would be worth to a well off young person like, say—Mrs. Danny Dexter. You have to pay us a fifteen per cent commission besides for letting you do the work. That would only leave you three dollars and forty cents.”

“Oh, what a funny Josie!” laughed Mary Louise. “You know I’m not going to take any of the money. It would be absurd when I’ve had such a good time doing the little bonnet.”

“A good workman always has a good time doing his work,” asserted Josie, who was quite like her father in getting off wise little saws. “You needn’t keep the money, but you are obliged to take it and give us sixty cents. Business is business and we want to get other business from this very same little old lady.”

“I’ll wager she doesn’t have a new bonnet more than every three years,” said Mary Louise, smiling at Josie’s firm business methods.

“Perhaps not but she has many friends, I am sure, and she will tell them and they will tell their friends and so forth and so on.”

“How do you know she has a lot of friends?” teased Elizabeth. “You didn’t see her and Irene and I haven’t told you a thing about her, not even her name.”

“Why, I could tell by her old bonnet—tell easily enough. Don’t you know one of the first things a detective studies is the psychology of clothes? My father thought more of a pair of old shoes found under the bed of a man who was supposed to have committed a murder than he did of all the mass of circumstantial evidence the other sleuths were unearthing. He had the opinion from the beginning that the wearer of those old shoes had not committed a murder, wasn’t capable of having committed that particular murder, which was one of these low down, sneaking murders. He said he might have got angry and knocked a man down and killed him that way, but a man who walked so straight without running his heels down at all and who wore out his shoe in a little round ring under the ball of his foot, evidently not trying to walk on his tip toes nor yet taking the precaution to have rubber heels to walk easy, was not a man to deliberately plan a foul, sneaking murder. He hung on to those shoes and worked up the case with that theory as a basis and, do you know, he proved the man’s innocence in the face of all kinds of damning evidence! Link by link he knocked off the chain of evidence of guilt until the man was free and the proper person indicted and imprisoned for life.”

“And did the guilty one wear rubber heels and run ’em down and wear off the toes of his shoes trying to pussyfoot?” asked Mary Louise.

“No! He wore Louis Quinze heels and got so many new shoes there was no reading character from his shoes. The fact was, he was a she and that was the reason he is serving a life sentence instead of being hanged.”

“Well all I have to say is you are a very delightful and amusing Josie. If Elizabeth and Irene will divulge the name and address of the little old lady who has so many friends, which one can plainly tell by her old bonnet, then I will take the bonnet there on my way home and collect the money, sixty cents of which I’ll hand over to the grasping proprietors of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.”

Josie smiled to see how much more cheerful her friend was after the hours spent in making herself useful. She felt too that Mary Louise was happier in that she had seen Dr. Coles and was to know something definite concerning her grandfather’s condition. It was also easy to understand that the determination to make a clean breast of her troubles to Danny had put new heart into the girl.

“Wait a minute! Let me make out a bill on the Higgledy Piggledy paper,” suggested Elizabeth. “It takes a hardened shopkeeper to hand in a parcel and say, ‘Four dollars, please!’ while, if you have a bill with you, you don’t have to say anything, but just present the bill with an air of giving an invitation.”

Mary Louise went off carrying the bonnets, old and new, in a neat parcel.

“It seems real funny,” she said to herself, “actually to have earned three dollars and forty cents for myself and sixty cents for the Higgledy Piggledies. I am going to tell Danny about it and he will be so amused. I believe I’ll take him off tomorrow and treat him to lunch with my own hard earned funds. I’d tell Grandpa Jim, too, except that he would be sure to say Danny is not making a living for me and I have to go out and work my fingers to the bone. Poor Grandpa Jim! Everything is distorted to him just now in regard to Danny.”

The little old lady turned out to be exactly what Josie had predicted—a gentle soul who attracted friends. Mary Louise found her drinking tea with four other old ladies, all of whom examined the bonnet critically, at all angles, and pronounced favorably upon its style and workmanship. Mary Louise was devoutly thankful that none of them could peep beneath the lining and see her huge stitches. They looked at her curiously. To be sure she did not seem much like a milliner’s assistant with her handsome duvetyn suit and rich furs, but her manner was modest and impersonal and, when she produced the bill, made out in Elizabeth’s best style on the Higgledy Piggledy paper, the little old lady paid it readily and seemed to think it was very reasonable and all of the friends seemed to think so too and eagerly took the address of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“I think I’ll get my year-before-last hat done over,” said one. “It is so much more suitable than this horrid hat my daughter-in-law insisted upon my buying.”

“I intend to have a new one made, just like Jane’s,” declared another. Jane was the name of the little old lady—Mrs. Jane Kellogg.

“But that isn’t fair!” cried another. “Jane doesn’t want a twin.”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” said Jane gently. “Susan and I used to dress alike when we were girls. Do you remember, Susan?”

Susan did remember and Mary Louise took her departure with a pleasant impression of Mrs. Jane Kellogg and her friends drinking tea together, happily reminiscent of their girlhood.

“There’ll be a lot of bonnets to make for the Higgledy Piggledy Shop before long,” she said to herself. “I’ll help the girls out some more and give the money to charity.”

CHAPTER V DANNY IS DRIVEN FROM HOME

As Mary Louise entered her home after delivering the bonnet she was met in the hall by Aunt Sally, the fat old negro cook who had been with the Hathaway family off and on since the Civil war and, before that time, had been with them only on and never off, for as a small child she had belonged to the Colonel’s father. She, with the aid of Uncle Eben, her husband, did most of the work of the great house, not because Colonel Hathaway was not willing to hire any number of servants, but because the two old ex-slaves preferred to do the work according to their own ideas. There was supposed to be a housemaid, but no matter how efficient and satisfactory this maid might prove to Mary Louise, she never met the requirements of Aunt Sally and consequently there was a procession of housemaids coming and going. Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben couldn’t and wouldn’t leave and so the housemaids must.

Aunt Sally was goodness itself where white people were concerned, but she was as hard as steel in regard to her own race. Even Uncle Eben came in for her criticism, though she never let anyone else say anything derogatory to her faithful mate.

“Eben air as good as nigger men goes,” she would assert. “He ain’t ter say puffect, but I reckon he air doin’ er his bes’ ’cordin’ ter his ’telligence.”

Aunt Sally met Mary Louise as she opened the front door and it was plain to see that something had happened. The old woman had been weeping and, as the young mistress entered she gave a final dab to her eyes with the corner of her apron.

“Why Aunt Sally, what’s the matter?”

“Lawd, honey chil’, they’s trouble a comin’! Trouble a comin’! I knowed it when yo’ maw’s pixcher fell off’n the wall las’ month—I knowed it when I dreamed ’bout nesses full er aigs an’ none er them cracked even, which air a sho sign trouble air hatchin’ an—”

“But, Aunt Sally, please tell me what the trouble is,” begged Mary Louise.

“I cyarn’t bear ter tell you, honey baby. Me’n Eben an’ Marse Jim air been all time tryin’ ter keep trouble ’way from you an’ now I cyarn’t be the one ter tell it to you. Marse Jim air sho the one what am a bringin’ it on you an’ I’ll say it to his face right now an’ I’d a said it to his face befo’ the wah, even if he had a sol’ me down the river the nex’ minute for my imperence. He mought sen’ me a packin’ now, but, befo’ Gawd, I’m a gonter tell it to him.”

“Tell him what? Please speak out, Aunt Sally!”

“Tell him he ain’t called on ter do no sich confabbin’ as he done did.”

“Confabulating with whom? Mr. Danny hasn’t been home, has he? It isn’t quite time for him.”

“Yes, he done a been an’ he gone agin.”

“Gone! Gone where?”

“I ain’t sho wha’ he gone but, arfter sech a bullyraggin’ as Marse Jim done give him, I reckon there wa’n’t nothin fer him ter do but light out.”

“Oh, Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally! What am I to do?”

“Lawd love you, honey baby, yo’ ol’ Aunt Sally ain’t got no ’vice ter han’ yer. I reckon’ you’ll have ter take it to the Lawd in prayer.”

“What did Grandpa Jim say?” asked Mary Louise, trying to keep back the tears that were forcing their way down her pale cheeks.

Aunt Sally was crying now.

“Oh, honey, I cyarn’t say sech things, even in vain repetition! He done ’lowed that po’ Mr. Danny wa’ a fortune hunter an’ a dead beat comed from a fambly er law breakers an’ he done come an’ stole yo’ love an’ tromple it in the dus’. Now, he said, he wa’ neglectin’ er you mos’ shameful. He ’cused him er bein’ the cause er yo’ pale face an’ sad eyes.”

“What did poor Danny say?” sobbed Mary Louise.

“He done arsk with a moughty stiff back bone: ‘Air my wife make complaint er me?’ an’ I wa’ so ’stonished I couldn’t b’lieve my years when Marse Jim up’n tol’ as big a lie as the debble hisse’f could er fabricated. ‘Yes,’ he say, ‘yes, time an’ time ergin.’ I knowed it wa’n’t the truth an’ I come moughty nigh bustin’ in an’ a sayin’ so but I wa’ a mixin’ up a sponge cake at the time an’ you know, honey chil’, how ’ticular I air ’bout keepin’ a stirrin’ when oncet I gits a goin’ on sponge cake?”

“Yes, I know,” Mary Louise nodded, sadly. “But, oh, Aunt Sally, I do wish you had stopped this one time.”

“Well, p’raps I should er, but habit’s habit. Not only air I got that there habit ’bout sponge cake but I also boast the habit er not wedgin’ in on other folks’s business, mos’ specially white folks’s. They wa’ in the dinin’ room at the time where Mr. Danny done come ter try an’ git you on the phome at that there Humpty Dumpty Shop. He comed back an’ arsked me whar’ you is an’ when I tol’ him, he pick up the phome and, while he wa’ a tryin’ ter git you, Marse Jim comed in. You had done gone from the Humpty Dumpty Shop but he got ter chattin’ a piece with one er yo’ gal friends, Miss Josie, mo’n lakly. I heard him say, ‘Well don’t let Mary Louise find out about it,’ kinder laughin’ lak, an’ jes then Marse Jim comed in an’ he yanked the phome out’n his han’. I seed him do it from the crack in the pantry do’ what Mr. Danny done lef’ open a bit the way men folks has a way er doin’, black an’ white.

“‘Whe’fo’ you use the phome in my house fer sech a vile nufarious comversation!’ he hollered out an’ Mr. Danny jes’ stepped back an’ said real quiet lak, ‘Colonel Hathaway, you are mistaken. You must have misunderstood me. I merely said—’

“‘Never min’ what you said! I heard what you said’ an’ then he started in tellin’ him mo’ things than you could er believed pos’ble. When he done tol’ him you’d made complaint er him time an’ time ergin, it looked lak Mr. Danny jes’ give up. Befo’ then he’d kinder jawed back but mos’ ’spectful lak cawnsiderin’ the way Marse Jim wa’ a ladlin’ it out ter him.”

“What did he do then? Did he tell you where he was going and when he’d be back?” asked Mary Louise breathlessly.

“No, baby, he jes’ bulged through the do’ inter the hall an’ I hearn him a goin’ licksplittin’ up the step inter you-all’s room an’ then, in ’bout ten minutes, I hearn the front do’ bang an’ that’s all ’cept’n that ol’ fool Eben said he seed him gittin’ on a down town cyar an’ he wa’ a carryin’ somethin’.”

Mary Louise closed her eyes for a moment and steadied herself against a hall chair, then trying to compose her trembling and convulsed countenance, she made her way slowly up stairs. She wanted to run but her feet seemed to have leaden weights on them and it was with difficulty that she advanced step by step clinging to the bannister as to a life rope.

Slowly she opened the door to her pretty room, the room that Grandpa Jim had taken such delight in having all freshly done over for her while she was on her wedding trip and to which she had come home so happily and joyously. It was a pink room, a soft shell-pink, and Mary Louise had said that she felt as though she were living in the heart of a rose. The woodwork and the furniture were old ivory. The pictures were all the daintiest imaginable water colors and pastels. The hangings were of cretonne with a design of roses in loose clusters. The floor was covered with quaint rag rugs woven of pastel shades. It was a charming room and seemed like a bit of fairy land where one might dream one’s life away.

The girl stood for a moment on the threshold gazing into the room. It looked strangely unfamiliar to her, as though it might have been the room of some other person. Perhaps it was Mary Louise’s room and she was not Mary Louise. She crossed to the dressing table. Such a lovely dressing table with dainty appurtenances that might have been fit for a princess had there been any princesses left to speak of at that time! She picked up the silver backed brush, Danny’s present to that person called Mary Louise, the gay, happy girl who used to occupy that room—used to look in that clear mirror and brush her hair, such pretty curly hair, every strand of which Danny said he loved.

She glanced at her image in the mirror and started back in terror. It wasn’t Mary Louise after all—not this person whose tragic red-rimmed eyes gazed into hers. Those blanched tear-stained cheeks could never have been the cheeks of Mary Louise. Her cheeks were soft and rosy. That trembling chin with its sagging, convulsed muscles could not be the round determined little chin that Danny used to stoop over and kiss while her hair was being brushed. Whose mouth was that, that pale gash in a paler face? Mary Louise’s mouth was a cupid’s bow and crimson and full of smiles with a row of pearly teeth. She widened her mouth in a piteous grin. The teeth were pearly but they too seemed to have lost their sparkle.

She picked up the folded piece of paper stuck on the plump pink pin-cushion with a long hat-pin. The pin had been thrust all the way through the cushion, the point sticking out on the other side.

“Josie would say that showed his state of mind,” flashed through Mary Louise’s thoughts. It seemed to her that the point that had so fiercely penetrated the fat little cushion had pierced her own heart.

She had known all the time she would find a note stuck on her pin-cushion, had known it from the moment Aunt Sally had told her Uncle Eben had seen Danny get on a trolley car and that he was carrying something. She knew that something was a suit-case. Uncle Eben knew it too and Aunt Sally knew it, but she wouldn’t tell her young mistress for fear of hurting her more.

The girl smoothed out the note which had been hastily folded. She had to wipe her eyes many times before she could decipher the penciled scrawl which gave evidence even more clearly than the hat-pin of Danny’s state of mind. It was a boyish little letter but with a tragic note running through it that almost broke Mary Louise’s heart. His great and abiding love for her was expressed in every word but, at the same time, his deep humiliation and anger at the treatment to which he had been forced to submit at the hands of Colonel Hathaway were evident. He told her he had been driven from the house by her grandfather and must, of course, leave. He did not know wherein he had sinned, but he felt sure he must have done something unpardonable, even if unwittingly, to make his dear wife complain of him as Colonel Hathaway had assured him had been the case. If any one else had told him such a thing, he would not have believed him but, in spite of Colonel Hathaway’s treatment of him, he could not doubt his word, knowing him to be honorable above everything and truthful—as truthful as his own Mary Louise to whom a lie was impossible. He was going away—it was best for all concerned—but it would not be so very long. Perhaps Colonel Hathaway would get over the rancor he now felt—perhaps it could be in some way explained to him that he had been mistaken. At any rate, he felt that Mary Louise’s grandfather had the prior claim on her and he would let the old gentleman’s declining years be as happy as possible. He could never enter the house again unless Colonel Hathaway apologized to him and offered some explanation of the astounding sins of which he had accused him. If she had not been so sure of her grandfather’s sanity, he would believe that Colonel Hathaway was not himself but, when he had suggested this to her, she had been so grieved, so sure it was not the case, he had felt she must know and he had given up that idea which might have explained everything. He only asked his dear little wife to trust him and love him, if only a little, and to let him know in what way he had sinned against her to cause her to complain of him. If she had only told him and not told some one else, even anyone as close and dear as her grandfather! He did not blame her though. He loved her so supremely and trusted her so implicitly that he knew she could do no wrong.

At this point in the letter Mary Louise felt she could bear life no longer.

“It is my own fault! My own fault!” she wailed. “I have not been truthful. I have done the worst thing a person can do—I have lied to myself. I have known all the time that Grandpa Jim was not himself and I have refused to admit it. I have wronged him and I have wronged Danny. Now I will suffer all my life for having been so blind, so blind because I would not see.”

She composed herself and went on with the letter. Danny was going away—going far away, and to be gone for several months. His firm had been talking to him about going to China to establish an agency there and he had, up to this time, refused, feeling he could not part from Mary Louise, nor could he ask her to leave her grandfather and go with him. Now, it seemed wiser for him to go. There was a big advancement in it and he would prosper financially by the change. Colonel Hathaway had spoken of him as being such a dead beat, which was hard in that he had wanted from the beginning to do what he could in the matter of paying board for himself and his wife, but the proposition had been laughed at by Colonel Hathaway as absurd considering his own wealth. Now of course, he realized his mistake in letting the matter drop, although, at the time, if he had insisted upon paying board, he would have been guilty of very bad taste. He was taking the train for Chicago that very evening where he would see the president of the company and then would go on to San Francisco, from there to sail for China. He gave her an address in San Francisco and hoped to find a letter awaiting him there. That was all.

CHAPTER VI THE DOCTOR CALLS

Gone! Gone without seeing her! Gone without waiting for an explanation! But what explanation was there to make? He had tried to talk the matter over with her and she had refused, refused because she was so afraid of being disloyal to her grandfather—afraid of having to admit that the old gentleman was in the wrong—afraid of having to admit that his mind was failing and he was obsessed by a strange dislike for a man to whom, in the past, he had been as devoted as though he had been of his own flesh and blood.

“Well, what now?” she asked herself. “What must I do?” She looked around the pretty room. There was little in it to remind her of Danny. It had been designed for a young girl’s room and had remained so. Those pretty pink hangings and pastel shaded rugs did not look very mannish. There was the high-boy, in the drawers of which he kept his belongings; there was the man’s wardrobe, that Grandpa Jim had given him on his birthday. She opened it and looked at his suits hanging in a neat row.

“He has taken his tweed and the blue serge,” she said, passing her hand over the row. “He left his dinner coat. I wonder if he won’t need it.” She pressed her cheek against the khaki uniform that hung there among the civilian clothes.

“Oh Danny! Danny! If you were only back!”

She closed the door of the wardrobe and turned, looking at the room again, the pretty pink room with all of its feminine touches.

“I never did realize how little this was really your home, Danny dear,” she said to his photograph which stood on her dressing table. “This was all the time just my room—this was all the time just Grandpa Jim’s house. It hasn’t been fair—it hasn’t been right! But what must I do now?” The question kept on dinging at her senses.

“Do!” she exclaimed as though she had received some kind of inspiration from the smiling boyish countenance on her dressing table. “Do! I must go on loving Grandpa Jim and I must protect Danny’s name and explain his sudden departure and never let anyone know what I am suffering. I must go about my business and keep up so I won’t be a sad, broken old woman when Danny comes home. I must wash my face and powder my nose and get ready for Dr. Coles. I must smile and pretend I knew all the time Danny was going and I wanted him to go because it will be such a good thing for him. I must write him a wonderful letter to San Francisco to speed him on his way. I must face the fact that Grandpa Jim is cra—, no not that awful word—but just a little peculiar. I must even forgive him for being so horribly cruel to my dear, dear boy. He didn’t know what he was doing. I must be brave! I must be worthy of Danny! I must be worthy of poor Grandpa Jim, who has been so wonderful all his life. Maybe Dr. Coles can cure him.”

