The Adopting of Rosa Marie / (A Sequel to Dandelion Cottage)
Date: 2014-06-21T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Humanitarianism -- Juvenile fiction; Abandoned children -- Juvenile fiction; Toddlers -- Care -- Juvenile fiction

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Title: The Adopting of Rosa Marie

Author: Carroll Watson Rankin

Illustrator: Miriam Selss

Florence Scovel Shinn

Release date: June 21, 2014 [eBook #46059]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Beth Baran, Emmy and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE ***

THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE
by
CARROLL WATSON RANKIN

Illustrated by
Florence Scovel Shinn

Frontispiece and jacket in full
color by Miriam Selss

In this charming girl's book we meet again the four chums of Dandelion Cottage. Their friendship knit closer than ever by their summer at playing house, the girls enlarge their activity by mothering a pretty little Indian baby.

"Those who have read Dandelion Cottage will need no urge to follow further. . . . A lovable group of four children, happily not perfect, but full of girlish plans and pranks and a delightful sense of humor."

—Boston Transcript.

Just the type of book that every girl from eight to fifteen enjoys.

"MY SOUL, WHAT ARE YOU, ANYWAY?"

Dandelion Series

THE ADOPTING OF
ROSA MARIE

(A Sequel to Dandelion Cottage)

BY
CARROLL WATSON RANKIN
Author of "Dandelion Cottage," "The Girls of
Gardenville," etc.

With Illustrations by
FLORENCE SCOVEL SHINN

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1908,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1936,
BY
CARROLL WATSON RANKIN

PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO

EMILY, PHYLLIS, POLLY
AND SUZANNE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER | PAGE
I. | Borrowed Babies | 1
II. | Rosa Marie | 9
III. | Mabel's Day | 18
IV. | An Unusual Evening | 27
V. | Returning Rosa Marie | 34
VI. | The Dark Secret | 43
VII. | Discovery | 52
VIII. | The Fugitive Soldier | 64
IX. | A Surprise | 73
X. | Breaking the News | 83
XI. | The Alarm | 91
XII. | The Fire | 101
XIII. | A Heroine's Come-Down | 111
XIV. | A Birthday Party | 119
XV. | An Unexpected Treat | 130
XVI. | A Scattered School | 140
XVII. | An Invitation | 151
XVIII. | Obeying Instructions | 161
XIX. | With Henrietta | 173
XX. | The Call Returned | 183
XXI. | Getting Even | 195
XXII. | A Full Afternoon | 204
XXIII. | Taking a Walk | 215
XXIV. | The Statue from India | 226
XXV. | Comparing Notes | 237
XXVI. | Christmas Eve | 248
XXVII. | A Crowded Day | 256
XXVIII. | A Bettie-less Plan | 265
XXIX. | Anxious Days | 275
XXX. | An April Harvest | 286

THE PERSONS OF THE STORY

Bettie Tucker, | aged 12: | | The Cottagers
Jeanie Mapes, | aged 14: |
Marjory Vale, | aged 12: |
Mabel Bennett, | aged 11: |
Rosa Marie: The Unreturnable Baby.
The Mother of Rosa Marie.

Anne Halliday: | | Borrowed Babies.
The Marcotte Twins: |
The Little Tuckers: |
Henrietta Bedford: The New Girl.

Mrs. Howard Slater: | | Of Henrietta's Household.
Simmons: |

The Janitor: An Unappreciated Hero.
Dr. Tucker: A Clergyman with More Children than Money.
Dr. Bennett: A Physician.
Mr. Black: A Friend to Children.
Mrs. Crane: His Sister.
Aunty Jane: Marjory's Sole Visible Relative.
Some Mothers and Brothers.
Mrs. Malony: The Light-hearted Egg-woman.

ILLUSTRATIONS

My soul, what are you, anyway | Frontispiece
| PAGE
Rosa Marie and the sidewalk were one | 16
The sturdy fellow carried her out of the room | 112
The decidedly depressed four started down the street | 164
"Another 'eathen God from Hindia" | 234

THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE

CHAPTER I
Borrowed Babies

THE oldest inhabitant said that Lakeville was experiencing an unusual fall. He would probably have said the same thing if the high-perched town had accidentally tumbled off the bluff into the blue lake; but in this instance, he referred merely to the weather, which was certainly unusually mild for autumn.

It was not, however, the oldest, but four of the youngest citizens that rejoiced most in this unusual prolonging of summer; for the continued warm weather made it possible for those devoted friends, Jean Mapes, Marjory Vale, Mabel Bennett and little Bettie Tucker, to spend many a delightful hour in their precious Dandelion Cottage, the real, tumble-down house that was now, after so many narrow escapes, safely their very own. Some day, to be sure, it would be torn down to make room for a habitable dwelling, but that unhappy day was still too remote to cause any uneasiness.

Of course, when very cold weather should come, it would be necessary to close the beloved Cottage, for there was no heating plant, there were many large cracks over and under the doors and around the windows; and by lying very flat on the dining-room floor and peering under the baseboards, one could easily see what was happening in the next yard. These, and other defects, would surely make the little house uninhabitable in winter; but while the unexpectedly extended summer lasted, the Cottagers were rejoicing over every pleasant moment of weather and praying hard for other pleasant moments.

Of all the games played in Dandelion Cottage, the one called "Mother" was the most popular. To play it, it was necessary, first of all, to divide the house into four equal parts. As there were five rooms, this division might seem to offer no light task; but, by first subtracting the kitchen, it was possible to solve this difficult mathematical problem to the Cottagers' entire satisfaction.

But of course one can't play "Mother" without possessing a family. The Cottagers solved this problem also. Bettie's home could always be counted on to furnish at least two decidedly genuine babies and Jean could always borrow a perfectly delightful little cousin named Anne Halliday; but Marjory and Mabel, to their sorrow, were absolutely destitute of infantile relatives. Mabel was the chief sufferer. Sedate Marjory, plausible of tongue, convincing in manner, could easily accumulate a most attractive family at very short notice by the simple expedient of borrowing babies from the next block; but nowhere within reasonable reach was there a mother willing to intrust her precious offspring a second time to heedless Mabel.

"Now, Mabel," Mrs. Mercer would say, when Mabel pleaded to have young Percival for her very own for just one brief hour, "I'd really like to oblige you, but it's getting late in the season, you are not careful enough about doors and windows and the last time you borrowed Percival you brought him home with a stiff neck that lasted three days."

"But I did remember to return him," pleaded Mabel.

"Do you sometimes forget?" queried Mrs. Mercer, with interest.

"I did twice," confessed always honest Mabel; "but truly I don't see how I can help it when babies sleep and sleep and sleep the way those two did. You see, I made a bed for Gerald Price on the lowest-down closet shelf, and he was so perfectly comfortable that he thought he was asleep for all night."

"What about the other time?"