The determination to be brave worked wonders for Mary Louise. She washed her face vigorously, trying to remove all traces of tears, but she felt like Lady Macbeth in the sleep walking scene when she cried, “Out damned spot!” and then later decided that all the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten that little hand—only it was Mary Louise’s face that refused to be washed clean of tears. She did her best, however, and a little powder helped wonderfully to conceal the ravages of convulsive weeping. She changed her suit for a pretty soft dinner gown of old rose, one that Danny had especially liked and then she bravely stepped forth to take up the burden of facing life. She felt that she had never really faced life before, even when she had gone through such trials as a child and young girl. As she remembered them, she was thankful that having gone through with them had given her strength to bear what was placed on her shoulders now.

“Danny first! Danny first!” she said to herself as she went down the steps. “Nobody must think for an instant or intimate that he has left home because there is a cloud between us. I must take the stand that everything is all right and I approve of his going and it is all for the best.”

She went to the kitchen first, where Aunt Sally was grumbling and rumbling over her pots and pans.

She overheard her saying to Eben, “Hi there, nigger! Come here an’ take this here dinner in befo’ it gits col’!”

“Well you come here an’ make room fer this here piece er ice in yo’ ’frigerator befo’ it gits hot,” was Eben’s retaliation. “You’m so dodblasted ’ticular ’bout yo’ ’frigerator you won’t let me han’le it.”

“No, I won’t let you han’le it! They’s too many li’l temptations in that there ’frigerator ter be a tu’nin’ you loose in it. They’s trouble enough in this here dommersile ’thout you a eatin’ up the li’l lef’-overs what I mought be a considerin’ er puttin’ in a pie or somethin’ er other.”

“Humph!” was all Eben deigned in reply.

“You mus’ ’scuse me, Eben, if I kinder light you up,” said Aunt Sally. “I’s turrible upset ’bout our white folks.”

“You needn’t be worried about me, Aunt Sally,” said Mary Louise, coming into the kitchen. She was trying to smile and it might have passed muster for a smile with anyone but Aunt Sally, but the old woman knew her young mistress too well not to realize that the smile was forced.

“Mr. Danny has gone on a trip, just a business trip. It was too bad I was away from home but it is all right. He is well and he won’t be gone so very long. He had to catch a train to Chicago. You can just take his place from the table, Uncle Eben. And, Aunt Sally, I have asked Dr. Coles to come see Grandpa Jim this evening, but he is supposed just to be calling on the family so when he comes, whoever answers the bell, just bring him into the living room as though he were plain company, not a doctor. You understand, don’t you?”

“Sho’ we understands, honey chil’. Is you ’lowin’ Mr. Danny will be home fer breakfus?”

“No, not for some time. I’ll let you know in plenty of time to set the table for him.” Mary Louise then went to find her grandfather.

“Gawd in heaven! She ain’t doin’ nothin’ but play-actin’ but the chil’s heart air breakin’. Eben, she had a smile on her face lak folks have what air gazin’ on their daid, that kinder smile what makes you know they air a tryin’ ter let the one what air jes’ gone know that they’s a gonter take up the burden er life an’ bear it the bes’ they kin. I tell you one thing, nigger, I’m a gonter play-act too an’ th’ain’t nobody gonter git nothin’ out’n me but what Miss Mary Louise wants them ter git. Mr. Danny’s been called away sudden lak on a business trip an’ we ain’t quite sho jes’ when he’ll be back but Marse Jim ain’t said nothin’ ter him as we knows about an’ the fambly goose air a hangin’ high. If us Hathaways ain’t a gonter hol’ up our haids an’ keep a smilin’ I’d lak ter know who air a gonter keep up the fambly name.”

“You done said a plenty!” agreed Uncle Eben. “Us black folks ain’t gonter be weighed in the balance an’ foun’ wantin’.”

“Ain’t it the truf?”

“Sally, you air a good ooman!”

“An’ you air a good man, Eben—that is as fer as nigger men goes,” she added, but Eben looked lovingly at his spouse, thankful for her scanty words of praise and not at all minding the string tied to his compliment.

Mary Louise found her grandfather hovering over the fire in the living room. She went up and kissed him affectionately and then seated herself on a low stool at his feet. The old man put his hand lovingly on the bowed head.

“I have been reinvesting some funds for you today, my child,” he said gently. “I sold all of the real estate bonds I have bought in the last years and am putting the bulk of the money into some gold mines. I am going to put every cent I can call in on these mines.”

“I know you are doing wisely, Grandpa Jim, because you have such fine judgment. I am a perfect little goose about business. I don’t see why you don’t teach me something about investments and things. I simply don’t understand a thing.”

“You are right, child, I should teach you. I know I can’t live forever but I want to fix it so that rascally husband of yours can’t find a cent.”

Mary Louise’s neck stiffened and her head was held high. She turned and looked at her grandfather, her face flushed and her eyes flashing.

“Grandpa Jim, I love you dearly, but I ask you to realize that Danny is my husband, the man I love above all others and I cannot sit here and listen to his being reviled.”

Colonel Hathaway looked a bit dazed and then smiled in the eyes of his granddaughter.

“All right, honey, I reckon you are right. Of course, I know how you feel about the wretch. You told me yourself you despised him—but then women are women.”

“I told you I despised him! Grandpa Jim, what can you mean?”

“I was under the impression you had told me that. Didn’t you come to my room in the night and sit on my bedside in your pretty pink wrapper and hold my hand and tell me Danny abused you terribly?”

“Grandpa! Never! You must have had a dream!”

“Well! Well! Too bad! I thought you did. Perhaps I should not have told him you complained of him then. Of course, I know you would complain of him if you were not such a lady. He is so ugly and so untidy.”

“Danny ugly and untidy! Why Grandpa Jim, he is the pink of neatness and everybody thinks he is the best looking young man in Dorfield.”

“Tut! Tut! Let’s say no more about it.”

“Dinner am served!” announced Uncle Eben, sticking his woolly pate in at the door.

Mary Louise helped her grandfather to his feet and gently led him to the dining room. He leaned on her heavily. Tenderly she placed him in his chair. She understood now, without the help of Dr. Coles, that her grandfather was really failing. What would she not give to have acknowledged it sooner! Well life must be faced and, because she had made one big mistake, there was no reason for going on slumping. She smiled bravely as she explained to Colonel Hathaway that Danny had gone on a business trip and pretended not to hear him when he muttered, “Good riddance of bad rubbish!—bad rubbish!”

Dr. Coles came to call soon after dinner. Colonel Hathaway received him with his usual graciousness. The old gentleman was never more charming than on that evening. He conversed delightfully with his guest, recalling anecdote after anecdote of the past. He showed a remarkable memory for dates and events going into minute detail several times, remembering the time of day, the day of the week, the day of the month and the year of some happening. He never seemed saner to Mary Louise than on that evening. Dr. Coles listened to his stories with interest, speaking but little himself and encouraging his unknowing patient to do the talking.

From stories of the past Colonel Hathaway suddenly switched to the present and then plunged into a confused account of the recent investments he had made in a gold mine.

“I have to make more and more money to take care of my poor child here. Her husband is absolutely a dead beat, you know,” he remarked quite casually.

Mary Louise blushed furiously and was on the point of saying something to try to set her poor Danny right in the eyes of their visitor, but Dr. Coles motioned to her to be quiet.

“He is gone now, gone for good I hope, but poor little Mary Louise pretends it is only a business trip. I can see she is concealing something from me and, no doubt, he has taken all her jewels with him or the family silver. He is a wretched person, I can assure you, Dr. Coles. I was never so fooled by anybody in my life. Mary Louise and I were both fooled, but, thank God, at last our eyes are opened to his perfidy!”

Dr. Coles knew and liked Danny immensely, but he said nothing in his defense, only watched his patient the more keenly.

“I am sorry to hear that. What has he done?”

“Well he—he—I can’t recall now just what it is—it is something very bad, though, you may be sure.” The old gentleman smiled pleasantly, totally unconscious of the fact that he was wringing the heart strings of the creature he loved better than his life.

“I see,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “I must be going now.”

“Well, I’m sorry to have you go. I am going to come to your office soon to have you look me over, not that I am ill—never better in my life,” he added hastily, “but I have a funny way of going to sleep in spots here lately. No doubt it is indigestion, and perhaps I must let up on Aunt Sally’s good food.”

“No doubt! No doubt! Anyhow, come let me look you over.”

Mary Louise followed Dr. Coles to the front door.

“What do you think?” she asked anxiously.

“There is no doubt that his mind is failing rapidly.”

“But see how sanely he talked about the past!”

“That is often the case. Old persons seem to be able to remember the most remarkable things that happened in their youth and still the present is often blurred. You noticed he could not even remember what fancied grievance he had against your husband. He was sure there was something, but he could not remember just what it was. It is common in such cases for the person to take a strange unreasoning dislike to some one, often the very person of whom he has been most fond. I am glad it is your husband and not you he has turned against.”

“Oh! Oh!” was all poor Mary Louise could trust herself to say.

“I am also glad your husband has gone on a business trip. His presence might irritate Colonel Hathaway. This may be only a phase and he may get over all his feeling against Mr. Dexter. I am sure I hope it will be so. In the meantime, if I were you, I should see that he is kept quiet but amused; make him eat simple nourishing food; have plenty of air but do not let him take too much exercise.”

“Is there—is there danger of—of—his—his dying?” she faltered.

“My dear young lady, no man can say. In a case like this, sometimes the patient lives for years, getting stronger and stronger in the body as the mind weakens. Your grandfather may get entirely well and live to remember this obsession merely as one remembers a bad dream. Have him come see me at my office soon and call on me at a moment’s notice if you are the least bit alarmed.”

CHAPTER VII A WIRELESS MESSAGE

Before Mary Louise went to bed that night, she wrote a long letter to Danny, a letter full of love and trust, a letter explaining the whole thing and taking all the blame for the misunderstanding that had arisen. She told him of her grandfather’s mental condition, but did not tell him of the possibility of its becoming more and more serious. She wanted Danny to have no fears concerning her welfare during his absence. She wished him God-speed and assured him of her undying devotion. The letter took her hours to write and when it was completed she slipped on a cloak and quietly letting herself out the front door, ran to the corner to put it safely in the mail box. It would have gone just as soon if she had waited to give it to the postman in the morning but she felt she must let nothing interfere with its safe departure. Now Danny would be sure to receive it before sailing for China. At least, he would start with the knowledge that she loved him as much as ever and the cloud would be between them no longer.

Mary Louise had never been on the street alone at midnight and even to run the one block to the corner seemed quite an adventure for her.

“What would Danny say?” was in her thoughts as she crept back into the house and up the stairs to her room.

The weeks that followed were anxious ones for her. The condition of Colonel Hathaway became more serious. He was determined to accomplish certain things in regard to his property and that meant many trips to the business end of the town and more exercise and excitement than was good for him. Danny’s absence seemed to put him entirely out of the Colonel’s mind. He rarely mentioned him and then only in the most casual way. His obsession became that his dear old friend Peter Conant was trying to make him change his will and leave all of his property to Irene Macfarlane. He became very indignant at the mention of Peter’s name and reviled him constantly. This grieved Mary Louise exceedingly, but she could not but confess that she was glad Grandpa Jim was picking on some one besides her Danny.

The day of Danny’s sailing came and went. She had received a letter from him every day since he left Dorfield, sometimes written on the train, sometimes at a wayside station. On the day of sailing, came a telegram saying he had received her letter and was happier than he had been for a long time. She then resigned herself to the fact that she could not hear from him for weeks and weeks. It takes a long time to get to China and a long time for letters to come from there.

The girls were lovely to her. All of them knew the trials under which she was living, but they respected her silence in regard to her suffering and nobody said a word. All the time she could spare from her grandfather she spent at the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“It is so nice and cheerful and busy here,” she said to Josie one day. “I used to think my home was beautiful, but now it seems kind of like a great mausoleum. Any more bonnets for me to trim?”

Josie nodded cheerfully.

“Yes, two more! You seem to have the knack of making mourning bonnets look cheerful. How’s Colonel Hathaway feeling these days, Mary Louise?”

Josie was the one person to whom Mary Louise could talk concerning her affairs. She had wanted to take Irene into her confidence too but, since her grandfather had made the absurd charges against his old friend Peter Conant, she had hesitated to bring the subject up with Irene. Irene felt a certain estrangement, but her faith in Mary Louise was strong and true and she was sure it would all come right in the end. She could not help seeing the burden her little friend was bearing and was determined not to add to it one iota with foolish hurt feelings and small jealousies, although her feelings were a little hurt and she was a tiny bit jealous that Josie should be the one to share the troubles of Mary Louise. She knew it was the case because often she found the two girls whispering together in a corner of the shop and always, when there was an errand to be done, Mary Louise and Josie would go together to attend to it. Irene only hoped she could keep her hurt feelings from the knowledge of Mary Louise and never let anyone know that the green-eyed monster, Jealousy, had her in his clutch.

At home it was dismal enough.

It was plain to see that Colonel Hathaway was failing, failing not only in mind but in body. His step had become slow and faltering and his once steady hand shook with palsy. Still, he made his way to the business part of town every day and was occupied constantly with his affairs. Peter Conant had offered repeatedly to help him in any way, but had been rebuffed so decidedly that he had become offended.

“James Hathaway can’t speak to me as he did and not hurt me,” he had declared to his wife.

“But, Peter, you and Irene both said he was evidently not quite himself. You should remember that.”

“That’s all very well to say, but he is smart enough to go down town every day and sell stocks and bonds. He ought to be smart enough to know he can’t keep his friends if he is going to abuse them as he abused me. I didn’t even know what he was talking about.”

“Neither did he, goose!” insisted Aunt Hannah, but Uncle Peter still refused to allow James Hathaway to revile him without making a protest.

“You thought and freely said that Danny Dexter was too quick to get angry with the Colonel,” Aunt Hannah continued. “You said he should have sense enough to see that the old gentleman was not quite himself, and now here you are raising Cain about a slight rudeness on his part.”

“Rudeness indeed! He said he could attend to his affairs without interference from me. I call that more than a slight rudeness. I’ll see myself offering my services to him again. He is presuming on his age to behave as he is doing.”

“Well! Well! You are behaving as though you were no age at all—not even six years old,” declared Aunt Hannah, removing her ear trumpet and laughing at her husband. When Aunt Hannah considered an argument had gone far enough she simply removed her trumpet from her ear and that ended the matter as far as she was concerned.

In spite of Mr. Peter Conant’s stern remarks about never offering his services to Jim Hathaway again, that very night he was not only offering them but they were being accepted and that most gratefully, if not by the Colonel, at least by Mary Louise.

The old gentleman had come home from his daily visit to the broker’s offices and had seemed a little steadier on his legs than of late, a little more cheerful and less inclined to hunt for trouble than had been the case for the last few months. He sat down in his big chair and Mary Louise took her accustomed place on the stool at his feet. She had brought home from the Higgledy Piggledy a little crêpe bonnet which she had been unable to finish that afternoon and, since it was promised for the following day, she determined to work on it a while at home. There were only a few stitches to be put in and a bit of ruching to be tacked across the front.

The old man and the young girl sat thus for a long time. Mary Louise was busily plying her needle and the Colonel dozed and waked and dozed again.

“Is that a bonnet for yourself, my dear?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Oh no, Grandpa Jim! This is a widow’s bonnet.”

“Yes, I know! I remember your mother wore one, although I did not approve, not at all—but, my dear, you are a widow now.”

“Oh no!” cried Mary Louise hastily. “I’m not a widow, Grandpa Jim. My husband is just away for a little while, not for all time.”

“You are mistaken. He will never come back.” The old man spoke with curt precision.

Mary Louise hesitated. She could not decide whether it would be better to combat her grandfather’s statement or whether, perhaps, it was just as well to let him have his way in the matter.

Suddenly the bell pealed forth.

“Callers! Do you want to see anyone, Grandpa Jim?”

“Yes! Yes! Let them come in, just so it is not that old reprobate Peter Conant.”

“Oh, Grandpa Jim. You can’t mean dear Uncle Peter!”

“Of course I do. I was never so fooled by anybody in my life as that man. He is underhanded and sly, and—”

As Peter Conant was famed far and near for his honesty, this made Mary Louise smile in spite of herself. As well accuse Irene Macfarlane herself of dishonesty or even Grandpa Jim.

“A telespatch, missy,” said Eben, limping into the room. “A telespatch collect fer Mrs. D. Dexter, an’ the boy say sign right thar.”

Mary Louise scrambled to her feet.

“In a minute, Uncle Eben! The boy will have to wait until I read my telegram. Why it’s a wireless!” she cried excitedly. “A wireless from Danny! Just think, Uncle Eben, a message from way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It just says: ‘Love, Danny.’ But that is enough. Oh, Grandpa Jim, do you know this is a wireless from Danny?”

“You mean your husband? A message from the spirit world! Because he is dead, you know—as dead as dead——”

The old man stood up, looking wildly in the eyes of his granddaughter.

“I know he is dead—drowned, I think—because, last night while I slept, I saw him in the water—and if he is not dead why are you making a widow’s bonnet for yourself?”

Suddenly Colonel Hathaway crumpled up and lay in a pitiful heap on the floor. Mary Louise, her nerves overwrought by the long strain under which she had been living, gave a shrill scream, but immediately controlled herself.

“Run quick for Mr. Conant, Uncle Eben, and get Miss Irene too—tell her I need her. I’ll telephone the doctor myself. Call Aunt Sally to come to Grandpa Jim.”

Colonel Hathaway was stretched out on the rug in front of the fire with Mary Louise doing what she could to restore consciousness to the tired brain, when Dr. Coles arrived.

The old man was carried to his room and placed in his large old tester bed.

“I rather thought this might happen but did not think it would be so soon,” the doctor told Mary Louise. “Was there anything to excite him especially?” he asked.

Mary Louise told him of the wireless message she had just received from her husband and of the statement her grandfather had made that it was a message from the spirit world.

“Of course, it was proof that my husband was well and thinking of me. That was all—but Grandpa Jim takes such strange notions lately and there is no turning him from them. He said he had dreamed he saw Danny in the water but that is no indication of an accident.”

“Certainly not!” assured Dr. Coles. “When did your husband sail?”

“Ten days ago!”

“What was the name of his boat?”

“The Spokane!”

Dr. Coles said nothing but in his kind eyes there was a depth of concern for the girl. He looked at her a moment and then turned to the inert form of the old man.

“His pulse is fairly good and I fancy he will be coming around pretty soon,” he said briskly. “I am going to send you a nurse immediately.”

“Oh, don’t send a nurse! Please let me attend to him. I am as strong as can be. You don’t know how much I can do.”

“Ah, yes, I do, but we don’t want to have you doing all you can do. I really think a nurse for a few days will be best.”