"That was Mollie Dixon. But then, I had five children that day and only one bed. Mollie slipped down in the crack at the back—she's awfully thin—and I never missed her until her mother came after her. That was rather a bad time [Mabel sighed at the recollection] for Mrs. Dixon found the Cottage locked up for the night and poor little Mollie crying under the bed."

"Mabel! And you want to borrow my precious Percival!"

"But it couldn't happen again," protested Mabel, earnestly. "Bettie says that I'm just like lightning; I never strike twice in the same place. That's the reason I get into so many different kinds of scrapes. I'll be ever so careful, though, if you'll let me borrow Percival just this one time."

Mrs. Mercer, however, refused to part with Percival. Other mothers, approached by pleading Mabel, refused likewise to intrust their babies to her enthusiastic but heedless keeping. They knew her too well.

"The thing for you to do," suggested Marjory, ostentatiously washing the perfectly clean faces of the four delightful small persons that she had been able, without any trouble at all, to borrow in Blaker Street, "is to find a mother that really wants to get rid of her children."

"Yes," said Bob Tucker, who had dropped in to deliver the basket of apples that Mrs. Crane had sent to her former neighbors, "you ought to advertise for the kind of mother that feeds her babies to crocodiles. Perhaps some of them have emigrated to this country and sort of miss the Ganges River."

"You might try the orphan asylum," offered Jean, as balm for this wound. "It's only four blocks from here."

"I have," returned Mabel, dejectedly. "I went there early this morning."

"What happened?" demanded Bettie, who had just arrived with a little Tucker under each arm.

"They said they'd let them go 'permanently to responsible parties.' I didn't know just exactly what that meant, so I said: 'Does that mean that you'll lend me a few for two hours?'"

"And would they?"

"Well, they didn't. They said I'd better borrow a Teddy bear."

"How mean," said sympathetic Bettie. "Nevermind, I'll lend you Peter, this time."

"Say," queried Mabel, after she had accepted Bettie's proffered brother, "what does 'permanently' mean?"

"For keeps," explained Jean.

"What are 'responsible parties'?"

"Jean and Bettie and I," twinkled Marjory, "but not you."

"That's good," laughed Bob, who, like Marjory, loved to tease. "But never mind, Mabel. After you've practised a year or two on Peter, who's a nuisance if there ever was one, you'll find yourself growing respons—— Whoop! What was that?"

"That" was a sudden crash that resounded through the house. Everybody rushed to the kitchen. The big dish-pan that Mabel had left on the edge of the kitchen table was upside down on the floor. At least half of little Peter Tucker was under it. But the half that remained outside was so unmistakably alive that nobody felt very seriously alarmed—except Peter.

"Thank goodness!" said Mabel, removing the pan, "this is just a little Tucker and not any Percival Mercer! Cheer up, Peter. You're not as wet as you think you are. There wasn't more than a quart of water in that pan and it was almost perfectly clean."

And Peter, soothed by Mabel's reassuring tone, immediately cheered up.

CHAPTER II
Rosa Marie

NOT long after Mabel's ineffectual attempt to borrow an orphan Mrs. Bennett dispatched her small daughter to Lake Street to find out, if possible, why Mrs. Malony, the poultry woman, had failed to send the week's supply of fresh eggs.

Now, the way to Mrs. Malony's was most interesting, particularly to a young person of observing habits. There were houses on only one side of the street and most of those were tumbling down under the weight of the sand that each rain carried down the hillside. But the opposite side of the road was even more attractive, for there one had a grassy, shrubby bank where one could pick all sorts of things off bushes and get burrs in one's stockings; a narrow stretch of pebbled beach where one could sometimes find an agate, and a wide basin of very shallow water where one could almost—but not quite—step from stone to stone without wetting one's feet. It was certainly an enjoyable spot. The distance from Mabel's home to Mrs. Malony's was very short—a matter of perhaps five blocks. But if a body went the longest way round, stopped to scour the green bank for belated blackberries, prickly hazelnuts, dazzling golden-rod or rare four-leaved clovers; or loitered to gather a dress-skirtful of stony treasures from the glittering beach, going to Mrs. Malony's meant a great deal more than a five blocks' journey.

Just a little beyond the poultry woman's house, on the lake side of the straggling street, a small, but decidedly attractive point of land jutted waterward for perhaps two hundred feet. On this projecting point stood a small shanty or shack, built, as Mabel described it later, mostly of knot-holes. She meant, without knowing how to say it, that the lumber in the hut was of the poorest possible quality.

On this long-to-be-remembered day, a small object moving in the clearing that surrounded the shack attracted Mabel's attention. Curiosity led her closer to investigate.

"It's just as I thought!" exclaimed Mabel, peering rapturously through the bushes. "It's a real baby!"

Sure enough! It was a baby.

Mabel edged closer, moving cautiously for fear of frightening her unexpected find. She saw a small toddler, aged somewhere between two and three years, roving aimlessly about the chip-strewn clearing. The child's round cheeks, chubby wrists, bare feet and sturdy legs were richly brown. A straggling fringe of jet-black hair overhung the stout baby's black, beadlike eyes.

Near the doorway of the rickety shack a man, half French, half Indian, stood talking earnestly and with many gesticulations to a dark-skinned woman, framed by the doorway. The woman had large black eyes, shaded by very long black lashes. She wore her rather coarse black hair in two long, thick braids that hung in front of her straight shoulders. In spite of her dark color, her worn shoes, her ragged, untidy gown, she seemed to Mabel an exceedingly pretty woman. The man, too, was handsome, after a bold, picturesque fashion; but the woman was the more pleasing.

Mabel approached timidly. She felt that she was intruding.

"Good-morning," said she, ingratiatingly. "Is this your little boy?"

"Him girl," returned the woman, with a sudden flash of white teeth between parted crimson lips. "Name Rosa Marie. Yes, him ma petite daughtaire. You like the looks on him, hey?"

"Oh, so much," cried Mabel, impulsively. "Oh, would you do me a favor?"

"A favaire," repeated the woman, with a puzzled glance. "W'at ees a favaire?"

"Oh, would you lend your baby to me? Would you let me have her to play with for—— Oh, for all day?"

"Here?" queried the mother, doubtfully.

"No, not here. In my own home—up there, on the hill. Could I keep her until six o'clock? I just adore babies, and she's so fat and cunning! Oh, please, please! I'd be just awfully obliged."

A look of understanding flashed suddenly between the man and the woman; but Mabel, stooping to make friends with little Rosa Marie, did not observe it.

"Your fodder 'ave nice house, plainty food, plainty money?" queried the woman, running a speculative eye over Mabel's plain but substantial wardrobe.

"Oh yes," returned Mabel, thoughtlessly. "And besides I have a playhouse. That is, it isn't exactly mine, but I just about live in it with three other girls, and that's where I want to take Rosa Marie. I'll be awfully careful of her if you'll only let me take her. Oh, do you think she'll come with me? Couldn't you tell her to?"