“And Irene Macfarlane is here to help me. You don’t know what a help Irene is although she can’t get out of her chair. She answers the telephone and she does more little odd jobs and Grandpa Jim has always liked her more than anybody—until—until—but perhaps she had better not try to help in his room because he has had a strange obsession of late about Irene and dear Uncle Peter Conant.”

“Is Miss Macfarlane here now?”

“Yes, Dr. Coles! Uncle Peter Conant and Irene are both in the dining room waiting to see what I need.”

“The telephone is in the dining room?”

“Yes!”

“Well, Mrs. Dexter, I’ll get you to sit here a moment by your grandfather while I go telephone. He is coming around soon I think, but there is nothing for you to do except sit near him. Call me if you need me.”

CHAPTER VIII THE PASSING OF THE COLONEL

Irene and her uncle were seated in the dining room in hushed silence. They had come immediately at Mary Louise’s summons. Mr. Conant was bowed over, his gray head in his hands. Occasionally, he emitted a deep groan and muttered to himself:

“I never should have said it, even to Hannah—even to Hannah!”

“Never mind, Uncle Peter—you were always in your heart faithful to the poor Colonel,” Irene would try to comfort him, and again they would drop back into the gloomy silence.

As Dr. Coles came into the room, they greeted him eagerly, “Any change? How is he now?”

“About the same—but his pulse is fairly good. I think he will be coming around soon, perhaps—of course, there is no predicting for sure anything in cases like this—cases of any sort in fact. My opinion of doctors is not very great you know. They do their best but, when all is told, they are a feeble lot.”

“But their best is very wonderful, sometimes,” said Irene, “and Mary Louise has great faith in you.”

“Poor child, poor child! Are you sure her husband sailed on the Spokane, about ten days ago?”

“Yes, I am sure! Isn’t that what she told you?”

“Yes—but I hadn’t the courage to tell her something that she will have to know. I saw a late bulletin as I passed the newspaper office on my way up here and it said the Spokane had been signalling for help by wireless all during yesterday and that it is feared she has been wrecked. Of course, she may be all right by now, but the latest report is that there is no trace of her so far.”

“You mean Danny Dexter may be lost?” gasped Irene.

“Yes—lost! It may be a false alarm but I doubt it. Anyhow, we need not tell the poor little wife yet, not until there is something definite to tell her,” said the doctor sadly and Uncle Peter groaned aloud.

“Brute! Brute that I am! I haven’t been over here for days and weeks and all the time my old friend was ill and here I was irritated with him—I even blamed the poor child a little. I felt somehow she was lacking backbone in allowing the old man to ride over her so. I’m a worm! A worm! Nothing but a miserable boneless invertebrate.”

The doctor smiled at the incongruous epithets Mr. Conant was so ruthlessly applying to himself. Irene patted her uncle on the shoulder.

“Now Uncle Peter, let’s not worry about what we might have done, but just do what is to be done now. Suppose you go down to the newspaper office and find out what they know and stop and tell Aunt Hannah that I shall have to stay over here for the night and get her to send me a dressing gown and some toilet things.”

“That’s right!” agreed the doctor, looking at Irene with appreciation. “Now, Miss Macfarlane, you get the nurse’s registrar on the ’phone and have them send us a good nurse immediately. Mrs. Dexter insists that she can do the nursing with your help, but I do not intend to have her break herself down. She may have more to stand than she realizes. Pray God the report about the Spokane is false!”

A night of anxiety followed. Colonel Hathaway was still unconscious when gray dawn crept down the quiet city streets. In spite of the arrival of a comfortably efficient nurse, Mary Louise could not be persuaded to leave her grandfather’s bedside.

“He might awake and ask for me,” she declared over and over when she was told she had better take a little rest.

As the first rays of the morning sun found their way into his room, the old man opened his eyes. In them was the expression of a wondering child.

“What is the matter?” he whispered faintly.

“Oh, Grandpa Jim, good morning!” said Mary Louise taking his hand in hers.

“Good morning, child! Aren’t you up early? Where is my boy?”

“Who, Grandpa Jim?”

“My boy! Danny, of course! What other boy have I? I have been having a horrid nightmare that he and I had been having some misunderstanding. I am glad morning has come and it is all a dream. I can’t bear to have trouble between Danny and me even in a dream. Call him, Mary Louise! I must speak to him.”

“He is not here right now, Grandpa Jim,” said Mary Louise, trying hard to keep back the sob that was almost mastering her.

“Not here! Where on earth has the rascal gone?”

How different was his manner of speaking of Danny! A short time ago he would have called him a rascal, meaning it, and with a hard tone of voice; now his way of calling him a rascal was purely loving and playful.

“Where has he gone, child? Not far I hope, because I have a queer feeling about me somehow—a feeling that perhaps I am not going to be here very long and I must see Danny. Where is he? Don’t hide anything from me!”

“He is—he is—on the water,” answered Mary Louise slowly.

“Oh, now I seem to remember,” faltered Colonel Hathaway. His voice was strangely husky and Mary Louise had to put her ear close to catch the words.

“I seem to remember something about a telegram—a telegram sent collect. That wasn’t much like Danny to send a telegram collect—”

“It was a wireless, Grandpa Jim, and perhaps he could not prepay on shipboard.”

“Of course—of course—a wireless—I remember now. Poor Danny, poor Danny. And did you finish your bonnet in time?”

“In time for what, Grandpa Jim?”

“In time to wear. Well never mind if you didn’t. You can buy plenty more. I have left you everything, Mary Louise dear, everything—but I wish I had left Danny something, not that he will want it. He is an independent lad and wanted to pay me board. Ha! Ha! That was a joke indeed. But I liked the spirit in him. I am going back to sleep now, honey. Please tell Peter Conant to come see me a little later in the day. I shall want his advice.” The old man closed his eyes and, with a tired sigh, sank into a state of coma.

He passed away a few hours later. His death was quiet and painless. One moment he was breathing gently and the next moment he was not. Mary Louise stood bravely by. She was able to thank the Creator that her poor grandfather was not to live a life of misery, with his once powerful mind gone. She repeated to herself over and over his last sweet words and was grateful beyond expression for what he had said about her dear Danny.

“If Danny only knew!” she kept on repeating. “If he only knew how much Grandpa Jim really loved him.”

“He did know once,” Irene assured her. Irene had been taken into her friend’s confidence at last and they had had a heart to heart talk about the whole wretched matter. “Perhaps he knows now how the Colonel really felt about him.”

“But he couldn’t know unless some one has tried to reach him by wireless. Indeed I wish we could.”

“Well, he may just sort of feel it. People do sometimes,” Irene hastened to mend the break she had made.

There was no doubt in the minds of Danny Dexter’s many friends at Dorfield that the boat on which he had sailed had gone to the bottom with all on board unless some of them had taken to lifeboats. Even then, the storm that raged for days in that latitude from which the Spokane had sent her agonizing S.O.S. calls had, without doubt, done for those boats. It was reported that no one could possibly have lived at sea in an open boat during the terrible hurricane that had swept the seas. Danny was given up for lost and to Irene fell the sad task of breaking the news to Mary Louise.

Colonel Hathaway’s funeral was over, the simple impressive rites suitable for the fine old character. The little peculiarities developed during the last few months of his life were entirely forgotten by the many friends who sincerely mourned his loss. He had been a good citizen, public spirited and generous, a fine staunch friend and a man to whom the business world looked with interest, as he had a genius for making good investments. The papers were full of his praises and appreciation of him was on every tongue.

It was natural for Mary Louise to want to see these newspaper notices and, in seeing the papers, it was almost inevitable that she should run across something about the possibility of the Spokane’s being in distress, perhaps lost. Up to that time there had been nothing said about Danny Dexter’s being on the ill-starred vessel, as it was not known generally to the newspaper world. His old friend, Bob Dulaney, the one who had figured so largely in the capture of Felix Markle on Danny and Mary Louise’s wedding day, of course, knew all about Danny but, at the instigation of Irene Macfarlane he had promised not only to keep his own paper from mentioning Danny’s name in connection with the Spokane but also to use his influence to keep the news concerning Danny out of the other papers. All of Mary Louise’s friends agreed that she should be allowed to recover from the shock of her grandfather’s death before anything should be told her of the possibility of Danny’s ship being lost.

“What shall we do about the newspapers when she asks for them?” wailed Irene, who had come to the Higgledy Piggledy for advice. “While Danny’s name is not mentioned, we are never sure when the Spokane will appear in the telegrams from the Pacific coast. She is sure to want to see everything that is written about Colonel Hathaway.”

“Use the clipping bureau,” suggested Josie. “What are we for but to save readers the trouble of going over the whole paper to see what is said about them?”

“Of course!” cried Elizabeth. “I’ll get busy immediately.” She accordingly grabbed up her long shears and began clipping items concerning Grandpa Jim and then neatly pasting them on the little printed slips in which the clipping bureau had seen fit to indulge to give a prosperous air to the business.

“I don’t believe for an instant that Danny Dexter is dead,” declared Josie stoutly. “It is simply unbelievable.”

“But don’t you think Mary Louise should know the Spokane is reported lost?” asked Irene.

“Of course! We have no right to keep it from her much longer. Mary Louise is no child although somehow she seems one. She is so young and so gentle and there is a look to her now that makes me feel as though I should like to take her in my lap and hold her like a little baby.”

Elizabeth and Irene could not help smiling at the picture of Josie holding Mary Louise in her lap, since Mary Louise was a good half head taller than Josie but they all agreed that Mary Louise seemed like a child.

“Matrimony doesn’t seem to have aged her a single bit,” said Elizabeth.

“Her grandfather’s death has hit her terribly hard and she is looking as pale as a ghost, but somehow like a little child ghost,” sighed Irene.

“Dr. Coles says not to let her know about Danny until it is a certainty—that there is no use in harrowing her soul if there is the slightest chance of his being alive.”

“Who is to tell her?” shuddered Elizabeth.

“I am,” said Irene.

“I don’t see how you can,” said Elizabeth. “It would be a job that I just wouldn’t know how to go about starting.”

“I am praying for strength and direction,” said Irene, whose religion was such a vital part of her that she spoke of it with a faith and simplicity that was often surprising to others.

“Well I’m glad the poor girl has plenty of money,” said Elizabeth. “I know money isn’t everything but it’s a good deal. Anyhow, it helps a lot to boost one over the rough places.”

“Maybe it does,” mused Josie, “But for my part, I’d like to see Mary Louise without a sou to her name. It would be good for the lamb to have to start in and make her living tomorrow. With her old grandfather gone and poor Danny reported missing, what pleasure will there be for her in that great house with not even a bit of dusting to do? Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben won’t let her do a lick of work about the house and Mary Louise is very capable. Just see how she pitched in and organized for war work. I guess she’ll have to go in for charity and then all of these boards and what not will bleed her to death. That kind of work is just a time-killer anyhow. What girls need is jobs—good, hard-working, paying jobs.”

“But what could Mary Louise do if she had to make a living?” laughed Elizabeth.

“Plenty of things!” declared Josie.

CHAPTER IX MARY LOUISE TOUCHES BOTTOM

Circumstantial evidence was all against the Spokane. While nobody could say for certain that she had committed the unpardonable sin of going to the bottom, she could not prove an alibi. One day she had been sending out signals of distress by wireless and the next day, when a philanthropic vessel had endeavored to find her in the vicinity from which the appeals had come, there was not a trace of her. Others had joined in the search to no avail. She was finally given up for lost and the search was abandoned. Then and only then, did Dorfield awake to the fact that the popular Danny Dexter had been on the Spokane.

“Poor Mary Louise!” was heard on every side, and then often was added, “Well, thank goodness, she has plenty of money!”

It is strange how many persons seem to feel that plenty of money will soften any blow. Josie’s voice was the only one raised in complaint that Mary Louise would have been better off were she not so well off, but then even Elizabeth had to admit that Josie was a wee bit peculiar about worldly things. In spite of the fact that the astute Josie was practical and businesslike, she had an unworldly philosophy worthy of Diogenes. Like that old gentleman, she would have been perfectly happy with no habitation but a tub but she would have put the tub to more practical use than the ancient worthy is reported to have done.

The time had come for Irene to break the sad news to Mary Louise concerning her dear Danny. It took every bit of character the lame girl possessed to screw her courage up to the point of breaching the subject.

“It wouldn’t be so hard if I didn’t love her so much,” she said to herself, and then added, “but it is because I do love her so much that I am chosen to be the one to do it.”

Like all difficult things it was not so hard to do when once she had started. Dr. Coles had telephoned her that morning that he felt it was hardly fair to keep Mary Louise in ignorance any longer; and the evening before Bob Dulaney had come to tell her that all hope of the Spokane was given up, and that the storm on the Pacific in that particular region had raged so fiercely for several days that it was considered by those experienced in such matters utterly absurd to fancy for an instant that men in open boats could have escaped drowning.

Bob Dulaney was grief-stricken. He had been hoping against all reason that Danny had escaped.

“I just can’t believe it! Old Danny Dexter! Why, ‘Irene for all time,’ Danny was the livest person I ever knew—so alive that I simply can’t think of him as dead.”

“Irene for all time” was a name Bob had for Irene—just a little joke of their own brought about when he was introduced to her by Danny. He usually called her by that funny little title.

“Well, let’s not think of him as dead. Lots of dead persons are more alive than live ones, and lots of live ones are deader than dead ones. Why shouldn’t we just think and speak of Danny as alive? I think it will be a beautiful way to remember him.”

“Oh, ‘Irene for all time,’ you are a comfort to a fellow! I wish I could help you when you have to break it to poor little Mary Louise. It is hard on you to be the one but then it is a compliment too. Everybody turns to you when something difficult must be done.”

Irene smiled. It was pleasant to be approved of and liked by this clean, clever young man. Perhaps his kind approval was one thing that made the difficult task a little easier than she had dreamed possible.

Mary Louise was going over her grandfather’s clothes and his personal effects. Irene found her in a small cozy room down stairs, the room where Grandpa Jim had loved to sit and smoke and see his intimate friends. It was the same room where Mary Louise’s wedding presents had been when Felix Markle and his confederate had so cleverly packed them all off. Mary Louise had had all of her grandfather’s things brought to this room and she was busily engaged in going over piles of wearing apparel with a view to giving away the things to persons who might need them.

“I know Grandpa Jim would hate to see good warm clothes go to waste, but it is hard to part with some of these things that bring him back so plainly.” She held up a broadcloth coat that seemed to have retained the shape of the beloved old gentleman.

“To whom will you give them, Mary Louise?” asked Irene.

“I can’t bear to give them to anyone who would look ridiculous in them. Uncle Eben, of course, wants everything, but he is so short and bow-legged and Grandpa Jim was over six feet. I am giving him some of the things, but I can’t contemplate Uncle Eben in a frock coat that would almost touch the ground. There is a nice old gentleman who lives around the corner, old Mr. Curtiss. He hasn’t been here very long and he doesn’t know many persons, but Grandpa Jim struck up an acquaintance with him and liked to talk of old times with him. He is from South Carolina and has seen better days—not that he ever mentions it, but one just surmises he has. He is as poor as poor can be now.”

“Why I know him! Bob Dulaney introduced me one day when we were sitting in the park. Bob says he has a small job on his newspaper. They send him out to interview a certain type of politician and, besides that, he writes the obituaries and, being well up on who’s who, he keeps a little ahead on special articles about great persons who are likely to die soon or suddenly.”

“I think he would be a very suitable person to wear Grandpa Jim’s things. He is tall and dignified and the poor dear is so very shabby. Do you think it would hurt his feelings?” asked Mary Louise, tenderly patting the broadcloth coat.

“I don’t think it could at all. He’d feel honored, I believe, because giving things like this is not like charity. Let me help you bundle them up.”

Together the two girls worked, Irene folding and wrapping the things as Mary Louise sorted them.

“All of this pile goes to the Salvation Army; these things to Uncle Eben and these to Mr. Curtiss. I want Uncle Peter Conant to have his silver-headed cane. His fur-lined overcoat I have saved for Danny.”

Finally, the clothes were all neatly wrapped and tied up, each with a label written in Irene’s clear legible handwriting. It was difficult for Irene to write evenly with her hand trembling with emotion at the thought of the ordeal ahead of her. She felt it would be best to wait for her friend to get the business in hand finished before she had anything more to bear, and so she waited until the last string was tied, the last bundle labeled, and Uncle Eben had come and carried them all off to be delivered at his convenience, before she broached the subject uppermost in her heart.

“Mary Louise, I have something to tell you,” she began.

“Yes, darling, I know you have.”

“Oh, you do?”

“I have known it all morning, ever since you came in the room. I am ready to hear now. What is it, Irene?”

For a moment Irene could not speak. She shut her eyes and prayed for strength. If Mary Louise could be so calm, it was not for her to break down.

“Has it—has it something to do with—with Danny?” For a moment Mary Louise grasped a chair for support. Her breath came in gasps. Then she gathered her forces, stiffened up and smiled wanly. “I’ve felt it all along. What is it? You can tell me dear—I have touched bottom, as it were, in misery and unhappiness and I can bear anything.”

“The Spokane is reported missing,” said Irene softly.

“Missing,” Mary Louise half whispered. “Tell me more.”

“She was sending out wireless calls for help—”

“Ah! It was then that Danny sent me the message. He must have known and tried to get a word to me before—before.”

“Yes, dear!”

“And wasn’t it wonderful that it reached me? And wasn’t it like Danny to do it? He knows—knew—wireless telegraphy, you remember, Irene? He learned it in his service overseas.”

“Yes, dear!”

Mary Louise spoke softly:

“What else do they know?” Her eyes were dry and strangely brilliant.

“Nothing but that various vessels went to the assistance of the Spokane but could find no trace of her and a great storm, a hurricane, had been raging for some time during and after the Spokane’s wireless messages were received and it is feared—it is believed—it is known by persons who have had experience in such things that lifeboats could not have weathered such a storm. It is thought that all on board were—were lost.”

“Nobody can tell though, for sure!” there was a ring of hope in the poor girl’s voice.

“No darling, not for sure, but we are all of us afraid there is absolutely no chance for Danny to have been saved. Even Bob Dulaney has given up hope—and you know Bob would keep on hoping against hope. He came last night to tell me I should tell you. Dr. Coles telephoned this morning that it was hardly fair to keep you in ignorance any longer.”

“You are all of you very good to me. My words sound cold but I don’t mean them to. I know how hard this has been for you, my dear. It was just like you to take such a hard task on yourself. I—I do thank you, Irene.”

Never a tear, scarcely a falter in the clear voice! It was more tragic to have Mary Louise take the news that way than it would have been had she broken down and wept.

“You mustn’t feel too sorry for me, Irene. Tell the girls they mustn’t either. I can bear this trouble. Somehow I feel that I am not the one who has to bear it. I have been very happy with both Grandpa Jim and Danny and, now that they are gone, I can remember the happy times and be thankful for them. But oh, Irene, the dreary, dreary years to come!” She leaned back in her chair, for a moment she closed her eyes and her mouth looked weary and drawn.