The woman, bending to look into Rosa Marie's black eyes, talked loudly and rapidly in some foreign tongue. The mother's voice was harsh, but her eyes, Mabel noticed, seemed soft and tender, and much more beautiful than Rosa Marie's.

"Now," said the woman, turning to Mabel and speaking in broken English, "eef you want her, you must go at once. Go now, I tell you. Go queek, queek! Pull hard eef she ees drag behind. But go, I tell you, go!"

The voice rose to an unpleasant, almost too stirring pitch that jarred suddenly on Mabel's nerves; but, obeying these hasty instructions, the little girl drew Rosa Marie out of the inclosure, led her across the street and lifted her to the sidewalk. Looking back from the slight elevation, Mabel noticed that the man was again talking earnestly and gesticulating excitedly; while the woman, once more framed by the doorway, followed, with her big black eyes, the chubby figure of Rosa Marie.

"I'll bring her back all safe and sound," shouted Mabel, over her shoulder. "Don't be afraid. Good-by, until six o'clock!"

Escorting Rosa Marie to Dandelion Cottage proved no light task. Her legs were very short, it soon became evident that she was not accustomed to using them for walking purposes, the way was mostly uphill and the little brown feet were bare. At first Mabel led, coaxed and encouraged with the utmost patience; but presently Rosa Marie sat heavily on the sidewalk and refused to rise. That is, she didn't say that she wouldn't rise. She remained sitting with such firmness of purpose that it seemed hopeless to attempt to break her of the habit.

Mabel walked round and round her firmly seated charge in helpless despair. Rosa Marie and the sidewalk were one.

"Want any help?" asked a friendly voice. It belonged to a large, freckled boy who was carrying two pails of water from the lake to one of the tumble-down houses.

ROSA MARIE AND THE SIDEWALK WERE ONE.

"Yes, I do," responded Mabel, promptly. "If you could just lift this child high enough for me to get hold of her I think I could carry her."

So the boy, setting his pails down, obligingly lifted Rosa Marie's solid little person, Mabel clasped the barrel-shaped body closely, and, after a word of thanks to the kind boy, proceeded homeward. But even now her troubles were not ended. By silently refusing to cuddle, Rosa Marie converted herself into a most uncomfortable burden. Her entire body was a silent protest against leaving her home.

"Do make yourself soft and bunchy," pleaded Mabel, giving Rosa Marie sundry pokes, calculated to make her double up like a jack-knife. "Here, bend this way. Haven't you any joints anywhere? Do hold tight with your arms and legs. This way. Pshaw! You're just like a stuffed crocodile. Well, walk then, if you can't hang on like a real child. There's one thing certain, you shan't sit down again. I s'pose we'll get there sometime."

CHAPTER III
Mabel's Day

ALMOST hopeless as it seemed at times, Mabel and the silent brown baby finally reached Dandelion Cottage. There they found Jean, seated in a chair with her lovely little cousin Anne Halliday perched like a pink and white blossom on the edge of the dining table before her, tying Anne's bewitching yellow curls with wide pink ribbons. Anne was a perpetual delight, for, besides being a picture during every moment of the long day, her ways were so quaint and so attractive that no one could help admiring her.

Marjory, her countenance carefully arranged to depict the deepest sorrow, stood guard over the Marcotte twins, who, touchingly covered with nasturtiums, were laid out on the parlor cozy corner, awaiting burial. Their blue eyes blinked and their pink toes twitched; but, on the whole, they played their parts in a most satisfactory manner.

Bettie, with two small but attractive Tucker babies clinging to her brief skirts, was exclaiming: "These are my jewels," when tired, dusty Mabel, pushing reluctant Rosa Marie before her, walked in.

"For mercy's sake, what's that!" gasped Jean, sweeping Anne Halliday into her protecting arms.

"Is—is it something the cat dragged in?" asked Marjory.

"Is—can it be a real child?" demanded Bettie.

"This," announced Mabel, with dignity, "is my child. Her name is Rosa Marie—with all the distress on the ee."

"The distress seems to be all over both of you," giggled Marjory.

"That's just dust," explained Mabel.

"Did you both roll home like a pair of barrels?" queried Jean, "or did the Village Improvement folks use you to dust the sidewalks?"

"What's the matter with that child's complexion?" demanded Marjory. "Is she tanned?"

"Coming home took long enough for us both to get tanned," returned Mabel, crossly, "but Rosa Marie's French, I guess."

"French! French nothing!" exclaimed Marjory. "She's nothing but a little wild Indian. Look at her hair. Look at her small black eyes. Look at her high cheekbones. Where in the world did you get her?"

Mabel explained. For once, the girls listened with the most flattering attention. Anne Halliday bobbed her pretty head to punctuate each sentence, the Tucker babies stood in silence with their mouths open, even the nicely laid-out Marcotte twins on the sofa sat up to hear the tale.

"And she's all mine until six o'clock," concluded Mabel, triumphantly.

"If she were mine," said Jean, "I'd give her a bath."

"I'd give her two," giggled Marjory.

So Mabel, assisted by Jean, Marjory, Bettie, little Anne, the two Tucker babies and the now very much alive Marcotte twins gave Rosa Marie a bath in the dish-pan. Although they changed the water as fast as they could heat more in the tea-kettle, although they used a whole bar of strong yellow soap, two teaspoonfuls of washing powder and a very scratchy washcloth lathered with Sapolio, Rosa Marie, who bore it all with stolid patience, was still richly brown from head to heels, when she emerged from her bath.

"Let's play Pocohontis!" cried Marjory, seizing the feather duster. "Put feathers in her hair and drape her in my brown petticoat. I'll be Captain John Smith in Bob Tucker's rubber boots."

"You won't either," retorted Mabel, indignantly. "I guess, after I dragged this child all the way up here to play 'Mother' with, I'm not going to have her used for any old Pocohontises. She's my child, and I'm going to have the entire use of her while she lasts."

"After all," replied Marjory, cuttingly, "I don't want her. I'm sure I wouldn't care for any of that colored children. The usual shade is quite good enough for me."

But, while the novelty lasted and in spite of Marjory's declaration, Rosa Marie was a distinct success. Little Anne Halliday's cunningest ways and quaintest speeches went unheeded when Rosa Marie refused to wear shoes and stockings. She had never worn a shoe, and, without uttering a word, she made it plain that she had no intention of hampering her pudgy brown feet with the cast-off footgear of the young Tuckers.

Neither would she wear clothes, until Jean showed her the solitary garment she had arrived in, now soaking in a pan of soapy water. After they had arrayed her in a long-sleeved apron of Anne's—it didn't go round, but had to be helped out with a cheese-cloth duster—it was evident that the unaccustomed whiteness bothered her. She was not used to being so remarkably stiff and clean.