CHAPTER X A CONFERENCE OF FRIENDS

“It sounds just like poor old Job in the Bible,” said Elizabeth Wright.

“Doesn’t it, though?” sighed Irene.

“Yes, and I bet Job didn’t have a thing on our Mary Louise for patience,” put in Josie, “but, of course, Job had that bunch of hot air comforters who certainly must have tried his patience. At least, Mary Louise is spared them.”

“Don’t you think it,” corrected Irene. “There has been a stream of visitors from morning until night and some of them say the most terrible things. I don’t see how Mary Louise stands them but she always says they mean it for the best and she is as polite as can be to them. I’d send them all packing.”

This made Josie and Elizabeth laugh, as there never was known a more courteous person than Irene Macfarlane.

“What do you think the Job’s comforters will say when they find out about Colonel Hathaway’s affairs?” asked Elizabeth. “I haven’t told a soul, but my family will have to know sooner or later and then I bid to come stay for a few days down here at the Higgledy Piggledy until they stop talking it over and pumping me with questions.”

“Uncle says it is the most astounding thing that has ever occurred in the financial world of Dorfield,” said Irene. “He has not given up hope yet but is still searching for papers that might indicate in some way where on earth the money has gone. There is no doubt about it that Colonel Hathaway was a very rich man as his investments have always prospered but, now that he is gone, there is absolutely nothing to show where his money is. The brokers say he has been selling steadily during the last few months. He seems to have converted a great many of his securities into cash. Nobody knows why exactly except that he intimated to several men that he was going to fix his money so Danny could not get hold of it. Everybody realized the Colonel was not himself and took what he said about Danny with a grain of salt. Uncle is afraid he invested a lot of his money in some gold mine schemes that he talked about several weeks ago. It is supposed to have been a wild-cat mine with no chance of getting out what money was put in. I don’t see how Colonel Hathaway could have been bitten even though he was a little out of his head. Uncle says he was such an astute business man.”

“Can’t Mr. Conant find any money at all?” asked Josie.

“Nothing! Of course, the house is there and all of its furnishings. It is on a huge lot which may be valuable in time, but, just now, that part of Dorfield is not so fashionable as it used to be and Uncle Peter thinks it would be a pity to sell it, as there is a chance of its being in demand a little later for office buildings. Business is slowly creeping that way. He is going to hold on to his property until he can get his price.”

“In the meantime, what will Mary Louise live on?” asked Elizabeth.

“Live on the wits that God gave her!” cried Josie. “I am truly glad for this part of poor Job’s troubles. It will be everything to dear little Mary Louise that she must actually begin to think about where her next meal is coming from.”

“Josie! How can you say such a thing?” demanded Elizabeth, shocked wonderment in her voice and countenance.

“Easy!” laughed Josie. “Aren’t you a million times happier since you are taking care of yourself? Why shouldn’t it make Mary Louise happier, especially now that she has so much sorrow to overcome? I am as glad as glad can be, and, while I am going to put my wits to work as a friend first and as a detective second, I am hoping I will take a long time to find the lost treasure.”

“Well I never!” declared Irene in quite the tone Aunt Hannah might have used. “I am no worshiper of money, but I must say one can do so much with money that the having of it must be very pleasant. I shall never forget the wonderful things Colonel Hathaway and Mary Louise have done for me and it was because they had money that they could do them. The things gave them as intense joy as they did me, too, and that is where the pleasure of having money comes in for persons like the Colonel and Mary Louise. There is my victrola and all the magnificent records, representing the very best in music! Here’s my rolling chair, such a wonder of balance and ease that it moves at the slightest touch and seems almost a part of me! There’s my lovely long fur coat that makes it possible for me to go out in winter. Before I got it, I used simply to freeze because I couldn’t take enough exercise to get up a good winter circulation. I would stay in the house like some old hibernating bear and I dreaded winter, but now I love to see the first snow flakes. Mary Louise is so accustomed to doing lovely things for people that I don’t see how she is going to get used to not doing them.”

“She is not going to stop,” declared Josie, earnestly. “What she will do, perhaps will not be so costly from a financial standpoint, but it will mean sacrifices which will be more costly in other ways. If I know our Mary Louise, and I think I do, she will rise superior to this disaster and come out stronger and finer than ever.”

“Maybe you are right, Josie,” sighed Elizabeth, “but all the same, money is money and there is no substitute for it.”

“That’s just it, money is money and nothing but money. I have been saying that all along. Money is all right in its place, but it is a better thing to work for than to have and I, for one, am glad Mary Louise is going to have to work for it for a while. It will do her good, poor dear child! I know how good it was for me, after my father died, to open up this shop and get busy. It didn’t lessen my loss any, but it gave me strength to bear it.”

Elizabeth and Irene were silent. They agreed with Josie that it might be good for their friend to have something to take her mind off her terrible sorrow, but they did not feel that losing all her worldly goods was necessary. She might have adopted some orphans or endowed a hospital. There were plenty of occupations in which her money could have helped that would have done just as well in alleviating sorrow as this loss of fortune.

“Has Mrs. Burton sent a check yet for that order we filled for candle shades?” asked Josie as she looked over the firm’s books.

“No!” answered Elizabeth. “She has not. She has been owing us for three months now.”

“Send another bill and stamp the cheerful little ‘Please remit’ in red ink,” suggested Josie, sternly. “She must think we are in business for our health.”

“To hear you run down money one might think we are,” teased Elizabeth.

“Not at all! I don’t run down money at all. I run down money that is too easy—money one doesn’t have to work for. I have some myself that my father left me and I don’t think near as much of it as I do of my share on the commission the Higgledy Piggledy gets for that order for candle shades Mrs. Burton keeps forgetting to pay. I appreciate my father’s working as he did to leave me some money, but I appreciate a lot more his trying to teach me a trade.”

“But Josie, while you have been philosophizing about the most satisfactory methods of obtaining happiness through lack of wealth, have you thought of anything Mary Louise can do to earn her living?” asked Irene. “Uncle Peter and Aunt Hannah want her to come live with us and Uncle Peter says what he has is as much hers as his. He had a mighty strong feeling for the Colonel and Aunt Hannah simply adores Mary Louise—she always has. Of course, it goes without saying what I think of her.”

“What does Mary Louise say?” asked Josie.

“She doesn’t say anything but just shakes her head and asks to be allowed to wait. In the meantime, we hate to think of her all alone in that great old house. Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben go off and shut themselves up in their room over the kitchen and are dead to the world when their duties are over for the day. I begged her to let me stay with her, but she seems to prefer to be alone.”

“I can readily see that she might want solitude in which to adjust herself to new conditions,” said Josie, thoughtfully, “but it isn’t quite right. I thought, of course, you were there.”

“I was at first but I had a feeling she didn’t want anybody and, when I asked her, she very gently told me that perhaps she was better off alone. I thought at first she was grieving over the loss of the money, but I believe now it has made no impression whatever on her. In fact, I don’t believe she realizes she is almost a poor girl. Of course, the big house and lot are worth a good deal but, in the meantime she has no cash to go upon. Uncle wanted to put some to her credit and do it secretly so she might never know, but she was too foxy for him and went over her grandfather’s bank books and saw his last entry before Uncle Peter could attend to it.”

“I think I’ll call it a day and lay off,” said Josie, “and go see Mary Louise. Will you agree to anything I let the Higgledy Piggledies in on, Elizabeth?”

“Of course! You can do a lot of talking about the uselessness of money, but I trust you not to lose any in the business. You are entirely too astute.”

CHAPTER XI PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

There was one rule the great detective, O’Gorman, had tried to instill in the mind of his daughter Josie, and that was, if possible, never to meddle in other folks’ affairs, but if, by any chance, Fate so ordained it that you must meddle, stick to it until those affairs were settled and the meddling was no longer necessary. Josie felt that, from the beginning, she had put her finger in Mary Louise’s pie and she must not draw it out until she could extract some kind of plum for her little friend.

She did not ring the bell at the Hathaway house but opened the great front door with the latch-key Colonel Hathaway had given her on her first visit to them and which he had insisted upon her keeping and using as a member of the family. She found Mary Louise hovering over rather a forlorn fire in the den.

“Why do people always begin to economize in coal as soon as they get a bit hard up?” Josie asked herself. “It is a strange question in psychology.”

She greeted Mary Louise cheerfully and seizing the poker gave the sputtering coal a few masterly punches which sent the flames leaping up the chimney. Then she vigorously poked out the ashes under the grate and, in a few moments, the fire was burning as brightly and cheerily as though the Colonel’s money had been found and no tragic happenings had recently taken place in that very house which the grate helped to warm.

“That’s better!” laughed Mary Louise. “Uncle Eben is so lugubrious about the coal’s getting low and so strict lately in regard to fires that I find myself shivering half the time. Fires have always been Uncle Eben’s specialty and, now that times are hard, his one idea is to save coal. Uncle Eben and Aunt Sally are my biggest problem right now, Josie.”

Josie smiled in what might almost have been termed a self-satisfied way. Had she not asserted but a few moments before to the girls at the Higgledy Piggledy that Mary Louise would still always be thinking of others?

“What are you planning to do with them, Mary Louise?” she asked quite casually. Josie had an idea that Mary Louise’s friends were handling her too gingerly. Instead of asking direct questions that called for direct answers, they were dealing too much in innuendoes, afraid all the time of intruding. She well knew that Irene’s exquisite sense of propriety would keep her from going into Mary Louise’s affairs until she was asked to discuss them by Mary Louise herself. Josie felt that the girl had brooded long enough and the time had come to talk things over.

“Now don’t you tell me if you’d rather not, but it seems to me you might as well talk it out with me. I’m a kind of father confessor anyhow, you know, honey,” continued Josie.

“Why I want to talk it over, Josie dear. I don’t want to burden anyone with my complicated affairs but—”

“Burden anyone! Why you little goose! Come on now, let’s decide what you are going to do and then let’s do it.”

Mary Louise laughed, and her laugh sounded quite merry and like her old self. “Josie, you certainly do help me with your plain, straight methods. You know, I fancy, that there is no money to be found—none at all—and I am penniless?”

“Yes, I know it, and I’m glad of it!”

“So am I! Wouldn’t that astonish Uncle Peter? He is having a fit, poor man. He has almost determined to begin digging around the place here to try and unearth the treasure. Of course, that is foolishness because we always saw Grandpa Jim come in the house and, if he ever left his room at night, I knew it and was up like a flash for fear he was sick or something.”

“Of course! Colonel Hathaway was not the kind of man to dig holes and put money away. He may have concealed his property somewhere and it will turn up sooner or later. In the meantime, it will be mighty bad business to let it get out that we don’t know where the stuff is, for that might bring down on your place a swarm of treasure seekers who would prove very annoying to you.”

“Uncle Peter thinks he invested most of it in gold mines and he says he hopes to find papers relating to the transaction somewhere.”

“Well now, go on and tell me what you mean to do. You are going to have to make your living and I, for one, think it is a good thing. How are you going to make it?”

“Have you any suggestions?”

“Of course!” answered Josie laconically. “That’s what I’m here for, not just idle curiosity.”

Mary Louise laughed again and Aunt Sally, in the kitchen, stopped a minute from her eternal scrubbing—her only solace of late—and dropped a tear in her bucket of hot suds, but the tear was a kind of happy tear at hearing once more the sound of laughter from her darling young mistress.

“Listen ter that, Eben! That there li’l perliceman gal air in the settin’ room. She sho do cheer up our baby lamb.”

“Yes, an’ she done stirred up the fire too. I ain’t a sayin’ the coal air a gonter las’ out the month if’n we ain’t pow’ful ’ticular.”

“G’long, nigger! You all time talkin’ ’bout coal. If’n you don’t look sharp, when yo’ time comes, Peter’ll be a-sayin’ when you knocks on the pearly gates, ‘Go on down ter perdition, you Eben! You ain’t fit fer nothin’ but stokin’ nohow.’ You much better be makin’ hot, cheerful fires fer po’ li’l Miss Mary Louise than countin’ over yo’ lumps er coal. The Lord air a gonter pervide. He knows as well as anybody an’ better than mos’ that we-alls is quality folk an’ he ain’t a gonter let us go col’.”

“You’s silly, Sally,” declared Eben, nimbly skipping beyond reach of the deluge of hot suds with which Sally retaliated. “‘Co’se you is silly. Ain’t we been a-hearin’ many tales ’bout kings and queens an’ sich what air a beggin’ in the streets since this here war that done stirred up the worl’ ter such a ixtent? If kings an’ queens air took ter beggin’, I don’t see why you air so proudified as ter think we-alls air safe.”

“Humph! Kings an’ queens ain’t nothin’ but furriners—some er them even low down wops an’ sich. I wan’t a talkin’ ’bout kings an’ queens but ’bout sho’ nuf quality folks whose amcestors comed from Virginny.”

And so the old couple wrangled in the kitchen while Mary Louise and Josie continued their talk in the den.

“What is your suggestion?” asked Mary Louise.

“Bonnets and hats! A millinery department of the Higgledy Piggledy! It will pay like preferred stock in the best investment in the country. At first, people will swarm there just to see you being a milliner. You’ll have to submit to being a nine days’ wonder and then, when you do their things so well and put so much style in their hats and bonnets, they will come back because they like what you do. Why, honey, you are going to be the successful business woman of Dorfield.”

“Oh Josie!”

“Certainly you are! You have it in you to be a success. Whatever you have undertaken, you have pushed through with sureness until you have reached the goal. Of course you have been spoiled in a way by having money come too easily but that isn’t going to hurt your business career any. It may help it. It will give you a larger outlook and keep you from being so all-fired particular about small bits of money. I think that is the trouble with so many women who go into business. They have heard so much about ‘taking care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves’ that they spend too much time and thought over unimportant sums and forget the other saying ‘Penny wise and pound foolish.’”

Josie was mounted on one of her hobbies and she rode gaily on, clucking to her nag and switching his flanks with proverbs and arguments until Mary Louise was in a gale of merriment.

“Josie, Josie, you are too delicious!”

Aunt Sally stopped scrubbing and arose from her knees.

“Jes’ listen ter that! Lawsamussy, if that ain’t music ter my ol’ years! Git a move on yer, Eben, you ol’ Virginia creeper! I’s a-thinkin’ ’bout stirring up some waffles fer supper. I ’lows our young mistress is done sanctified her stomick sufficient with nothin’ but toast an’ tea, tea an’ toast.”

“Well praise the Lawd! My back an’ front air a stickin’ tergither fer lack er nourishment,” declared Uncle Eben.

In a short while, the aroma of waffles was wafted through the house.

“If my old nose don’t tell no lies—” quoted Josie.

“I believe Aunt Sally is cooking waffles,” finished Mary Louise. “Now you must stay to supper, Josie.”

“Of course I will, if you truly want me. In fact, I think I’ll stay whether you do or not.”

“It’s strange how dependent we are on food,” mused Mary Louise a half hour later. Aunt Sally had given the girls a cozy little meal by the fire in the den. The dining room seemed so big and gloomy now that there were no men in the house.

“I believe I have not been eating enough. Aunt Sally brings me something, but I am sure that more than half the time I forget to eat it.”

“Just as I thought! You need a bossy, fussy person more or less like me to egg you on. Now start in and tell me what you are planning to do with these expensive, although devoted, retainers and this fine, extravagant house.” And Josie settled herself comfortably in a big chair by the fire on which Uncle Eben had deigned to waste much coal.

“I simply don’t know—I plan and plan but can’t fix on anything. Of course, Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben will be sad at not living on with me and declare they won’t leave me for the wealth of Greasus as Eben calls Croesus. There is no money in the bank, at least only a tiny bit. Grandpa Jim used to have two accounts, a checking account and a special account, but he seems to have withdrawn the special account and checked very closely on the other. Thank goodness, there are no bills to be paid! Grandpa Jim always kept bills paid up to the minute.”

“That’s one reason I feel that you are going to prove a good business woman. You have his blood in your veins and his ways about you. I see them cropping out constantly. Now, come on and tell me what plans you have made, even though you haven’t fixed on anything.”

“First, I think I’ll sell the car.”

“Which car?”

“The big new one, of course! Grandpa Jim’s old car wouldn’t bring in thirty cents and it is so precious to me somehow, I can’t bear to think of getting rid of it. I feel more strongly about it even than I did about his clothes. He changed his clothes and got rid of them as they wore out, but he hung on to his old car with such pertinacity that I feel like still hanging on to it. It has not been used for months but it’s jacked up out there in the garage. Do you think I am foolish?”

“No, my dear Mary Louise, I think you are very sensible. Certainly, the new car would bring in a tidy sum and give you bank account enough to look around a bit. Have Eben and Sally any savings?”

“Yes, they have been at no expense to speak of for many years and they have always had good wages. You know Grandpa Jim was always lavish in such expenditures. The dear old creatures have come and offered me their savings and are quite outdone because I refuse to touch them. In his will, Grandpa Jim mentions them, leaving them a farm he owns in Virginia and recommending that I see that they are well taken care of. He left them nothing but the farm but, thank goodness, that is a tangible something. I want them to go live on it and I believe they are beginning to look forward to it with some pleasure.”

“Splendid! That is surely a solution as far as the faithful retainers go. Now proceed! How about the house?” Josie was determined now, since she had started Mary Louise, she would keep her going until her plans took some shape and were in working order.

“Oh, the house! I can’t tell what to do about it. It is all I have and Uncle Peter Conant says a forced sale would be a great mistake, but if I can just put off selling it for several years, it might bring in a whole lot. I think I might rent it.”

“Furnished?”

“Y—e—s! But, oh, how I’d hate it! It would be awful to have strangers living with all of our household goods.”

“Yes, so it would, but because persons are strangers is no sign they are not pretty nice. I myself would rather have my things used by persons who could enjoy them than have them stored in heartless warehouses where, no doubt, the rats would gnaw holes in them and they would do nobody any good. I’d rent the house furnished for a goodly sum if possible and be careful about the tenant. Don’t take one who is not responsible. Storing furniture is like pouring money down rat holes. It costs and costs and finally, when you take the things out, they seem of so little value you wonder what on earth you have been paying for all the months or years. Sell or rent, but don’t store unless it is for a given, definite period. You have not thought of selling all your things?”

“I just couldn’t yet. I feel like putting off that evil hour for awhile. Grandpa Jim collected the pictures and rugs and furniture with such care. I can’t contemplate getting rid of them even though I may need the money sorely.”

“Nonsense! You won’t need the money sorely at all, not if you get busy and ship the dear old darkeys and come stay with me at the Higgledy Piggledy and begin to earn your salt and plenty of good beefsteaks to sprinkle it on, to say nothing of butter gravy and bread to sop in it.”

“Oh Josie, you are so funny!”

“Well, settle with the faithful retainers this very night. Call them now and let them know you are going to break up housekeeping tomorrow and they must pack up and start for their farm in Virginia. There is no use in dragging the thing out. Every day that this huge house is kept running is draining your already depleted bank account just that much more than it can stand. Let’s begin tomorrow to sort and ‘pick rags’ and get the house ready for a tenant. There is a lot of work connected with it and we’d best begin immediately.”