The Marcotte twins, again prepared for burial, quarrelled most engagingly as to which should be buried under the apple-tree, both preferring that fruitful resting-place to the barren waste under the snowball bush; but nobody listened because Rosa Marie was doing extraordinary things with her bowl of bread and milk. Having lapped the milk like a cat, she was deftly chasing the crumbs round the bowl with a greedy and experienced tongue. It was plain that Rosa Marie had no table manners.

As for the infantile Tuckers, they were an old story. On this occasion they crawled into the corner cupboard and went to sleep and nobody missed them for a whole hour, just because Rosa Marie was emitting queer little startled grunts every time Marjory's best doll wailed "Mam-mah!" "Pap-pah!" for her benefit. There was no doubt about it, Rosa Marie was decidedly amusing.

The day passed swiftly; much too swiftly, Mabel thought. Very much mothered Rosa Marie, who had obligingly consumed an amazing amount of milk—all, indeed, that the Cottagers had been able to procure—started homeward, towed by Mabel. That elated young person had declined all offers of company; she coveted the full glory of returning Rosa Marie to her rightful guardian. Mabel, indeed, was visibly swollen with pride. She had given the Cottagers a most unusual treat. She had not only surprised them by proving that she could borrow a baby, but had kept them amused and entertained every moment of the day. It had certainly been a red-letter day in the annals of Dandelion Cottage.

Mabel more than half expected to meet Rosa Marie's mother at the very first corner. The other real mothers had always seemed desirous—over desirous, Mabel thought—of welcoming their home-coming babies back to the fold; but the mother of Rosa Marie, apparently, was of a less grudging disposition.

Mabel laboriously escorted her reluctant charge to the very door of the shanty without encountering any welcoming parent. The borrower of Rosa Marie knocked. No one came. She tried the door. It was locked.

"How queer!" said Mabel. "Seems to me I'd be on hand if I had an engagement at exactly six o'clock. But then, I always am late."

Dragging an empty wooden box to the side of the house, Mabel climbed to the high, decidedly smudgy window and peered in.

There was no one inside. There was no fire in the battered stove. The doors of a rough cupboard opposite the window stood open, disclosing the fact that the cupboard was bare. There were no bedclothes in the rough bunk that served for a bed; no dishes on the table; no clothing hanging from the hooks on the wall. Both inside and outside the house wore a strangely deserted aspect. It seemed to say: "Nobody lives here now, nobody ever did live here, nobody ever will live here."

CHAPTER IV
An Unusual Evening

MABEL looked in dismay at Rosa Marie.

"Where do you s'pose your mother is?" she demanded.

It was useless, however, to question Rosa Marie. That stolid young person was as uncommunicative as what Marjory called "the little stuffed Indians in the Washington Museum." The Indians to whom Marjory referred were made of wax. Rosa Marie seemed more like a little wooden Indian. The countenance of little Anne Halliday changed with every moment; but Rosa Marie's wore only one expression. Perhaps it had only one to wear.

"I say," said Mabel, gently shaking her small brown charge by the shoulders, "where does your mother usually go when she isn't home?"

A surprised grunt was the only response.

Rosa Marie, too suddenly released, sat heavily on the ground, thoughtfully scratched up the surface and filled her lap with handfuls of loose, unattractive earth.

"Goodness! What an untidy child!" cried Mabel, snatching her up and shaking her, although Rosa Marie's weight made her youthful guardian stagger. "I wanted your mother to see you clean, for once. Here, sit on this stick of wood. I s'pose we'll just have to wait and wait until somebody comes. Well, sit in the sand if you want to. I'm tired of picking you up."

Rosa Marie's home was in rather an attractive spot. The big, quiet lake was smooth as glass, and every object along its picturesque bank was mirrored faithfully in the quiet depths. The western sky was faintly tinged with red. Against it the spires and tall roofs of the town stood out sharply; but at this quiet hour they seemed very far away.

Mabel, seated on the wooden box that she had placed under the window, leaned back against the house and clasped her hands about her knees, while she gazed dreamily at the picture and listened with enjoyment to the faint lap of the quiet water on the pebbled beach.

Both Mabel and Rosa Marie had had a busy day. Both had taken unusual exercise. And now all the sights and sounds were soothing, soothing.

You can guess what happened. Both little girls fell asleep. Rosa Marie, flat on her stomach, pillowed her head on her chubby arms. Mabel's head, drooping slowly forward, grew heavier and heavier until finally it touched her knees.

An hour later, the sleepy head had grown so very heavy that it pulled Mabel right off the box and tumbled her over in a confused, astonished heap on the ground.

"My goodness!" gasped Mabel, still on hands and knees. "Where am I, anyway? Is this Saturday or Sunday? Why! It's all dark. This—this isn't my room—why! why! I'm outdoors! How did I get outdoors?"

Mabel stood up, took a step forward, stumbled over Rosa Marie and went down on all-fours.

"What's that!" gasped bewildered Mabel, groping with her hands. She felt the rough black head, the plump body, the round legs, the bare feet of her sleeping charge. Memory returned.

"Why! It's Rosa Marie, and we're waiting here by the lake for her mother. It—ugh! It must be midnight!"

But it wasn't. It was just exactly twenty minutes after seven o'clock but, with the autumn sun gone early to bed, it certainly seemed very much later. The house was still deserted.

"I guess," said Mabel, feeling about in the dark for Rosa Marie's fat hand, "we'd better go home—or some place. Come, Rosa Marie, wake up. I'm going to take you home with me. Oh, please wake up. There's nobody here but us. It's way in the middle of the night and there might be anything in those awfully black bushes."

But Rosa Marie, deprived of her noontide nap, slumbered on. Mabel shook her.

"Do hurry," pleaded frightened Mabel. "I don't like it here."

It was anything but an easy task for Mabel to drag the sleeping child to her feet, but she did it. Rosa Marie, however, immediately dropped to earth again. During the day she had seemed stiff; but now, unfortunately, she proved most distressingly limber. She seemed, in fact, to possess more than the usual number of joints, and discouraged Mabel began to fear that each joint was reversible.

"Goodness!" breathed Mabel, when Rosa Marie's knees failed for the seventh time, "it seems wicked to shake you very hard, but I've got to."

Even with vigorous and prolonged shakings it took time to get Rosa Marie firmly established on her feet, and the children had walked more than a block of the homeward way before Rosa Marie opened one blinking eye under the street lamp.

If it had been difficult to make the uphill journey in broad daylight with Rosa Marie wide awake and moderately willing, it was now a doubly difficult matter with that young person half or three-quarters asleep and most decidedly unwilling.

"I wish to goodness," grumbled Mabel, stumbling along in the dark, "that I'd borrowed a real baby and not a heathen."

The longest journey has an end. The children reached Dandelion Cottage at last. Mabel found the key, unlocked the door, tumbled Rosa Marie, clothes and all, into the middle of the spare-room bed; waited just long enough to make certain that the Indian baby slept; then, reassured by gentle, half-breed snores, Mabel, still supposing the time to be midnight, ran home, climbed into her own bed nearly an hour earlier than usual and was soon sound asleep. Her mind was too full of other matters to wonder why the front door was unlocked at so late an hour.

Mrs. Bennett, dressing to go to a party, heard her daughter come in.

"How fortunate!" said she. "Now I shan't have to go to Jean's and Marjory's and Bettie's to hunt for Mabel. She must be tired to-night—she doesn't often go to bed so early."

CHAPTER V
Returning Rosa Marie

EARLY the next morning, Jean, needing her thimble to sew on a vitally necessary button, ran to the supposedly empty cottage to get it. Taking the short cut through the Tuckers' back yard she found Bettie feeding Billy, the seagull, one of Bob's numerous pets.

"Billy always wakes everybody up crying for his breakfast," explained thoughtful little Bettie. "Bob's spending a week at the Ormsbees' camp, so I have to get up to feed Billy so father can sleep."

"Why don't the other boys do it?"

"Mercy! They'd sleep through anything. Going to the Cottage?"

"Yes, come with me," returned Jean, "while I get my thimble. It's so big that it almost takes two to carry it."

"All right," laughed Bettie, crawling through the hole in the fence.

Jean's thimble was a standing joke. A stout and prudent godmother had bestowed a very large one on the little girl so that Jean would be in no danger of outgrowing the gift. Jean was now living in hopes of sometime growing big enough to fit the thimble.

"Why!" exclaimed Jean, after a brief search, "the key isn't under the doormat! Where do you s'pose it's gone?"

"Here it is in the door. But how in the world did it get there? I locked that door myself last night and tucked the key under the mat. I know I did."

"I saw you do it," corroborated Jean.

"Perhaps Marjory's inside."

"It isn't Mabel, anyway. She's always the last one up."

"Mercy me!" cried Bettie, who had been peeking into the different rooms to see if Marjory were inside. "Come here, Jean. Just look at this!"

"This" was brown little Rosa Marie sitting up in the middle of the pink and white spare-room bed, like, as Bettie put it, a brown bee in the heart of a rose. Her small dark countenance was absolutely expressionless, so there was no way of discovering what she thought about it all.

"My sakes!" exclaimed Jean, with indignation, "that lazy Mabel never took her home, after all! Why! We'll have a whole band of wild Indians coming to scalp us right after breakfast! How could she have been so careless. This is the worst she's done yet."

"But it's just like Mabel," said Bettie, giving vent, for once, to her disapproval of Mabel's thoughtlessness. "She likes things ever so much at first. Then she simply forgets that they ever existed."

"Who forgets?" demanded Mabel, bouncing in at the front door.

"You," returned Jean and Bettie, with one accusing voice.

"Prove it."

"You forgot to take Rosa Marie home last night."

"I never did. I took her every inch of the way home, stayed with her all alone in the dark for pretty nearly a year, and then had to bring her all the way back again, walking in her sleep. So there, now!"

"But why in the world didn't you leave her with her own folks?"

"Her horrid mother wasn't there. And between 'em, I didn't get any supper and only a little sleep."

"But what are you going to do?" queried astonished Jean.

"After she drinks this quart of milk," explained Mabel, "I'm going to take her home again."

"Where did you get so much milk?" asked Bettie, suspiciously.

Mabel colored furiously. "I begged it from the milkman," she confessed. "That's why I'm up so early. I've been sitting on our kitchen doorstep for two hours, waiting for him to come."

Mabel spent all that day industriously returning Rosa Marie to a home that had locked its doors against her. No pretty, dark, French mother stood in the doorway. No tall, dark man wandered about the yard. No neighbor came from the tumbling houses across the street to explain the woman's puzzling absence.

It proved a most tiresome day. Mabel was not only mentally weary from trying to solve the mystery, but physically tired also from dragging Rosa Marie up and down the hill between Dandelion Cottage and the child's deserted home. The girls went with her once, but, having satisfied their curiosity as to Rosa Marie's abiding-place, turned their attention to pleasanter tasks. Walking with Rosa Marie was too much like traveling with a snail. One such journey was enough.

Moreover, Mabel's pride had suffered. A grinning boy, looking from plump Mabel's ruddy countenance to fat Rosa Marie's expressionless brown one, had asked wickedly:

"Is that your sister? You look enough alike to be twins."

After that, Mabel feared that other persons might mistake the small brown person for a relative of hers, or, worse yet, mistake her for an Indian.

"Goodness me!" groaned Mabel, toiling homeward from her second trip, "it was hard enough to borrow a baby, but it's enough sight worse getting rid of one afterwards. There's one thing certain; I'll never borrow another."

Late in the day Mabel thought of Mrs. Malony, the egg-woman. Perhaps she would know what had become of Rosa Marie's vanished mother. Dropping Rosa Marie inside the gate, Mabel knocked at Mrs. Malony's door.

"The folks that lived in the shanty beyant?" asked Mrs. Malony. "Sure, darlint, nobody's lived there for years and years save gipsies and tramps and such like."

"But day before yesterday—no, yesterday morning—I saw a young Frenchwoman——"

"A black-eyed gal wid two long braids and wan small Injin? Sure, Oi know the wan you mane. Her man, Injin Pete, died a month ago, some two days after they come to the shack."

"But where is she now?" asked Mabel.

"Lord love ye," returned Mrs. Malony, "how wud Oi be after knowin'? She came and she wint, like the rest av thim."

"There was a man—not a gentleman and not exactly a tramp—talking to her yesterday. Perhaps you know where he is. I couldn't find anybody."

"Depind upon it," said Mrs. Malony, easily, "she's gone wid him. She's Mrs. Somebody Else by now, and good riddance to the pair av thim."

"But," objected Mabel, drawing the branches of a small shrub aside and disclosing Rosa Marie sprawling on the ground behind it, "she left her baby."

"The Nation, she did!" gasped Mrs. Malony, for once surprised out of her serenity. "Wud ye think of thot, now!"

"I've been thinking of it," returned Mabel, miserably. "And I don't know what in the world to do. You see, she left the baby with me."

"Take her home wid ye," advised Mrs. Malony, hastily; so hastily that it looked as if the Irishwoman feared that she might be asked to mother Rosa Marie. "I'll kape an eye on the shack for ye. If that good-for-nothin' black-haired wan comes back, Oi'll be up wid the news in two shakes of a dead lamb's tail, so Oi will. In the mane toime, be a mother to thot innocent babe yourself. She needs wan if iver a choild did."

"I've been that for two whole days now," groaned Mabel.

"Thot's right, thot's right," encouraged Mrs. Malony. "Ye were just cut out for thot same. Good luck go wid ye."

Rosa Marie spent a second night in the spare room of Dandelion Cottage. She, at least, seemed utterly indifferent as to her fate.