CHAPTER XII MARY LOUISE MOVES

In the language of Bob Dulaney and Billy McGraw, “Little O’Gorman was a humdinger when she got started.” Elizabeth was left to run the Higgledy Piggledy Shop with some help from Irene and Josie took up her abode with Mary Louise to do what she called “pick rags.” The house must be gone over from attic to cellar, all useless and superfluous articles disposed of, all of the rarest pictures, rugs, and ornaments packed and sent to storage. What Mary Louise needed in the way of furnishings for the simple life she was to lead henceforth in the room that was to be partitioned off for her in the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, must be carefully and judiciously selected. There was a mountain of labor ahead of them but the girls pitched in with a will and, at night Mary Louise found herself sleeping better than she had for many weeks. Josie refused to leave her friend alone.

“I am going to stay right here camped on your trail until you are safely moved,” she asserted and there was no changing her although Mary Louise assured her she did not mind staying alone.

Irene helped in many ways. It was wonderful what the lame girl could do. She would wheel her chair from room to room attending to small matters that the more active ones had overlooked. To her deft fingers was given the task of packing the contents of the Colonel’s curio cabinet; tiny carven figures in ivory and jade, Phoenecian glass vases that had imprisoned the sunlight of centuries gone by, filigreed silver and gold ornaments set with rough-hewn jewels, bits of priceless embroidery from ancient Mexican convents, bronze Buddhas placid in their unearthly homeliness. There was a little of everything in the way of treasures in the Colonel’s cabinet.

“The owner of such treasures cannot be classed as poverty-stricken,” Irene said to Josie, who stopped by her for a moment, her arms loaded with books that were too precious to be entrusted to any possible tenant no matter how worthy he or she might prove.

“No, but Mary Louise could never sell them. That’s the pleasure of owning things like that. They are priceless and still worthless because one could never part with them. A cabinet like that always makes me think of honest love, something quite intangible when one tries to count its value in dollars and cents.”

Irene smiled. No matter how occupied Josie was she could always stop for a bit of homily.

“You have in mind all the time the possibility of coming across some clue to the Colonel’s papers, haven’t you?” whispered Irene.

“Yes, indeed, but so far no sign of them! I have even been around to see the dear old gentleman to whom Irene sent some suits, thinking something might be found in the pockets, but nothing doing! I have also been over the things sent to the Salvation Army. When this house is finally turned over to a tenant, there is not going to be an inch that I have not personally inspected.”

“I know you are as thorough as can be and I’ll wager anything that you will find some clue before you have finished,” declared Irene, holding up to the light a wonderful little twisted vase of porphyry. “Just see these colors, Josie. It seems almost wrong to wrap it away in tissue paper so nobody can enjoy it. I wonder if dear Mary Louise will ever have a suitable home again where she can have her things around her.”

“Sure she will! Mary Louise is not the kind to stay down. She has been in holes before this and always come out and not a bit of dirt sticking to her either.”

The most difficult thing to do was to get old Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben off to Virginia. They were loath to go when the time came in spite of the fact that they confessed that they were quite set up to be the owners of an excellent farm with a comfortable house and good outbuildings, situated in the county where both of them had been born.

“We’ll cut some ice ’mongst them niggers at big meetin’ time,” boasted Uncle Eben. “Me’n Sally’ll go a drivin’ our own mule an’ maybe it’ll be two mules, not hitched side by each but one a followin’ arfter tother, tandem, lak circus parades.”

“You know I ain’t a goin’ ter no big meetin’ lookin’ lak no circus,” objected Aunt Sally.

“Well we ain’t bought the mules yit so I reckon th’ain’t no use in disputin’ whicher way we’ll hitch ’em up.”

The old couple finally got off. A whole box car was necessary to hold their belongings, which were freighted to them. Not only did they have the furnishings of their own room but many were the gifts from the big house added by Mary Louise.

“The old house is too full anyhow,” she insisted, “and I am sure no tenant would expect or want so many things.”

Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben were made happy with barrels of china and cooking utensils, also quantities of canned vegetables and fruits Aunt Sally had put up the summer before.

“Why doesn’t she keep some of those things?” Irene asked. “She will have to buy such things when she starts to housekeeping at the Higgledy Piggledy.”

“No, let them all go! I believe it will be better for Mary Louise to get down to rock bottom and have to begin to think about the actual earning of every necessity. If she has a lot of left-overs to begin on, the bare bones of living will still be an unknown skeleton to her and she might just as well get down to plain, hard, ossified facts.”

Irene smiled. She could not help thinking that for a person who prided herself on being practical, Josie certainly did let her theories run away with her. It seemed to Irene that Mary Louise had had jolt enough and now she might be let down easily without having to hit this much vaunted rock bottom with so much force. When she suggested this, Josie was ready with an answer to her argument.

“A ball can’t bounce back until it hits something but will go on falling and we are more or less like balls, my dear Irene. We can’t bounce until we hit—we can’t regain our footing until we have something to stand on. You wait until our poor little rich girl turns into a rich little poor girl and you are going to see wonders.”

Josie had her way and Mary Louise finally moved to the Higgledy Piggledy with nothing but her trunk and enough simple furniture to fit in the small space partitioned off at the back of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop for a sleeping compartment similar to the one Josie occupied.

A tenant for the big house had not been found but it was in perfect order ready to receive one. The new automobile had been sold and the welcome cash placed to Mary Louise’s credit at the bank to defray all expenses in getting the faithful Sally and Eben safe in Virginia with their household goods and also in putting a few necessary repairs on the big house, repairs the Colonel had been contemplating for some time, but had delayed in accomplishing.

The Colonel’s old car was left in the garage at the big house.

“It will be safe enough there, poor old thing,” sighed Mary Louise. “It looks real lonesome with the new car gone. Grandpa Jim surely did love his old car. He never enjoyed riding in the new one as much as he did in his old rattle-trap. The first time I realized that Grandpa Jim was not getting along so well with Danny was when he got irritated because Danny teased him about his old car. I always teased him about it and he used to tease himself at times and had never minded when Danny joined in. He seemed rather to like it. But one day he suddenly flared up over the car and said—but never mind what he said—it wasn’t Grandpa Jim saying those things—I realize it all now and I believe Danny knows too.”

“Certainly he does,” declared Josie with a tone of conviction.

The big house had been securely closed, one key left with the Conants in case a tenant might want to see it, one with a real estate agent and another in Mary Louise’s purse.

The old darkeys were gone and Mary Louise entered into her new life as a business woman.

How strange it was! How different from what her life had been less than one short year ago.

At night she lay in her little bed and looked up at the high ceiling dimly lit by the smouldering fire in the front of the shop. How amusing it was to sleep in a room with partitions reaching only half way to the ceiling! It was like living in a beauty parlor where one had one’s hair shampooed. She felt she would not like to stay all alone in such a place and wondered if it had not been hard on Josie to be there by herself. She remembered Josie’s tale of how the Markles had come and entered the shop by means of a skeleton key, stolen what they had thought to be Detective O’Gorman’s wonderful thieves’ journal, replacing it with blank pages neatly inserted in the original covers; and how they had actually come into her bedroom, thinking she was safely off spending the night at the Hathaways’. Josie, hiding under the bed, had heard their incriminating talk and had carefully laid her net and then left them to entangle themselves in its meshes.

What a clever little person Josie was! Mary Louise, as she thought of her, had a feeling of security as though all would finally be well if she could remain under Josie’s wing.

“Grandpa Jim liked her and Danny liked her—they trusted her so absolutely. I am glad I am here with her.” Mary Louise closed her eyes and, snuggling down in her little bed, was soon lost to the world. She did not dream of burglars but that Chinese idols, curiously carved, and hideous bronze Buddhas were perched in rows on the top of the partitions forming her bedroom and they looked down on her with benignant expressions on their quizzical countenances and seemed to be watching over her and guarding her. One great Buddha wagged his forefinger at her and told her he would watch over Danny too and she need have no fear, and, in spite of being a very good little Christian girl, she found that the heathen deity gave her great comfort in her loneliness.

CHAPTER XIII JOSIE VISITS CHIEF CHARLEY

Before Mary Louise moved to the Higgledy Piggledy, Josie felt it to be prudent to go see her old friend, Captain Charley Lonsdale, the chief of police.

“It isn’t exactly my business, Chief,” she had said as she seated herself opposite the important man in his sanctum sanctorum. “That is, nobody has put the case in my hands, but, somehow, I feel that I must make it my business and I am sure you will think it is your business as well.”

“Well, I’m listening,” smiled the chief.

The chief usually listened when Josie had anything to say. He was an old-fashioned man who felt and freely stated that “woman’s place was in the home” and so forth and so on, but he had to confess that Josie had proved herself to be as able a detective as any he had even seen and perhaps an exception should be made in her favor and she should not be made to remain in a home, especially since she did not have one that could be rightly called by that name. It would take a blind reactionary, indeed, not to admit that Josie had managed the affair with the rascally Markles with a genius worthy of her father’s daughter.

Josie now took up the tale of the mysterious disappearance of Colonel Hathaway’s fortune. Captain Lonsdale had heard a rumor of there not being as large an inheritance for Mary Louise as her friends had hoped but the news of the absolute dissolution of the fortune was a blow to Colonel Hathaway’s old friend.

“It seems impossible!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t Peter Conant come to me with the matter himself?”

“He is leaving no stone unturned and perhaps he felt he would do all he could do first before he gave the case over to you. I have looked in every cranny in the house, and even in the garage, but can find no clue to anything.”

“What does your majesty think I had better do?” laughed the chief.

“First you must see that the house is watched. I am sure such a thing as this will get out sooner or later, perhaps is already known, and, in a short while, the treasure seeking will begin. I am anxious to get Mary Louise out of the house and tonight she will be safely moved to my quarters. She must not be made more nervous than she is already.”

“Poor child! Poor child!” murmured the chief. “I’ll see that the place is looked after. Don’t have the telephone taken out. My men may need it.”

“I’ll see to that, but I think it wisest not to let Mary Louise know that her home is in danger of marauders. She must rest in security for a while at least.”

“Good girl! Is there no certainty of how much Jim Hathaway put in those wild-cat gold mines? He spoke to me of a gold mine, but I know nothing of it.”

“None at all! There are no papers to be found relating to his investment and, unless the persons who were floating the stock are much more honest than we dare hope to find them, there is absolutely nothing to show that he has ever invested a cent in the crazy scheme. We don’t even know the name of the mines. He told Mary Louise about them but she can’t remember the name if she ever knew it.”

“Poor old Jim! He was so astute and keen and to think of his coming such a cropper just at the end. What is your theory as to his behavior?”

“I haven’t any. My father used to say that there was no use in having theories about persons who were out of their senses. They never behaved as you expected them to and, as soon as you made sweeping assertions about what they were likely to do or say, they went back on you and did and said exactly the opposite. I certainly would never expect a man like Colonel Hathaway to go around hiding gold coin—”

“Gold coin! I thought it was papers that were mislaid.”

“Papers as well, but there is no telling how much gold he has put away somewhere. Mr. Peter Conant says he has gathered from various banks that Colonel Hathaway had been cashing securities for months and months and always demanding gold. He did it quietly and without ostentation and no one suspected him of being a bit off his head. Now, he must have put that gold somewhere and we can hardly think that all of it was invested in the mines that everyone fears were spurious. Mr. Conant is trying to locate the mines, but there seems to be no certainty at all concerning them. The Colonel talked about them quite freely but vaguely and Mary Louise says she never questioned him about them. She had an idea there were some men in Dorfield who were pushing them, but she never saw the men. Her grandfather would come home every few days quite jubilant over his wonderful and safe investments. Mary Louise knows nothing about business beyond being able to cash a check and keep her stubs written up so that things balance more or less at the end of the month. Her grandfather kept her well supplied with cash and put a goodly sum in the bank for her each month. She is going to learn though.”

She told the chief of her plan for Mary Louise to open a bonnet shop and he applauded the scheme.

“I don’t wear ’em myself but every female creature belonging to me is going to have a fling at that bonnet shop before so very long,” he boasted.

Josie smiled, knowing full well that the said female creatures would buy their bonnets where they chose regardless of the masculine verdict.

True to his word, the chief put a guard over the old Hathaway home. Irene, from next door, noticed a man across the street who seemed quite interested in the big house and later on, when Aunt Hannah went to the kitchen to see that the back windows were securely fastened for the night, she spied a man in the alley, “snooping around” as she expressed it.

“It is nothing, mother,” shouted her husband. “We have nothing he could want and Irene tells me Mary Louise has sent all of her valuables to the bank for safe keeping.”

“We have a perfectly new garbage pail and an ash can without a break in it and, since the war, ash cans are most expensive,” grumbled Aunt Hannah. “A large one with a close fitting top costs several dollars.”

“Well, I can’t think the man in the alley is after our ash can but, if he is, he is welcome to it. I have been carrying burglar insurance for years and years and I must say I’d like to get back a little of my money.”

So Aunt Hannah was reassured and left the mysterious man in the alley to his possibly evil devices.

In the morning the ash can and garbage pail were safe and in their accustomed places, somewhat to Aunt Hannah’s disappointment.

“There is a bent place in the bottom of the ash can,” she confessed. “The ash men are so rough with one’s things. I’d be very glad if somebody would steal the old one and we could have a brand new seven dollar one. I am sure that bent place will soon come into a hole.”

CHAPTER XIV AN UNKNOWN ITALIAN

Josie’s warning to Captain Lonsdale was given none too soon. The man Irene and her aunt had seen prowling around the Hathaway house was not the only one who made a tour of inspection on the very first night Mary Louise left her home. As the man, who was one of the chief’s most trusted detectives, went in the alley to get a good look at the rear of the premises, the figure of a boy flattened itself against the side of the garage where the ivy grew thick and close and where the shadow was not penetrated by the electric light at the corner of the alley.

Had the trusted detective seen the boy in the light, he would have reported him as about fifteen, perhaps an Italian, with curly black hair that escaped rebelliously from the confines of the shabby cloth cap; a dirty face, pinched and rather hungry looking, with great eyes of a beauty almost unearthly but with something in their expression that gave a lie to the first statement of the lad’s being only fifteen. Anyhow, the trusted detective did not see him, saw nothing in fact but a large cat humped up on the roof of the garage, and heard nothing but the unearthly caterwauling from Tom, who was probably singing a dirge incident to the cutting off of supplies by the departure of Aunt Sally, who always saved scraps for all the stray cats of the neighborhood.

“Idiot!” the boy muttered under his breath as the detective gave a cursory glance in the back yard and then made his way to the front again. “He might have found me if he had had any sense, but sense is the last thing to look for in a detective.”

If the detective lacked the sense that the boy had asserted, he had, at least, the quality of faithfulness and stuck to his job until daylight when he was relieved by another man. Whatever had been the purpose of the boy who clung so closely to the shadow of the garage, he had not been able to accomplish it on that night. His object seemed to be to gain access to the big house, but, unfortunately for him, the strong light in the alley was thrown directly on the back of the house, making it impossible to accomplish his purpose with the tiresome detective constantly tramping around, appearing when least expected rather as though he suspected something.

When daylight came the boy hooked a ride on the back of an early milkcart, leaving the detective none the wiser and unconscious that his vigil had been shared by an interested person.

During the morning Josie made an excuse for visiting the Hathaway house, stating she wanted to borrow a book from the Colonel’s library. Carefully she went over the house to make sure nobody had entered since she and Mary Louise had left it the day before. Everything was as it had been, not a sign of meddlers! She then went to the garage. Some one had been in there, it was plain to see. The old-fashioned lock, fastened by a large brass key, was easy enough to open with a skeleton key. Not only had it been picked, but Josie saw that some one had been in the Colonel’s dilapidated old car which now reigned supreme in the place where the fine new car had been wont to shine with polished supremacy. The scuffed cushions had been ripped open and some one in feverish haste must have searched in the stuffing. The back of the car was full of the hair torn from the inside of the cushions and springs and strips of leather thrown on the floor gave evidence of a thorough search having been made.

“I bet they didn’t find a thing,” grinned Josie. “This doesn’t look like the leavings of a successful hunt.”

Nevertheless, she made a close examination of the garage, even going upstairs to the room intended for a chauffeur. She then felt it necessary to pay a visit to the chief. As usual, he was in his inner office knitting his brows over an intricate problem of how to catch wrongdoers.

“Well, General O’Gorman, how goes it?” was his playful greeting.

“Who had the watch last night at the Hathaway house?” Josie didn’t seem to want to play.

“Will Slater.”

“What kind of a man is he?”

“Honest as the day is long and never goes to sleep when he is supposed to keep awake!”

“Well, he was asleep on his job last night, although he kept walking around the block all night.”

“What do you mean?” sternly.

“I mean that whoever watched the Hathaway house was only watching with his legs and not using his head at all.”

“Well?”

“Some one got in the garage and ripped open the cushions in the Colonel’s old car. Of course, the lost money was not there but, if it had been, it would all have been got away with by now.”

“How do you know it wasn’t there?”

“Because I myself had already closely examined the cushions, examined under the seats and in the pockets, every place where papers might have been hidden.”

The chief pressed his electric bell.

“Tell Slater to come to me as soon as he comes in,” he told the man who came at his summons.

“Excuse me, Chief,” Josie said earnestly, after the man had left, “but please do not get me in bad with Slater. My father used to say that nothing was so hard to combat as an antagonistic local police force and I’m sure, if you let Slater know I have found out about the garage being entered, he will have it in for me. Isn’t he the man who let Felix Markle escape when we had him for sure? If it hadn’t been for that wonderful young newspaper chap, Bob Dulaney, Markle would have been a free man this day.”

“Strange to say he is a free man. I have just got a report that he has broken jail and is at large.”

Josie whistled, a form of astonishment she occasionally permitted herself.

“Well what’s the use?” she asked wearily. “What’s the use of nabbing these persons if you hand them over to a set of boobs who can’t keep them when once they get them? We can look out for the female of the species now, Chief. She is as certain to get back to her Felix as a homing pigeon. There is that one good thing about Hortense Markle. She is surely crazy about her old man. I wonder if they will begin operations around these parts. I shouldn’t be surprised if they did. Dorfield proved an easy mark up to a certain point.”

“No, no! They would hardly come back here.” Chief Lonsdale spoke with conviction. “They are too well known and they will, of course, be on to the fact that I am possessed of the knowledge that Markle has got out.” He spoke with a certain pomposity that very much amused Josie. However, she concealed her grin and agreed with the chief.

“You won’t put Slater on to the fact that the garage has been entered, will you?”

The chief pondered.

“Not if you say so, but I can’t have my men slighting their duty.”

“He didn’t slight his duty. I tell you he kept tramping around the block steadily. Mr. and Mrs. Conant saw him and Mrs. Conant thought he was after her garbage can. Irene Macfarlane saw him and told me he walked all night. Of course, walking is not watching, but I am sure Slater did his duty as he saw it. The thing is, he has mistaken his calling and ought to be a bill sticker whose object is publicity of his business. You might caution him a bit if he is to go on with the job and tell him to keep in the shadows a little more and sometimes turn and go the other way. My idea is that not only do we want to keep any treasure hunter from gaining access to the Hathaway home but we also want to nab anyone who is so inclined.”