CHAPTER VI
The Dark Secret

THE four Cottagers sat in solemn conclave round the dining-room table next morning. Rosa Marie, flat on her stomach on the floor, lapped milk like a cat and licked the bowl afterwards; but now no one paid the slightest attention.

"I think," said Jean, removing her elbows from the table, "that we'd better tell our mothers and Aunty Jane all about it at once. They'll know what to do."

"So do I," said Marjory.

"So do I," echoed Bettie.

"I don't," protested Mabel, whose hitherto serene countenance now showed signs of great anxiety. "If you ever tell anybody, I'll—I'll never speak to you again. This joke—if it is a joke—is on me. I got into this scrape and it's my scrape."

"But," objected Jean, "we always do tell our mothers everything. That's why they trust us to play all by ourselves in Dandelion Cottage."

"Give me just a few days," pleaded Mabel. "Perhaps that woman got kept away by some accident. I'm sure Rosa Marie's mother has mother feelings inside of her, some place—I saw 'em in her face when I was leading Rosa Marie away. I know she'll come back. Until she does, I'll take care of that poor deserted child myself."

"It's a blessing she never cries, anyway," observed Bettie. "If she were a howling child I don't know what we'd do. As it is, she's not much more trouble than a Teddy bear."

If Mrs. Mapes hadn't had a missionary box in her cellar to pack for Reservation Indians of assorted sizes and shapes with the cast-off garments of all Lakeville; if Mrs. Bennett had not been exceedingly busy with a seamstress getting ready to go out of town for an important visit; if Aunty Jane had not been even busier trying to make green tomato pickles out of ripe tomatoes; if Mrs. Tucker had not been too anxious about the throats of the youngest three Tuckers to give heed to the doings of the larger members of her family, these four good women would surely have discovered that something unusual was taking place under the Cottage roof. As it was, not one of the mothers, not even sharp Aunty Jane, discovered that the Cottagers were borrowing an amazing amount of milk from their respective refrigerators.

The novelty worn off, Rosa Marie became a heavy burden to at least three of the Cottagers' tender consciences. Mabel's conscience may have troubled her, but not enough to be noticed by a pair of moderately careless parents. Mabel, however, grew more and more attached to Rosa Marie; the others did not. To tell the truth, the borrowed infant was not an attractive child. Many small Indians are decidedly pretty, but Rosa Marie was not. Her small eyes were too close together, her upper lip was much too long for the rest of her countenance and her large mouth turned sharply down at the corners. But loyal Mabel was blind to these defects. She saw only the babyish roundness of Rosa Marie's body, the cunning dimples in her elbows and the affectionate gleam that sometimes showed in the small black eyes. But then, it was always Mabel who found beauty in the stray dogs and cats that no one else would have on the premises. During these trying days the Cottagers almost quarreled.

"That child is all cheeks," complained Marjory, petulantly. "They positively hang down. Do you suppose we're giving her too much milk? She's disgustingly fat, and she hasn't any figure."

"She has altogether too much figure," declared Jean, almost crossly. "I fastened this little petticoat around what I thought was her waist and it slid right off. So now I've got to make buttonholes. Such a nuisance!"

"Pity you can't use tacks and a hammer," giggled Marjory.

The clothing of Rosa Marie had presented another distressing problem. She owned absolutely nothing in the way of a wardrobe. The single, unattractive garment she had worn on her arrival had not survived the girls' attempts to wash it. They had left it boiling on the stove, the water had cooked off and the faded gingham had cooked also.

To make up for this accident, all four of the Cottagers had contributed all they could find of their own cast-off garments; but these of course were much too large without considerable making over.

"If," said Jean, reproachfully, as she took a large tuck in the grown-up stocking that she was trying to re-model for Rosa Marie, "you'd only let me tell my mother, she'd give us every blessed thing we need. One live little Indian in the hand ought to be worth more to her than a whole dozen invisible ones on a way-off Reservation; and you know she's always doing things for them."

"Jeanie Mapes!" threatened Mabel, "if you tell her, that's the very last breath I'll ever speak to you."

"I'll be good," sighed Jean, "but I just hate not telling her. And this horrid stocking is still too long."

"Button it about her neck," giggled Marjory, who flatly declined to do any sewing for Rosa Marie. "That'll take up the slack and save making her a shirt."

"Don't bother about stockings," said Bettie, fishing a round lump from her blouse. "Here's a pair of old ones that I found in the rag bag. One's black and the other's tan; but they're exactly the right size and that's something."

"What's the use," demurred Marjory. "She won't wear them."

"If Rosa Marie were about eight shades slimmer," said Jean, "I could easily get some of Anne Halliday's dear little dresses—her mother gave my mother a lot day before yesterday for that Reservation box; but goodness! You'd have to sew two of them together sideways to get them around that child."

"She is awfully thick," admitted Mabel.

Yet, after all, dressing Rosa Marie was not exactly a hardship. Indeed, it is probable that the difficulties that stood in the way made the task only so much the more interesting; then, of course, dressing a real child was much more exciting than making garments for a mere doll.

Whenever the Cottagers spoke of Rosa Marie outside the Cottage they referred to her as the D. S. D. S. stood for "Dark Secret." This seemed singularly appropriate, for Rosa Marie was certainly dark and quite as certainly a most tremendous secret—a far larger and darker secret than the troubled girls cared to keep, but there seemed to be no immediate way out of it.

Fortunately, the stolid little "D. S." was amiable to an astonishing degree. She never cried. Also, she "stayed put." If Mabel stood her in the corner she stayed there. If she were tucked into bed, there she remained until some one dragged her out. She spent her days rolling contentedly about the Cottage floor, her nights in deep, calm slumber. Never was there a youngster with fewer wants. Teaching Rosa Marie to talk furnished the Cottagers with great amusement. The round brown damsel very evidently preferred grunts to words; but she was always willing to grunt obligingly when Mabel or the others insisted.

"Say, 'This little pig went to market,'" Mabel would prompt.

"Eigh, ugh, ugh, ee, ee, ee, hee!" Rosa Marie would grunt.

Then, when everybody else laughed her very hardest, Rosa Marie's grim little mouth would relax to show for an instant the row of white teeth that Mabel scrubbed industriously many times a day. This rare smile made the borrowed baby almost attractive. But not to Marjory. From the first, Marjory regarded her with strong disapproval.

Fortunately for Mabel's secret, little Anne Halliday, the Marcotte twins and the two Tucker babies were too small to tell tales out of school, so in spite of sundry narrow escapes, Rosa Marie remained as dark a secret as one's heart could desire.

CHAPTER VII
Discovery

SCHOOL began the first day of October—fortunately, repairs to the building had delayed the opening. And there was Rosa Marie still on the Cottagers' hands, still a dark and undivulged secret. In the meantime, Mabel had paid many a visit to Mrs. Malony, who for reasons of her own had kept silence about the borrowed baby. Probably she felt that Mrs. Bennett would blame her for advising Mabel to harbor the deserted child.