“Of course!” said the chief shortly.

“See here, I haven’t offended you, have I?” asked Josie with concern. “I thought you wanted me to be frank.”

“Of course, of course! I guess I am more mortified than offended,” confessed Captain Lonsdale, who had a real affection for the daughter of Detective O’Gorman, but who was naturally a bit put out that this slip of a girl should have caught one of his prize officers bungling. He determined to give the man a stiff lecture on detective work in general and the job of patrolling a house liable to be broken into in particular. It would be a sad affair if this treasure, that must be somewhere, should be found and carried off by thieves under the very nose of the police force.

Josie left the police station, her head bowed in thought. She went by the Hathaway house again before she returned to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop. Again she walked around the yard and this time she closely examined the outside of the garage.

“Umhum! Vine a little crushed where some one pressed close to the wall,” she muttered.

Stooping she regarded the earth attentively.

“Small footprints! Tennis shoes, I should say—either a boy or a woman. Fortunate for Slater the light in the alley is so bright that that one couldn’t enter the house without being seen even by a sleep-walker. That’s what Slater is—a sleep-walker!”

Josie O’Gorman whistled thoughtfully, stared up at the silent house, and walked slowly homeward.

A little later in the day, a dark haired boy came down the alley walking jauntily and with seeming nonchalance. In his hand he carried a weapon known to boy-land as a “gumbo shooter” or a “sling shot.” It is not quite like the weapon used by David in the great killing of Goliath of Gath. That was a sling shot which must be twirled rapidly around and then let fly. But it is a similar means of offense and even more deadly.

The boy picked up pebbles, shooting at first one object then another, apparently careless of what he was doing. He stopped a moment, looked up and down the alley and, selecting a pebble with care as the shepherd might have done when he prepared to kill the doughty giant, he took accurate aim at the electric light and the sound of shattered glass was the result. Then, snuggling close to the high board fence, he was around the corner before anyone saw him and the light was not known to be broken until night-fall. Even then nobody took the trouble to report it and the rear premises of the Hathaway house were in total darkness soon after sunset.

CHAPTER XV THE TREATING TRYSTERS

It was astonishing how soon it was rumored abroad that Mary Louise, who had always been looked upon as an heiress, was almost penniless and was working for her living. The shock of her grandfather’s death and then of her young husband’s shipwreck and drowning had hardly been thoroughly discussed by the know-alls of the town before they had to begin on the remarkable fact that Colonel Hathaway had, in some mysterious way, disposed of his fortune. In the eyes of some, this loss of fortune was even more serious than that of the beloved grandfather and handsome, charming young husband.

“With plenty of money she could have got another husband, and as for a grandfather—well it was a good thing he died when he did or Mary Louise might have had to make a living for him too,” asserted a worldly, heartless Dorfield gossip.

“Plenty of money certainly softens the blow of bereavement,” sighed another whose rich trappings of woe proclaimed her as one who knew of what she spoke.

“They say she is making hats at that funny Higgledy Piggledy Shop,” proclaimed a third.

“Those girls do a right good business. I could hardly get along without the Higgledy Piggledies. I laugh about them, but I go to them for all kinds of things. That amusing little sandy-haired Miss O’Gorman told me that they never turned down anything they were asked to do. She said she would conduct a funeral if she got the order for it—and I believe she would. They do what they undertake very well too. I have never had anybody launder my best napkins so well. I am certainly going to give Mary Louise an order for a hat. She wears lovely ones herself and I am sure she can make them if she tries.”

The speaker was a wealthy young married woman who had the faculty of setting the fashion simply because she had the courage of her convictions and cared not at all what others thought. Her taste was good and her pocketbook long, and where she went her set was sure to follow.

Mary Louise was flooded with work the very first week of her new enterprise.

“Don’t think this is a sample of what you are to expect, honey, but realize that some of these hats you are asked to make are nothing but fools’ caps,” admonished Josie. “They are for those who are coming to you out of mere curiosity. A lot of the trade will stick though, I am sure, because you are going to make the most stylish and the loveliest hats in all Dorfield. I am glad to see you are laying in the very best materials too. That’s where your having been rich will serve to your advantage. You know, it is hard for persons who never have spent money to begin and, when one has been accustomed to the best, it is an easy matter to supply others with what you have been used to yourself. I’ll wager within a month you are going to feel that, to do your customers credit, you must take a trip to New York to get the latest styles and, in not such a dim distant future you will be running across to Paris to get in touch with the last cry in the way of millinery. I tell you, Mary Louise, you are going to be a fine business woman before we know it.”

Mary Louise smiled. She tried to do it cheerfully and not let any sadness creep into her expression. The girls were so good to her and so encouraging. It seemed to be her duty to respond to their kindness by trying to be happy. She was happy in a way too, happier than she had dreamed it possible she could ever be again. She was busy from morning until night with no time in her schedule to indulge in vain regrets. First, the Higgledy Piggledy Shop must be cleaned and their bed rooms made up and the breakfast dishes washed. Elizabeth Wright came to business in time to help with the cleaning of the shop. There was such a variety of wares that unless it was kept in very good order there was danger of its having the appearance of a junk shop, Josie declared, and so the girls swept and dusted and tidied up the place with meticulous care every morning. By the time the customers began to arrive, it was spotless and orderly with a bright fire burning in the grate in the front of the place and all traces of light housekeeping removed from sight.

It began to be the fashion in Dorfield to meet one’s friends at the Higgledy Piggledy Shop. It was centrally located, in spite of the fact that the building was more or less tumbled down and very shabby, and it was proving a convenient spot.

“I’ll just meet you at the Higgledy Piggledy,” could often be heard among the gay set in Dorfield.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Mary Louise one evening late after the last customer had departed and the girls had drawn up close to the fire for a cheering cup of tea.

Elizabeth had decided not to go home but to spend the night on a convenient Chesterfield that had been sent to the shop to be sold on commission, and Irene was to have tea with her friends and later on Bob Dulaney was to come by and wheel her home, a task in which he delighted.

“Well, what have you been thinking?” asked Josie. “So have I been thinking and I still am.”

“I have been thinking we are wasting an opportunity here at the Higgledy Piggledy.”

“An opportunity for what?” beamed Josie, whose theory that Mary Louise was by the way of becoming a great financial factor in the business world was still supreme with her.

“An opportunity for making money and for becoming more—more useful to the community in which we live,” blushed Mary Louise.

“We are listening?” from Josie.

“We are dying to hear,” smiled Elizabeth, who was pleased with life anyhow that evening since she had determined to get ahead of her numerous family and their interminable questions and arguments by simply staying away from them.

The misfortunes of Mary Louise were the subject uppermost in the minds of the Wright family at that time and they had threshed the matter threadbare, evidently talking of nothing else during the day and then plying Elizabeth with more and more questions when she came home in the evening. Elizabeth would shut up like a clam and would give them no satisfaction whatsoever and then they would boldly assert that matters were much worse even than they had dared hope or Mary Louise’s friends would not be so secretive. Staying away from them seemed to be the only way to manage them and stay away from them she determined to do.

Mary Louise stirred her tea thoughtfully and began timidly to explain her statement that the Higgledy Piggledies were wasting an opportunity.

“Every afternoon, more or less of a crowd gathers here just meeting one another. Now, my idea is that a crowd should be utilized. After they meet, what do they do? Go off to various places and treat each other. I know because I used to do it almost every afternoon of my life. My plan is that they might treat each other right here.”

“Hurrah!” cried Josie.

“By the time they come, I am about through with my bonnet business and I could serve tea easily, tea and cakes and sandwiches or cinnamon toast or something light and easy. We could start in a small way and then let the supply grow with the demand.”

“Listen to our captain of finance!” and Josie leaned over and patted Mary Louise’s arm.

“It sounds mighty sensible to me,” declared Elizabeth.

“I could help a lot,” ventured Irene. “Aunt Hannah says nobody can make such good toast as I can because I sit right by it and watch it.”

“Everything you do, you do better than anybody else,” said Mary Louise. “What do you think of adding a tea service, girls?”

“We think: go to it!” cried Josie, delighted to know that Mary Louise was interested enough to plan for the welfare of the Higgledy Piggledies.

“I have all kinds of electric cooking things that Danny gave me. Grandpa Jim, for some reason, was opposed to them and I kept them packed away. I’ll go home and get them out of the attic and we can set up shop to-morrow afternoon. I’ll bring the necessary china and silver and table linen.”

“Don’t make it too fine,” cautioned Josie.

“Let’s name it the Higgledy Piggledy Electric Treating Tryst,” suggested Elizabeth.

A knock on the door and Bob Dulaney and Billy McGraw entered. Fresh tea was brewed for the two young men and then they were told of the scheme Mary Louise had evolved concerning the Electric Treating Tryst.

“Nothing astonishes me,” confessed Billy. “You girls take an old barn of a place and turn it into a thriving business and actually make a living, make a living as it were on other persons’ laziness and now you are threatening to feed the multitude. You can do anything!”

The misfortunes of Mary Louise had very much affected Billy McGraw. He had been devoted to Danny with an intense admiration as well as affection for him. The news of his death had been as sad a blow to him as it had been to Bob Dulaney. When it was known that the grandfather’s fortune had been mysteriously dissipated, he had rushed to the poor little widow with offers of unlimited financial assistance, but Mary Louise had explained that she was not in want and, thanking him sweetly and gratefully, had, of course, refused all offers of financial aid.

The two young men were glad indeed when “Mrs. Danny,” as they called Mary Louise, was moved from her big and now gloomy house to the more cheerful and busy surroundings offered by the Higgledy Piggledies.

“Where are you going to feed these hungry swarms?” asked Bob Dulaney, who, in spite of his poetical propensities, had a very practical mind.

“Right here, I guess!” answered Mary Louise. “Don’t you think there is room?”

“Perhaps, but it will be kind of higgledy piggledy. I am wondering if we couldn’t use some of this tremendous waste space that is up above and swing a kind of balcony for the pink tea place?”

“Sure we could!” declared Billy. “Why not roof over the housekeeping apartments, or rather, compartments, in the rear and make a nice broad place above them for this new venture?”

“Splendid!” breathed Mary Louise. “The only thing I don’t like about it here is having no roof to my room. Last night the little devil from the Lincoln Cathedral perched himself on the top of my partition and made faces at me all night. I prefer the bronze Buddhas who usually come and look down on me.”

“Well, you shall have a roof now,” said Bob Dulaney with the brotherly tenderness he felt for the little wife of his old friend, “and there will be no room for Lincoln devils or bronze Buddhas or even Humpty Dumpties.”

The very next day, late in the afternoon, the same crowd of young men who had assisted in the carpentry and plumbing of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, except that poor Danny, who had been the ringleader and director in the former enterprise, was missing, now came with lumber and tools and noisily and quickly laid a floor across the two bed rooms, bath room and kitchenette. The long narrow windows that had given more than enough light and air for the bed rooms were now cut in half and served upper and lower apartments.

Bob Dulaney arrived while the work was in progress, bearing on his strong broad back a small flight of stairs he had ordered made at a factory.

“I’ll bring the bannisters to-morrow,” he panted, as he leant the steps against the wall leading to the balcony above. “I can’t drive a nail straight myself and I remembered Edward Everett Hale’s advice to a young man, ‘Never do for yourself what some one else can do better for you,’ so I just had some one whose business it is to make steps make these and the same genius is making some bannisters.”

Like magic the balcony was built and furnished, the proper connections made for the electrical appliances and even a diminutive sink and water pipes accomplished by the amateur plumbers.

Judicious advertising was done by the clever Elizabeth and in a short while the girls were kept very busy with their new venture. It had looked as though the balcony scheme might make it impossible for Irene to assist, as there seemed no way to get her rolling chair to such an elevation, but Bob Dulaney, again confessing himself unable to cope with mechanics, had an expert come and with longer ropes and more pulleys extend the dumb waiter service to the “mezzanine floor” as he expressed it.

Irene’s chair was stationed by the table on which the various cooking appliances were placed and she brewed wonderful, strong, clear coffee in the electric percolator. Such crisp cinnamon toast was never seen as that she made fresh for each customer, and the golden brown waffles tasted like ambrosia, so the enthusiastic treating trysters declared.

To Mary Louise fell the task of serving as well as assisting Irene in the cooking. Very sweet and demure she looked in her black dress with white organdie collar and cuffs and little bibbed waitress’ apron. She had not trained the many waitresses who had fallen out with Aunt Sally without learning something of the art of waiting herself. Her skill in serving astonished her as well as her friends. She never slopped the tea or coffee, never dropped the spoons, never rattled the dishes, never forgot the napkins or the water. In fact, she was so perfect that a grand-dame, evidently a stranger in Dorfield, who had come into the Higgledy Piggledy Shop in search of novelties and had stayed to tea, was so impressed by the pretty waitress with the sad merry face and the pretty clever hands that she had then and there offered her a job and promised to pay her twice as much as she was getting in her present position no matter what that sum might be.

“Of course, it is amusing,” Mary Louise said when she told her indignant partners of the occurrence, “but it makes me feel rather comfy to know that I can always make my living in some way or other. The grand lady left her card with me in case I should ever change my mind. You girls had better be very nice to me or I’ll go and take up with another mistress,” she laughed.

CHAPTER XVI A TENANT FROM THE WEST

Chief Lonsdale’s talk to Slater had a very salutary effect in that in watching the Hathaway house he used eyes and ears as well as his heels and did not confine himself to walking around and around the block but made occasional trips into the yard examining doors and windows and, every now and then, standing in the shadow of the building and listening attentively. Of course, nothing happened to disturb the quiet of his watch. Night after night the place was under surveillance and morning after morning it was reported that nothing of importance had happened. The light in the alley was broken very often and that caused some anxiety but it seemed difficult to place the blame.

Once, Aunt Hannah Conant saw an Italian-looking youth taking aim at the light with a gumbo shooter but she knocked on her kitchen window and scared him away. Irene met this boy several times on her way to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop. She looked at him a little curiously the second time, for in some way he was familiar to her, something about the set of his head or the turn of his pale emaciated cheek. He met her eye boldly and a little saucily, making an almost imperceptible moue which made Irene blush and drop her eyes.

“I can’t imagine where I have seen him before. Perhaps he is like some picture—may even have posed for some artist. So many of the Italians are models,” she said to herself.

After that, the boy avoided her, never meeting her face to face but, several times in the dusk as she was on her way home, she saw his shabby, if jaunty, back disappearing around the corner or sliding up the alley. She didn’t mention this to anybody, it seeming of no especial importance. When Aunt Hannah spoke of the boy with the gumbo shooter, she was inclined to think it was the same one but, when one mentioned anything to Aunt Hannah, she made so much of it that Irene had fallen into the habit of keeping minor matters to herself, and so she made no attempt to identify the saucy boy.

A tenant was not found for the Hathaway house in spite of its being very desirable from many standpoints. It was large, comfortable, in a good if not stylish neighborhood convenient to the business section. There were many boarding house keepers who were anxious to get it, but Mr. Conant was opposed to Mary Louise’s renting it to any of them.

“The wear and tear would eat up the profits,” he would declare. “Give it away or burn it up but don’t rent it for a boarding house.”

And so the great house with its luxurious furnishings remained empty, sad and gloomy in its isolation and desertion while its owner lived in the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, a good part of the day busily plying her clever needle fashioning hats and bonnets for the ladies of Dorfield and, after five o’clock, donning her little white apron and serving tea and cinnamon toast, waffles and hot chocolate to the hungry treating trysters.

Months went by. Spring was in the air. Electric fans must be installed at the Higgledy Piggledy to keep the balcony cool, the menu changed somewhat to suit the weather. Business was flourishing.

“If we could rent the big house we could afford to put an awning on that old back porch that is nothing more than a dirt catcher now,” sighed Mary Louise, whose ideas for improvement in the business made Josie clap her hands with delight.

Josie was rather glad the big house had not been rented. The loss of the Colonel’s money was ever on her mind and she spent much time studying the case and wondering if she could have overlooked any spot in or about the house where gold might have been concealed. Of one thing she was sure and that was he could not have buried it in the yard. Manual labor was never Colonel Hathaway’s strong point and Josie doubted that he could have handled a pick and shovel any better than a new born baby. She hoped she could give the place another thorough going over before a tenant took possession.

Uncle Peter Conant scorned the imputation that his old friend had concealed actual cash anywhere. He was inclined to think he had bought heavily in some gold mines he talked about and then had mislaid all papers connected with the deal. It was rather strange that no clue to the gold mines could be found. The Colonel seemed to have been the only purchaser in stock of such mines. At least, Mr. Conant, after diligent inquiry, could find out nothing about anyone else being involved. The good old man was sorely puzzled.

“Jim Hathaway always was close-mouthed about his affairs but I was certainly an unneighborly fool not to have questioned him some about his business when I felt all the time he was not quite himself. I was afraid of intruding. Thinking about myself and not about dear little Mary Louise!” he would reproach himself.

Not many hours after Mary Louise had spoken of the desirability of putting an awning over the old back porch and enlarging their possibilities for tea service, the telephone rang with a message from a real estate agent saying a tenant had been found for the Hathaway house, a gentleman and his son. The gentleman was blind and wanted a quiet retreat for a few months. He was not willing to take a long lease on the house, as he expected to go abroad a little later on. Mr. Conant advised Mary Louise to accept the proposition. Certainly a blind gentleman and his young son could not do much damage to a furnished house and it was better to get some one in for even one month than let the property lie idle, eating its head off with taxes and insurance.

Mary Louise accepted the tenant joyfully.

“Now we can have an awning and some pretty wicker furniture for the porch!” she exclaimed. “The agent says he has insisted upon their paying in advance.”

“When will the new tenants go in?” asked Josie.

“Next week, I believe.”

“Have they seen the place?”

“No, they say they are willing to take it ‘as is’ and are sure it will suit them. The agent was quite jubilant over such pleasant people wanting it. They have a Chinaman who cooks for them. It seems they are western people who are in Dorfield because of its climate. They know nobody at all and are not anxious for acquaintances because of the gentleman’s affliction. He has not been blind long and is very sensitive about it until he can learn to handle himself with less awkwardness.”

“Poor fellow!” spoke up Irene. “Aunt Hannah and I will try and be neighborly.”

“I know you will, dear, and then perhaps they won’t want to go abroad but will just keep the house for a long time. I am sure I’d rather have you for a neighbor than go abroad,” said Mary Louise affectionately.

Mary Louise had said all the time she wanted to rent the big house but now that the thing was accomplished her heart misgave her. It seemed so final to have strangers in her old home. All day the thought was buzzing in her head, “My youth is dead and gone! I have no home! I have no kin! I am alone.”

CHAPTER XVII A MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

The day was a busy one. Spring hats were being contemplated by old and young. There was a rush of orders for Higgledy Piggledies generally. Elizabeth had piles of typing on hand, Irene must mend some priceless lace that was to be laundered by Josie, and Josie, on top of all the other things that must be attended to, had a call from Chief Lonsdale that caused her to put her hat on hind part before and actually run to his office.

At five o’clock, work was put aside and there was an inrush of treaters. For the first time, Mary Louise’s hands shook and she slopped the tea in the saucers and behaved like the tired nervous little person she had a right to be.

“How can people eat so much at this time of day when they are all going home to late dinners or suppers?” she whispered to Irene, who was sedately baking waffles.

“Don’t put that into their heads,” laughed Irene. “But, honey, you are tired, aren’t you?”

“No, not tired—just—”

“I know! Run on out doors. You need some air. I can serve these few persons.”

“No, I’ll wait until after dark. I feel, somehow, as though I could not face the light.” Mary Louise forced back the tears that had been trying all day to find the proper outlet.

Irene and Elizabeth had gone home and Mary Louise was left alone in the shop. Josie telephoned she would be late, not to wait supper for her. Evidently there was important business on hand with Chief Lonsdale.

“If you are lonesome, run on to Irene’s,” suggested Josie. “I’ll come and pick you up and we’ll come home together about ten.”

“Oh, no, I’m not the least bit lonesome,” declared Mary Louise, stoutly. The fact was she was pleased to be alone for a while with her sad, sad thoughts. She could not bear to burden her kind good friends with the sorrow that sometimes enveloped her, and it was a relief to find solitude when she might give way to her grief without feeling that she was distressing anyone.

“I feel that I must see the old house once more,” she said to herself, “just once before strangers go in it.”

It was dusk. The key to the big house was safe in her pocketbook. She put on her little black hat with a widow’s ruche that, although it was so becoming, gave a pathetic touch to her sweet, pensive face.

The streets were almost deserted in the business section of town. As Mary Louise walked rapidly towards her old home, she saw two figures about half a block ahead of her, a man and a boy. They were walking slowly and the man had one hand on the boy’s shoulder while in the other he carried a cane with which he made tentative taps on the sidewalk.

“They must be my tenants,” she thought. “I wonder where I have seen them before. The man stoops over like an old man but he doesn’t really look so old. I am mighty sorry for him, but I won’t stop and claim them as tenants this evening.” She crossed the street and hurried on. Glancing over her shoulder when she got opposite to them she could see that the boy had noticed her and said something in a low tone to his father who straightened up and turned his blue goggles in her direction.

“They must know I’m their new landlord,” she said to herself. “I wonder how!”

The old home was very quiet and peaceful. She crept in the front gate and lingered for a moment on the porch. Then she walked down into the garden and stood for a moment in the very spot where, less than a year before, she had stood with Danny while the wedding ceremony was performed. Grandpa Jim had stood right here; and here was Irene in her chair, her face all aglow with love; and the bridesmaids had been there on that spot prettily grouped in their pastel-colored chiffon frocks; there had stood Hortense, the perfidious Hortense.

“Poor Hortense! How could she have been what she was? I wonder if she has known of my suffering and if she has been sorry for me,” she mused. “I have always felt sorry for her. She loved her Felix and must have suffered agonies untold when he was caught and imprisoned. Josie tells me he has escaped. I do hope they won’t catch him again and that somewhere he and his ‘Pet’ are together.” She smiled at the thought of Markle’s name for his wife.

Slowly she approached the house again and, fitting her key to the latch, opened the door and walked in. It was as she and Josie had left it. Everything was in perfect order. A soft sprinkling of dust on the floors and furniture showed up as she turned her flashlight here and there. The dusk outside had deepened and the house with its lowered shades and closed blinds was in oppressive darkness. The electric light, gas, and water had been turned off when she had vacated. Mary Louise thought the telephone service had been discontinued as well, for she was not aware of the fact that Chief Lonsdale and Josie had seen to it that the connection was still on in case the man watching the house should need it. Josie paid the bill each month, saying nothing to Mary Louise about it. She had told Mary Louise she would see to the telephone and the girl had thought no more about it.

Suddenly the gloom and silence of the house was cut by a sharp and prolonged ringing of the telephone bell.

“How strange!” Mary Louise darted back to the dining room where the telephone had always stood and quickly took down the receiver.

“Yes, this is Colonel Hathaway’s residence—Mrs. Dexter is at the ’phone—Long distance wants her—? Where?—What—long distance?”

A strange clicking and buzzing—then: “Here’s your party!”

“Hello!” from Mary Louise. “Yes, I am Mary Louise—Who is it? I can’t hear very well—Who do you say it is? Oh, I can’t hear! I can’t hear! A little louder! Maybe central can give better connection.”

All she could hear was a faint whisper that seemed to come from another world, in fact, she could not believe it was a human voice. So far away and indistinct, it seemed to be but the pulsing of her own veins, blood pounding against her ear drums like the “sigh that silence heaves.” The whisper seemed to say: “Are you well, my beloved?”

“Yes!” she gasped, “I am well—” and then she fell in a little crumpled heap on the floor.

CHAPTER XVIII CLOSED FOR REPAIRS

Josie was closeted with Chief Lonsdale for a long time. He had much interesting news to impart to her. She was all attention as he read a long communication from New York. She whipped out a little blank book and began taking notes in the cryptic characters taught her by her father.

“I want to be sure not to forget a word,” she apologized to the chief. “I tell you there is going to be something doing before so very long, here in old Dorfield. It isn’t such a sleepy spot after all, in spite of its name.”

“No, not with the Higgledy Piggledies to keep things lively,” laughed the chief. “How about Jim Hathaway’s fortune? Anything turned up there yet?”

“Nothing! Mary Louise, at last, has a tenant for the big house and I am going there as soon as you finish divulging things to me and make another examination of the premises. I might have overlooked some spot. Even girl detectives make mistakes you know, Chief.”

“Sure they might, but I know one who doesn’t make many,” he said, and Josie blushed in spite of herself. Praise from the chief was pleasant to hear.

“I’ll have to confess that I have had the place gone over myself by two trusted and highly efficient detectives,” he added, “and, after combing it with a fine-tooth comb, they report there is no sign of treasure or papers or anything to indicate Hathaway has hidden anything there. Conant and I decided we had better do it, not that we didn’t trust you, my dear, but sometimes even the most careful can overlook what is right under their noses. You know that.”

“Of course, I know it and so you won’t mind if I go after your men and make another search?”

“Go as far as you like and good luck to you. Who is the tenant?”

“A blind gentleman from the west. I don’t know his name.”

“Well, I hope he will pay his rent and not break up her things. Goodby, my dear, and keep your eyes open on this subject we have had under discussion, eyes open and mouth closed.”

“Yes, sir,” she said respectfully, although such remarks did make her a bit weary.

“Mouth closed, indeed!” she said to herself as she hurried off. “I bet he doesn’t send out his male detectives with any such admonitions and I bet they do more talking than the women.”

She stopped for supper at a small, cheap restaurant where she hastily swallowed a sandwich and a cup of coffee. She then stopped at a drug store and bought new batteries for the two large flashlights she had in the pockets of her jacket. Fortified by the sandwich and coffee and armed with the flashlights as well as the small revolver she carried on dangerous missions, she made her way to the Hathaway house.

“It is a good thing I kept my latch-key,” she said as she fitted it into the lock on the front door. “Father used to say it was a good thing to keep all the keys of all the places one could.”

Once in the building she turned on one of her flashlights.

“Humph! Somebody been in ahead of me,” she said to herself, examining the floor of the hall. “Somebody and that body with small feet!” She turned on both flashlights to examine more thoroughly the footprints in the dust.

“I bet Slater doesn’t know it, but I fancy he has let up lately or will let up now that there is a tenant coming in tomorrow.” She followed the foot prints along the hall and into the dining room. They led straight to where Mary Louise lay in the little heap on the floor, the telephone, with the receiver out, fallen beside her.

“God bless my soul!” exclaimed Josie. “She was faint and tried to call some one. Poor child! She shouldn’t have come here alone. The place has proved too much for her.”

Tenderly she stretched out the slender figure, placing a cushion from the den under her body, thereby giving the heart a chance to function. Then she grasped the telephone and, putting back the receiver, she waited a moment and then called up Dr. Coles, told him of Mary Louise’s being in a faint, and received his assurance that he would be there in a moment.

He was as good as his word and, almost before Josie could count ten, he was at the door in his car.

Mary Louise opened her eyes as he came in and smiled wanly. She tried to say something.

“Never mind talking just yet, Mrs. Dexter,” he said, his eyes full of compassion.

“Let’s get her home first,” suggested Josie. “Home to the Higgledy Piggledy.”

“Can she be quiet enough there?” he asked.

“Yes, indeed, we can shut up shop until she is herself again. She is better off right there.”

Dr. Coles carried her from his car up the stairs and laid her on her little bed in her pigeon-hole of a room.

“You are very good to me, Dr. Coles. You remember how Grandpa Jim called the wireless I got from Danny a message from the spirit world—well I have had another—it was strange, very strange. You see, the telephone service had been discontinued at the big house but, just as I entered the front door, the telephone bell rang. It was strange that I was there, but something had been driving me all day to go home—it is rented now, tenants coming in to-morrow. I was glad when Josie telephoned she was not coming back to the shop for supper. It gave me a chance to go home and go alone. I felt I must see it once more. I wanted to be alone—alone with those who have gone. It seemed to me as though their voices were calling me—”

“Yes.”

“When the telephone rang, I ran to it as fast as I could. The house was almost dark but I had my flashlight—I could hardly hear what was said, but knew some one wanted me—I thought it was a long distance message—”

“Was it?”

“Yes, a very long distance! Dr. Coles, it seemed to be Danny. It wasn’t quite like him because he sounded so far away. I couldn’t really say for sure that it was a voice at all. It might have been my imagination—it might have been—I don’t know what—but oh, Dr. Coles, it said—it said—‘Are you well, my beloved?’ faintly but distinctly, and I tried to answer but everything got black before me and I didn’t know anything more until you came into the room. Josie seemed to have some kind of intuition that I had gone home because she found me, didn’t she?”

Josie was controlling her sobs with difficulty while Mary Louise was telling the doctor what had happened. Josie never cried and it was a novel experience to the girl to be overcome with tears just when her dear Mary Louise needed her most. But it was so pathetic to see her little friend more or less out of her mind. She was sure that was the case. The ghostly old house, so full of memories, had got on her nerves and the memory of her grandfather’s having thought the wireless from Danny was from the spirit world had come back to her and she had fancied a message over the telephone.

Dr. Coles mixed up two doses of aromatic ammonia and made Josie swallow one and the patient the other. He then called Josie to the front of the shop and told her Mary Louise must be kept quiet for a day or so even if it meant closing the shop.

Josie responded promptly:

“That will be all right. We’ll just put up a sign. ‘Closed for repairs,’ and nobody will be the wiser whether it is repairs on the place itself or one of the inmates. I fancy we had better not mention this to anyone, don’t you, Dr. Coles?”

“Perhaps it would be just as well. When Mrs. Dexter gets stronger, she can talk about it if she chooses. That is her affair. In the meantime, I’ll be around in the morning. I am giving her a sleeping powder to insure a good night’s rest. Who are the tenants she says are going in the old Hathaway house?”

“A blind gentleman and his young son. They have a Chinese cook and hail from the far west, so I hear.”

“Well, I hope they won’t give our poor little friend any trouble. She has had enough. Fortunately she is blessed with a robust constitution. Her pulse is strong and I am not looking for any trouble from this—this—whatever this supposed telephone call might be called. She is a very sensible young person and not at all emotional. It was a thing that might have happened to anyone who had gone through so much in the last few months. The dark, mysterious looking house and all the memories that had crowded around her and then the thought of the wireless message she got from her husband the night her grandfather had that stroke—all of these things might easily combine so that she might fancy anything. Keep her quiet and cheerful and let me know if you need me. I am glad Mrs. Dexter has such a level-headed friend.”

“Even though I gave way and cried?”

“Oh, that was good for you. I was glad to see you do it. Now I can trust you not to go to pieces after I leave.”

Mary Louise slept through the night, thanks not only to the powder the doctor gave her but to a kind of peace that had fallen on her. She felt tired and had a sense of sweet restfulness and protection. She no longer worried, no longer sorrowed. The color returned to her pale cheeks and the breath came softly and regularly. Josie watched her anxiously until she realized that all was well with her dear little friend and then she went to sleep herself and dreamed wonderful dreams about catching and jailing evil-doers and finding Colonel Hathaway’s lost fortune all by herself without the aid of Captain Charley Lonsdale and his bungling assistants.

CHAPTER XIX A MIDNIGHT CALLER

The blind gentleman with his son and the Chinese cook moved into the Hathaway house very quietly, so quietly that nobody saw them when they came, although Aunt Hannah Conant took particular pains to watch for them. They must have come in while she was seeing to it that the ice man didn’t track up her clean kitchen. They had paid a month’s rent in advance, procured the key from the agent, and taken possession.

Aunt Hannah was very curious about them, but, watch as she might, she could see no sign of activity in the now occupied house.

“The idea of people calling themselves Christian and having a heathen Chinese to do their work!” she grumbled to Irene and her husband.

“I haven’t heard that they called themselves Christian,” Peter Conant shouted in reply.

“Not Christians! Heavens! You don’t suppose Mary Louise would rent to infidels? I don’t think such a crime should be tolerated in the United States of America.”

There was no stopping Aunt Hannah when she took the bit of argument between her teeth and removed her trumpet from her ear.

“I intend to go over and find out for myself,” she insisted. “I fancy the blind man would be glad of a little company, anyhow, even if he is an unbeliever.”

“Will you just go and ask what their religious opinions are, Aunt Hannah?” laughed Irene, placing the trumpet in her aunt’s ear and holding it there.

“No, but I’ll make a neighborly call and ask them to come sit in my pew at church.”

“Chinese cook and all?” inquired her husband.

“Why not? I do hope he’ll tuck in his shirt though.”

Aunt Hannah Conant was as good as her word and, after a few days, put on her bonnet and, taking a pan of fresh rolls, hot from the oven and wrapped in one of her best napkins, went over to call on the blind gentleman and his son and incidentally to find out what their religious beliefs were and if the Chinese cook had been converted to Christianity or still ate bird’s nest soup and roasted rats.

She had to ring several times before the door was opened.

“The rolls will get cold if they are not taken in out of the air,” she grumbled.

Finally, the door opened just a wee crack and the Chinaman’s face appeared. Aunt Hannah, not having heard the approach of the domestic, jumped as she realized his ugly face was so close to hers.

“Oh!” she said. “I just came over to bring your poor master some fresh bread and to call on him,” and Mrs. Conant stuck her trumpet in her ear and handed the snowy napkin of rolls to the man.

“Thank ee, klindly, but mlaster not ploor and not hungly.”

Aunt Hannah found herself alone with the hot rolls clasped to her indignant bosom.

“Well I never! Of all the impertinence! I have always been taking new neighbors some little friendly offering. To think of this heathen Chinese speaking to me in that way!” She stalked home and was so wrought up and indignant she forgot to take off her bonnet.

As for the Chinaman, he laughed until his queue bounced up and down like a bell rope. The blind gentleman, who had overheard his reply to the would-be friendly neighbor, laughed also and the son seemed to be equally amused.

“The only thing is I wish you had taken in the rolls. I must say I should have liked a taste of good homemade bread. Yours is atrocious, Wink Lee.”

The Chinaman laughed and replied in good English that the young master had better try his hand at breadmaking; perhaps he could do better.

The tenants had been in the Hathaway house for four or five days. They seemed to be enjoying the peace and quiet of the establishment. The blind gentleman and his son were together constantly and never ran out of conversation. Sometimes they called Wink Lee to the library and would hold long and rather intimate talks with him. The books interested the son more than anything in the house, but he did not read much, only looked them over, taking down volume after volume and running through the pages slowly and laboriously.

Four days and four nights had the new neighbors been in the house and never a peep had Aunt Hannah Conant had at them except the one glimpse she had been treated to of the heathen Chinese’s evil countenance through the crack in the front door. The shades all over the house were kept down and, on the side next to the Conants’, the blinds remained closed.

“Anybody would think the whole bunch of them were blind and not just the old gentleman,” Aunt Hannah declared testily. “If there is anything I hate it is unneighborly neighbors.”

“What difference does it make?” Mr. Peter Conant would ask. “It is better to have neighbors who mind their own business than ones who run in your back door, for instance.”

“I’d like to see that pig-tail coming in my back door. I’d put him where he belongs. ‘Not hungly!’ when I took a pan of my very best light rolls to the ungrateful turnupnosed peacocks.”

On the fifth night of their occupancy at about midnight the tenants were aroused by the sound of a voice in the back yard calling softly, “Aunt Sally! Uncle Eben! Please let me in!”

Gravel was thrown against the back upstairs window.

There was no response to this pleading and then the call was louder and more persistent, “Aunt Sally! Uncle Eben! Wake up!”

Then the doorbell was rung, at first gently, and then with more force.

After much delay, Wink Lee crept down the front steps and opened the door just a tiny crack.

“Uncle Eben, this is I! Don’t you know me?”

“I’m not Luncle Leben.”

“Oh, then they have a new butler. Well, let me in whoever you are.”

The would-be intruder was a tall young man, shabby and travel-stained, but with an air of breeding and a poise about him that would have impressed any ordinary butler. But Wink Lee was not an ordinary butler and was not at all impressed. He merely slammed the door in the young man’s face.

“Well, you chink, do you think for an instant that I am going to leave? I’ll ring here all night before I’ll give up.” He accordingly pressed the electric bell with a determined finger.

The inmates stood this noise for about five minutes and then, from a second story window, came an indignant voice, “Leave this instant, sir, or I shall call up the police.”

“Excuse me, madam,—I—I—used to live here and am hunting my—wife—my wife—Mary Louise—Mrs. Dexter.”

There was an involuntary exclamation from the person above and then silence.

“Madame! Whoever you are—can’t you tell me where my wife is?” he entreated.

After some delay the Chinaman appeared again at the door.

“Mly mlaster say he no got no lidea where your life is. He stlanger in lis town. Just rent this house for one two month.”

“And your mistress—the lady who spoke to me from the window—doesn’t she know Mrs. Dexter?”

“Me glot no mistless. No lady in lis house.” Again the door was shut, and Danny Dexter was shut out for the second time from the house he had called home.

Danny it was, not dead but alive, very much alive and very hungry and nearly wild to see his Mary Louise. The Spokane had gone down with all on board, but Danny did not happen to be aboard when she went down. He had taken to one of the lifeboats with a party of passengers who preferred braving the fierce sea to the slow waiting for the ill-fated Spokane to sink with a chance of help coming before she was submerged. They had been picked up by a schooner bound for the South Seas and it, in turn, had been wrecked. They had with difficulty reached an island that as far as they could tell had never been reached before. There they had been put to their wits to keep alive, but had managed to do it until relief had come in the shape of the usual trading vessel stopping for water and also on the chance of doing some business with natives if there were any.