"No, darlint," Mrs. Malony would say, encouragingly. "Oi ain't exactly seen her, but she'll be back prisintly, she'll be back prisintly—Oh, most anny toime, now. Just do be waitin' patient and you'll see me come walkin' in most anny foine day wid yon blackhaired lass at me heels an' full to the eyes of her wid gratichude. Anny day at all, Miss Mabel."

Buoyed by this hope, Mabel had waited from day to day, hoping for speedy deliverance. And now, school!

"We'll just have to get excused for part of each day," said Marjory, always good at suggesting remedies. "Last year, all my recitations came in the morning; perhaps they will again. Then, if one of you others could do all your reciting during the afternoon we could manage it."

The year previously Mabel had been obliged to spend many a half-hour after school, making up neglected lessons. Now, however, she studied furiously. If she failed frequently it was only because she couldn't help making absurd blunders; it was never for lack of study. In this one way, at least, Rosa Marie proved beneficial.

The united efforts of all four made it possible for Rosa Marie to possess a more or less unwilling guardian for all but one hour during the forenoon. It grieves one to confess it, but Rosa Marie spent that solitary hour securely strapped to the leg of the dining-room table; but, stolid as ever, she did not mind that.

It was there that Aunty Jane discovered her, the second week in October. Aunty Jane had missed her best saucepan. Rightly suspecting that Marjory had carried it off to make fudge in, she hurried to the Cottage, discovered the key under the door-mat, opened the door and walked in.

Rosa Marie was grunting. "Eigh, ugh, ugh, ee, ee, ee, hee!" to her own bare brown toes.

"For mercy's sake! What's that?" gasped Aunty Jane, with a terrified start. "There's some sort of an animal in this house."

Arming herself with the broken umbrella that stood in the mended umbrella jar in the front hall, Aunty Jane peered cautiously into the dining-room. The "animal" turned its head to blink with mild, expressionless curiosity at Aunty Jane.

"My soul!" ejaculated that good lady, "what are you, anyway?"

The pair blinked at each other for several moments.

"Are—are you a baby?" demanded Aunty Jane.

No response from Rosa Marie.

"What," asked Aunty Jane, cautiously drawing closer, "is your name?"

Still no response.

"Who tied you to that table?"

Silence on Rosa Marie's part.

"I'm going straight after Mrs. Mapes," declared Aunty Jane, retreating backwards in order to keep a watchful eye on the queer object under the table. "I might have known that those enterprising youngsters would be up to something, if I gave my whole mind to pickles."

Excited Aunty Jane collected not only Mrs. Mapes, but Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Bennett, before she returned to the Cottage. And then, the three mothers and Aunty Jane sat on the floor beside Rosa Marie and asked questions; useless questions, because Rosa Marie licked the table-leg bashfully but yielded no other reply.

This lasted for nearly half an hour. And then, school being out and the four Cottagers discovering their front door wide open, Jean, Bettie, Marjory and Mabel, all sorts of emotions tugging at their hearts, rushed breathlessly in. On beholding their mothers and Aunty Jane, they, too, turned suddenly bashful and leaned, speechless, against the Cottage wall.

"Whose child is that?" demanded all four of the grown-ups, in concert.

"Mine," replied Mabel.

"Mabel's," responded the other three, with disheartening promptness.

"What!" gasped the parents and Aunty Jane.

"I borrowed her," explained Mabel, "so she's mostly mine."

"She's spending the day here, I suppose," said Mrs. Mapes.

"Ye-es," faltered Mabel. Marjory giggled, and Mabel turned crimson.

"I hope," said Mrs. Bennett, severely, "that you're not thinking of keeping her all night."

"I—I—we—" faltered Mabel, "we—we sort of did."

"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Bennett, not knowing how very late she was, "I guess we've come just in time. Mabel, put that child's things on and take her home at once."

"I can't," replied Mabel.

"Why not?"

"She hasn't any home."

"No home!"

"No. It's—it's run away."

"What! That baby?"

"No," stammered Mabel, "that baby's home. Not—not the house. Just her mother. She—she—Oh, she'll be back, some day."

"Mabel Bennett!" demanded Mrs. Bennett, suspecting something of the truth, "how long have you had that child here?"

"Not—Oh, not so very long," evaded Mabel.

"Mabel," demanded her mother, "tell me, instantly, exactly how long?"

"About—yes, just about five weeks."

"Five weeks!" gasped Mrs. Bennett.

"Five weeks!" shrieked Mrs. Tucker.

"Five weeks!" groaned Mrs. Mapes.

"Fi—ve weeks!" cried Aunty Jane.

"It'll be five to-morrow," said Bettie.

"No, the day after," corrected Marjory.

For the next few moments the mothers and Aunty Jane were too astounded for further speech. The girls, too, had nothing to say. All four of the Cottagers kept their eyes on the floor, for they knew precisely what their elders were thinking.

"Jean," began Mrs. Mapes, reproachfully.

"I—I wanted to tell," stammered Jean.

"I wouldn't let her," defended Mabel, looking up. "They all wanted to tell, but I wouldn't let them. Truly, they did, Mrs. Mapes."

"But five whole weeks!" murmured Mrs. Bennett. "I wonder that you were able to keep the secret so long. Why! I've been over here half a dozen times at least to ask for my scissors and other things that Mabel has carried off."

"So have I," said Mrs. Mapes.

"So have I," echoed Mrs. Tucker.

"And so have I," added Aunty Jane, "and I've never heard a sound from that remarkable child."

"You see," confessed Bettie, flushing guiltily, "we kept the door locked. Whenever we saw anybody coming we whisked Rosa Marie into the spare-room closet."

"If Rosa Marie had been an ordinary child," explained Jean, "she would probably have howled; but you see, every blessed thing about us was so new and strange to her that she just thought that everything we did was all right. And anyhow, she doesn't have the same sort of feelings that Anne Halliday does. Anne would have cried."

"You naughty, naughty children," scolded Mrs. Mapes, "to keep a secret like that for five whole weeks."

"But, Mother," protested Jean, gently, "we never supposed it was going to be a five-weeks-long secret. We didn't want it to be. We've been expecting her horrid mother to turn up every single minute since Rosa Marie came."

"It was all my fault," declared loyal Mabel. "They'd have told, the very first minute, if it hadn't been for me. Blame me for everything."

"What," asked Mrs. Bennett, "do you intend to do with that—that atrocious child?"

"She isn't atrocious!" blazed Mabel, with sudden fire. "She's a perfect darling, when you get used to her, and I love her. She isn't so very pretty, I know, but she's just dear. She's good, and that—and that's—Why! You've said, yourself, that it was better to be good than beautiful."

"But what do you intend to do with her?" persisted Mrs. Bennett.