San Francisco was reached at last by the weary and homesick Danny and there he had taken advantage of the first opportunity he had had to communicate with Mary Louise since the wireless he had sent her from the Spokane. He longed so to hear her voice that he was guilty of the extravagance of calling her on the long distance telephone. The result was not very satisfactory except that he had heard her voice and a whispered “yes” that she was well. He had told her he would be home in a few days just as fast as the train could carry him and for her to tell his firm he was all right and sorry to have fallen down on his contract, but there had been nothing except a buzzing in the receiver and then he had been disconnected. He had tried again, but the operator had repeatedly assured him the line was busy and she would call as soon as she could get the party. His train left in half an hour, so he could not wait for the telephonic connection.

It seemed a very strange thing for Mary Louise to know he was coming, at least he thought she must know it, as she had surely been on the line, and still for her not even to awaken when he rang the bell. She had certainly been at the Hathaway house when he called up only a few days before. Now, here were perfect strangers in the home—not all strangers, however, as the voice of the lady who had spoken from the window was certainly familiar. Whose could it have been? Where was his Mary Louise?

CHAPTER XX SLATER MAKES AN ARREST

Danny’s first thought was that he would go to Mr. Peter Conant’s next door and find out where his little wife was and what was the matter with things in general, but he felt it would be an imposition on the kind neighbors to rouse them at such a late hour. He himself was weary with a fatigue that was staggering. He had had a long and tiresome journey from the Pacific coast with but little sleep owing to the excitement of getting back to the United States and the possibility of once more seeing his darling Mary Louise. He might go dig out Bob Dulaney and spend the rest of the night with him. There was Billy McGraw—always glad to see him! There were many friends who would surely welcome him back with enthusiasm, but Danny felt he had better snatch a nap before trying to tackle anything more. He had the terrible let-down feeling natural after the strain he had been on for months.

He remembered the room in the garage where he had lived when he first came to work for Colonel Hathaway. Why not go there until daylight? The door of the garage was locked, but Danny knew of old how easy it was to draw the hasp without disturbing the padlock. He accordingly did it and entered the garage from the rear. The arc light in the alley made the place quite light as the doors swung open.

“Golly Moses! Where’s the big car? Nothing but the Colonel’s old time-honored rattle-trap left! Jacked up as though they meant to keep it forever, too!”

He mounted the stairs to the tower room. The place was bereft of furniture and swept clean. Mary Louise had given Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben all of the things that had been there.

“Humph! I guess I’ll have to curl up in the ‘old reliable’,” he grinned.

Danny Dexter had a passion for any kind of an automobile. Even Colonel Hathaway’s old relic had its appeal for him. He gave it an affectionate pat.

“I wonder if the old fellow has come to his senses,” he said to himself. “I sure do hope so, but there is something mighty mysterious going on around here. Who in the dickens was that woman who spoke to me from the upstairs window? The Colonel’s window at that! Why did the chink say there was no lady in the house? I wish I wasn’t so dead tired. I feel as I used to in the trenches when I’d drop asleep under fire. It would take a big explosion to rouse me now. I wonder why the cushions have been all busted up. I bet the old gentleman raised some Cain about that. Are the tires any good yet? They haven’t been used for an awful long time I fancy. Mary Louise never was much on running this old car except to please her grandfather.”

He caught hold of the front wheel and gave it a shake. “Gee it rattles! Flabby on top—and Jumping Jupiter! What’s that?”

There was a strange rattle and then a kind of crash and something began to pour from the tire over Danny’s feet. He jumped back and, thanks to the light from the alley, he could see what was happening. From the tire, which had broken at the bottom, there came a stream of gold, twenty-dollar gold pieces.

“This is something awful!” he cried. “I’ve the delirium tremens without ever having a drop to drink. I’ll have to let somebody know about this, though, because it might be so and maybe I haven’t ’em after all. If that chink knew, he’d be out here raking it in. I wonder what the lady with the rich voice would do if she knew! I’ll be bound she wouldn’t be quite so indifferent about a poor wanderer’s comfort nor so snappy about calling the police. Jimminy crickets! I know whose voice it was—Hortense Markle’s! It has just come to me! The plot thickens and deepens. No more thought of sleep for you, Danny Dexter! You’ve got to get a move on you.”

He found a gunny sack hanging on a nail behind the door and he carefully shoveled up the gold pieces into this. He did not stop to count them nor will I endeavor to say how many there were, but it was a bag full and so heavy that he could swing the load to his back only with difficulty.

Gently Danny lowered it to the floor.

“I’m not man enough to carry it,” he groaned, “not until I get some eats, at least. If I leave it here, the chink and the woman will come and get it and, if I try to carry it off, I’ll faint by the wayside. I wonder if the other tires are gold mines too.”

Cautiously he felt of the others, but fortunately the rubber had held better in those and, although they too were full of something, it did not come rolling out on the feet of the young man. He found a slot had been cut in each tire just large enough for a twenty-dollar gold piece to be slipped in.

“I wish I could get hold of Josie O’Gorman. She’s got sense to burn. I’ll run there as fast as I can but, before I go, I’ll hide the treasure.” He carefully lifted the bag into the car and covered it with the old cushions and horse hair that had been pulled from them.

Closing the door carefully and sticking the hasp back into the holes from which he had drawn it, he began to run down the alley.

“Stop!” called out a voice from the shadows of the opposite fence. “Stop or I fire!”

“Well, I’ve stopped, now what do you want? Can’t a gentleman run down an alley without getting shot?”

The man stepped from the shadow and, turning back the lapel of his coat, disclosed a star. It was Slater, who still had his eye on the Hathaway house, for his week was not quite finished. Slater was a creature of habit and did not like to break in on a week.

“A cop! Bless me if I’m not glad to see you!”

“See here, none of your gaff, young man! What would you be glad to see me about? Why would a man who was evidently running away from somebody be after being glad to see a policeman? You come along here and report to headquarters.”

“Gee, Captain, don’t stop me now, for the love of Mike! There is going to be something doing at the Hathaway house before so very long and you stay here and guard the premises. Don’t let anybody get out of the house back or front and don’t let anybody go in the garage. I tell you it is mighty important.”

“No doubt, but you come and tell your tale to the chief. He knows what’s important and what’s not. March!”

Danny had a feeling he had best obey the man when he felt something poking in his ribs. He was furious at the occurrence, but deemed it wiser to keep quiet as to his real reason for wanting the garage watched. The man was so stolid one could not tell whether he was to be trusted or not.

“Well, hurry up! I’ve got a lot of things to do to-night besides call on Chief Lonsdale. I’ll be glad to see the old boy, however.”

“You won’t see him until morning. The chief doesn’t spend the night in his office.”

“Thunderation! Then let me telephone Miss Josie O’Gorman! Morning may be too late.”

“Well, since Miss O’Gorman is on the case as it were, I’ll take you by and let you have a look in on her.”

“On what case?”

“The Hathaway case! You don’t know so much after all if you don’t know about that.”

“No, I don’t know a thing. I just got here about an hour ago.”

“Humph! You seemed to know how to get in and out of a strange garage pretty well for some one just got to town,” sneered Slater.

“Tell me what the Hathaway case is.”

“Never! What you don’t know won’t hurt you. What do you want with Miss O’Gorman?”

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you either,” retorted Danny.

“It’s a bit irregular for me to be taking you around to little O’Gorman’s before reporting at the police station. I’ve changed my mind. Just turn in here, young man, and you can call on the ladies tomorrow. I’ve got a sure thing against you. I saw you come out of the garage and carefully put the hasp back in the door and then turn and run down the alley.”

“Well, one thing, Mr. Policeman, if you don’t get a move on you and put me in communication with either Miss O’Gorman or the chief of police, I bet you lose your job.”

They entered the police station. Contrary to his usual habits, Chief Lonsdale was in his office, although it was after one o’clock. Danny was taken in to him immediately, much to the relief of that young man.

“Hello, Chief Charley!” he cried.

“And who are you, young man? By golly if it ain’t a ghost! Danny Dexter, what in the name of heaven! Why boy, we have been mourning you for drowned. What’s your charge against this man, Slater!” he asked, his eye twinkling.

“House breaking, your honor! I found him sneaking out of the Hathaway garage and then running down the alley like he’d done something he hadn’t oughter.”

“Umhum! Well, you can leave him with me, Slater. You did quite right according to your lights. The Hathaway garage happened to belong in his family, but you didn’t know that. This is Colonel Hathaway’s grandson-in-law.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Slater asked Danny sullenly.

“Because what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you,” retorted Danny. “But see here, Chief,” he said turning to Lonsdale, “the Hathaway garage ought to be watched and the house has some very doubtful inmates that should not be allowed to escape. I’m hunting my wife and I’m so tired and hungry I’m ready to fall down.”

“Well, well! Slater, get two more men and run back double quick to the Hathaway house and do what this young man says is necessary. Don’t let anybody in or anybody out without keeping track of them. Guard the garage carefully. Go!”

Slater, a bit bewildered, left in a hurry to execute his chief’s orders.

“And now, Danny, tell me all about it,” asked Lonsdale, his hand resting affectionately on the young man’s shoulder.

“First, tell me about my wife, about Mary Louise.”

The story was quickly told. Danny was deeply moved at the news of Colonel Hathaway’s death. He was relieved to hear that Mary Louise was with Josie, of whose heart and sense he thought highly.

“And she is well?” he asked eagerly.

“She has been until the last few days, but I heard she was a little under the weather lately,” confessed Mary Louise’s old friend.

Danny then told the chief of the shower of gold that had greeted him when he shook the automobile tire.

“Well, by golly, all of us missed it!” exclaimed Lonsdale. “Little O’Gorman made a thorough search and some treasure hunters went through the garage and I sent two of my best men to go over the whole place again and here you come hastening back from a watery grave and the stuff knocks you down. I’ll send immediately and have it gathered up. You must go along too, Danny.”

“Not until I see my wife!” rebelled Danny.

“Well, you’d hardly wake her up this time of night when she’s been ailing, besides.”

“Of course not!” Danny agreed ruefully.

“By the way, our old friend Markle has broken jail and is at large again,” said the chief. “That’s one reason why I am down here to-night. There is reason to believe he is headed this way. We are on the lookout for him.”

“Well, I bet you I know where he is,” cried Danny.

“I bet you don’t,” the chief retorted incredulously.

“He is in the Hathaway house, at least his wife is.”

“No! A blind man and his son and a Chinese cook are the only inmates of the old house.”

“Well, if I didn’t hear Hortense Markle’s voice this night from an upstairs window, I’m a Dutchman. That is one reason I wanted your excellent Slater to let me come by myself to report things and have him stay and watch the premises but he was so pig-headed he would come along.”

“Slater was doing his duty as he saw it,” rumbled the chief. “But now we’d best get busy. I tell you it would be a big feather in the cap of the police force of Dorfield if they got the Markles, man and woman, and also unearthed the Hathaway fortune the same night.”

Danny laughed. “Well, Chief, you can catch the Markles, but I must say that the treasure wasn’t buried and it simply gave itself away. I don’t think we can give anybody credit for it. I certainly don’t want to claim credit. I simply was going to bunk in the old car for the rest of the night and the twenty-dollar gold pieces just rolled out over my feet. We’d better go carry them off, however, or the Markles will do it for us, since you won’t let me go wake up my wife yet. You haven’t got a bit of hot dog about you, have you? I’m starving.”

CHAPTER XXI FORTUNE SMILES AND FROWNS

The rest in bed had done Mary Louise good. She felt quite herself again and was now able to get up and be about. The shop had remained closed for several days, days that all of the girls had enjoyed. It seemed the minute the public found out it was impossible to enter the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, enter it must.

Mary Louise had said nothing more about her telephone call from the spirit world. She was sure she had been dreaming and, although the doctor and Josie gave her every opportunity to bring up the subject if she felt so inclined, she hesitated to do it.

“They will think I am foolish,” she said to herself. A strange unreasonable hope began to take possession of her, however. She could not explain it, but there it was.

Very early in the morning, the same morning that had found Danny telling his story to Chief Charley Lonsdale, the girls of the Higgledy Piggledy were stirring. Josie was dressed and starting to cook breakfast, and Mary Louise was just pinning into place her white organdie collar and settling her cuffs when there was a double knock on the door.

“It must be a telegram or something—too early for customers. Go to the door like a duck, Mary Louise. The bacon is sure to burn if I leave it a minute.”

Mary Louise tripped across the floor and opened the door. There was not a sound and Josie kept on frying bacon, turning it carefully and patting it down to get the twists out of it.

“What is it, Mary Louise?” There was no answer and so she turned around to see what was the occasion of such silence and there was her little partner wrapped in the arms of a tall young man in a shabby serge suit.

“Well, of all the—Mary Louise, have you gone nuts? What do you mean by such behavior, you scamp?” She came to the conclusion that Mary Louise was being murdered by a tramp, and seizing the rolling pin with which she had just been rolling out biscuit she rushed to the defense of her friend. Before she struck, however, she recognized Danny. Then she dropped the rolling pin and began to hug him herself with almost as much enthusiasm as Mary Louise.

Explanations could not be made in a moment. Danny must tell over and over how he wasn’t dead and Mary Louise must tell how she had been making her living and about Grandpa Jim. Then Danny put in a word concerning the gold pieces that had come tumbling from the old tire. The finding of the fortune did not seem to be nearly so important to those young people as some other things. Danny’s being so hungry was much more important to Mary Louise. Even Josie seemed to think the fact that she had just laid in a supply of sliced bacon and had a dozen eggs in the refrigerator and had cut out enough biscuit for two meals, which might make enough for one for Danny, was of great import.

“I could kick myself for missing the treasure,” cried Josie. “I thought I had looked everywhere. Those stupid policemen too! I’m glad they didn’t get ahead of me. Some one else had been in there too. You noticed how the cushions were all pulled to pieces didn’t you, Danny?”

“Yes, and I bet I know who had been looking for the money,” said Danny. “Hortense Markle!”

He then told of hearing the familiar voice and of his trying to place it and, finally, how it had come to him.

“I am sure it was she,” he declared.

“But it is a blind gentleman and his son,” faltered Mary Louise, who did not like to have a bad opinion even of persons whom she had never met. She had seen them once and the helplessness of the poor blind man had appealed to her.

“Yes, so they said, but I’ll wager anything the poor blind man is Markle himself—”

“But the Chinaman! Who is he?” asked Mary Louise.

“I’m not prepared to state, but my opinion of him is he is no better than he should be either.”

“They are guarding the house, aren’t they?” asked Josie excitedly.

“Oh yes, but that Slater is an awful dub,” said Danny.

“I hope they won’t let them get away,” said Josie with an unusual animosity in her tone. “Those Markles have done enough damage and they were evidently at the Hathaway house hoping to find the Colonel’s gold mine. They would have carried off every coin if they could have got their hooks on it.”

“I shouldn’t have cared,” said Mary Louise dreamily. “Money doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

Danny felt for her hand under the little cutting out table that served as a dining table for the Higgledy Piggledy girls.

“I wish they would get away. The poor things!” she continued. “Just think how long it has been since Hortense has seen her Felix.”

Danny looked at his Mary Louise as though she were plenty good enough to eat. If she wanted the Markles to get away, he was willing that they should, although he could but consider them great rascals. As for the gold mine, they were welcome to it. He could take care of his little wife himself and wasn’t dependent on anybody’s money. He was almost sorry he had found it but, of course, since he had, he agreed with Chief Lonsdale and Mr. Peter Conant that it must be carefully guarded and taken to the bank and reinvested for his Mary Louise.

After Mary Louise’s wedding when Hortense Markle had tripped away and disappeared off the face of the earth, as far as Dorfield could ascertain (all of which is told in our last book concerning the fortunes and misfortunes of Mary Louise), she had donned male attire, had cut off her pretty hair and changed her appearance by the many artifices known to the underworld. She had eked out a miserable existence, picking up a living where she could find it. But she had been able to keep in touch with her dearly beloved Felix and he knew all about how his Pet was faring. Finally, when he escaped from the penitentiary, he had joined her and disguised himself as a blind gentleman. She, continuing in her role of fifteen-year-old boy, had posed as his son. Wink Lee, whose real name was George Parker, was a confederate, old in crime. Having a peculiarly oriental face, he could disguise himself as a Chinaman and pass muster anywhere as one of that nation.

Of course, having an ear ever to the ground for chances to acquire wealth, they had heard of the rumor of Colonel Hathaway’s having concealed piles of gold or securities somewhere about his home. After having made repeated unsuccessful attempts to enter the house and search for the treasure they had finally rented the place.

When Danny clamored for admittance, Hortense had no idea of its being a person whom she had known. She had heard Danny was dead and thought, when the persistent person continued to ring the bell after Wink Lee shut the door in his face, that he was, of course, intoxicated. Her Felix had not been well since his stay in the penitentiary and she was anxious not to have his rest broken. Hence her peremptory dismissal of the intruder. Something told her a moment afterwards that she had made a mistake. She had suddenly recognized Danny’s voice. Perhaps he had recognized hers.

The Hathaway house was no longer safe for them. She roused Felix, called Wink Lee and, even more quietly than they made their entrance, the tenants made their exit. The poor blind gentleman could see now and Wink Lee left his Chinaman’s wig hanging behind the kitchen door. He went off in a perfectly good suit of Danny’s he had found packed away in the attic and Hortense once more was a woman, but this time she made herself look quite middle-aged by a judicious use of padding to her charmingly slender figure. She found a dress that had belonged to Mary Louise’s mother also packed away in the attic. It was of black bombazine. A thick black veil helped the disguise wonderfully. Swiftly and silently the trio dressed and made ready to depart.

While Danny and Slater were interviewing the chief, the tenants of the Hathaway house were already on their way to the next town. They had stopped just long enough to borrow an automobile which was to convey them thither. They borrowed without asking, a detail they must have overlooked. They regretted exceedingly that the old rattle trap in the garage was too far gone to take.

All during the early morning the detectives watched the house, back and front. There was no sign of life in the mansion, but they understood from the neighbors that the inmates were seldom seen. Finally, word came from the chief to go in and arrest the occupants. The bell was rung even harder than Danny had rung it. The back door was beaten on violently. They decided to force an entrance.

The birds had flown. When the flitting had occurred no man could say. Josie was sure it was almost immediately after Danny’s talk with Mrs. Markle.

“Of course that idiot Slater should have stayed when you told him to, but these male detectives are the limit for stupidity and pigheadedness,” she declared.

Mary Louise was happy that they had escaped and Danny was glad because she was glad. If any of the ones interested could have seen a middle aged couple in rather old fashioned clothes on a train that was headed for the west on the afternoon following the getaway, he would have been sorry enough for the woman. She was reading a Chicago paper and came upon a glaring headline:

GOLD MINE FOUND IN
OLD AUTO TIRES
AT DORFIELD

She burst into tears.

“What is it, Pet?”

She handed him the paper.

“Well, well! We missed it that time. Next time maybe we will have better luck. Don’t cry, darling. We have each other anyhow. Money isn’t everything.”

And in that sentiment, Danny and Mary Louise were of one mind with Felix and Hortense Markle.