"Keep her," said Mabel, firmly. "She doesn't eat anything much but milk and sample packages."

"You can't. I won't have her in my house. Why! Her parents are probably dreadful people."

"That's why she ought to have me for a mother and you for a grandmother," pleaded Mabel, earnestly. "But if you don't like her, I'll keep her here."

"But you can't, Mabel. It's so cold that there ought to be a fire here this minute, and you can't possibly leave a child alone with a fire."

"Couldn't you take her, Mrs. Mapes?" pleaded Mabel.

"No, I'm afraid I couldn't. If she were the least bit lovable——"

"Oh, she is——"

"Not to me," returned Mrs. Mapes, firmly.

"Wouldn't you take her, Mrs. Tucker?"

"What! With all the family I have now? I couldn't think of such a thing."

"Then you," begged Mabel, turning to Aunty Jane. "There's only you and Marjory in that great big house. Oh, do take her."

"Mercy! I'd just as soon undertake to board a live bear! Why! Nobody wants a child of that sort around. She's as homely——"

"I'm extremely glad," said Mabel, with much dignity and a great deal of emphasis, "that my child doesn't understand grown-up English."

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Mapes, smiling with sympathetic understanding, "we four older people had better talk this matter over by ourselves. Suppose you walk home with me.

"I think," said Aunty Jane, forgetting all about the saucepan that had led her to the Cottage, "that the orphan asylum is the place for that unspeakable child."

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Bennett, "she'll certainly have to go to the asylum."

CHAPTER VIII
The Fugitive Soldier

THE Cottage door closed behind the three excited parents and Aunty Jane. The four Cottagers, all decidedly pale and subdued, looked at one another in silence. It is one thing to confess a fault; it is quite another to be ignominiously found out. Jean and Bettie and Marjory were feeling this very keenly; but Mabel was far more troubled at the prospect of losing Rosa Marie.

"The orphan asylum!" breathed Bettie, at length.

"It's wicked," blazed Mabel, "to make an orphan of a person that isn't."

"I've heard," said Marjory, reflectively, "that orphans have to eat fried liver."

"Horrors!" gasped Mabel.

"And codfish."

"Oh horrors!" moaned Mabel, who detested both liver and codfish.

"And prunes," pursued teasing Marjory, wickedly remembering Mabel's dislike for that wholesome but insipid fruit. The prunes proved entirely too much for Mabel.

"Pup—pup—prunes!" she sobbed. "And you stand there and don't do a thing to save her! I guess if I were Eliza escaping with my baby on cakes of ice——"

"Rosa Marie's about the right color," giggled Marjory, who could not resist so fine an opportunity to tease excitable Mabel.

"You'd all be glad enough to help, but when it's just me——"

"Oh, we'll help," soothed Jean, slipping an arm about Mabel. "You know we always do stand by you."

"Yes, we'll all help," promised Bettie, "if you'll just tell us what to do. Only please don't get us into any more trouble with our mothers."

"There's the cellar," suggested Mabel, doubtfully, yet with glimmerings of hope. "I read a story once about a lady who sat on a cellar door, knitting stockings."

"Why in the world," demanded Marjory, "did she sit on the door?"

"Some soldiers were hunting for an escaped prisoner and she had him hidden there."

"Was the cellar all horrid with old papers and rats and mice and spiders and crawly things with legs?" asked Bettie, with interest.

"I hope not," shuddered Mabel, "but a soldier wouldn't mind. Dear me, I wish we'd cleaned that cellar when we first came into the Cottage. If we had, it'd be just the place to hide Rosa Marie in."

"Perhaps it isn't too late, now," said Marjory, stooping to loosen the ring in the kitchen floor. "Let's look down there, anyway."

"Let's," agreed Bettie. "It'll be something to do, at least."

Everybody helped with the door. When it was open and propped against the kitchen stove, the four girls crouched down to peer into the depths below. Even Rosa Marie, who had been released from the table-leg, crept to the edge to look.

They were not very deep depths. The place was filled with rubbish, mostly old papers and broken pasteboard boxes; but it was perfectly dry, and clean except for a thick layer of dust.

"Let's clean it out," said Mabel, recklessly grasping an armful of dusty papers and dragging them forth.

"Phew!" exclaimed Jean, tumbling back from the hole. "Er—er—er hash!"

"Oh, ki—hash! Hoo!" blubbered Bettie, likewise tumbling backwards.

"Who-is-she, who-is-she," sneezed Marjory.

"Kerchoo, kerchoo, kerchoo!" sneezed Rosa Marie, her head bobbing with each sneeze. "Kerchoo, kerchoo!"

"It's pepper," explained Mabel, when she had finished her sneeze. "I spilled a lot of it the day of Mr. Black's dinner party. I didn't know what else to do with it, so I swept it down that biggest crack."

"Goodness! What a housekeeper!" rebuked Jean, wiping her eyes.

"It's good for moths," consoled Bettie. "At any rate, Rosa Marie won't get moth-eaten."

"Perhaps," suggested Mabel, hopefully, "it's driven away all the rats and crawly things."

Working more cautiously, the girls drew forth the yellowed papers and pasteboard left by some former untidy occupant of the Cottage. They burned most of the rubbish in the kitchen stove, Jean standing guard lest burning pieces should escape to set fire to the Cottage. The work of clearing the cellar, indeed, was precisely what the girls needed, after the humiliating events of the day. All four were growing more cheerful; but they worked as swiftly as they dared, for they felt certain that the cellar, as a place of concealment for Rosa Marie, would be speedily needed.

The cellar proved to be a square hole about three feet deep. When Mabel, who for once was doing the lion's share of the work, had swept the boarded floor and sides perfectly clean, it was really a very tidy, inviting little shelter; as neat a shelter as fugitive soldier could desire.

"Now," said Mabel, "we'll put a piece of carpet and an old quilt in the bottom, tack clean papers around the sides——"

"Papers rattle," offered Marjory, sagely.

"Then we'll use cloth," declared Mabel, snatching an apron from the hook behind the door. "We'll begin right away to practise with Rosa Marie, so she'll get used to it. Then we must rehearse our parts, too."

The retreat ready, Rosa Marie went without a murmur into the underground babytender—Marjory gave it that name. Rosa Marie, at least, would do her part successfully. But it was different above ground.

"Who," demanded Jean, "is to sit on the door and knit? I couldn't—I'd fly to pieces."

"It's my child," said Mabel, "I'm going to."

"But," objected Marjory, "you can't knit. You don't know how."

"I can crochet," triumphed Mabel, "and I guess that's every bit as good."

"Where," asked Bettie, "is your crochet hook?"

But that, of course, was a question that Mabel could not answer, because Mabel never did know where any of her belongings were. Thereupon, Jean, Marjory and Mabel began a frantic search for the missing article. Mabel had used it the week previously; but could remember nothing more about it.

"Goodness!" groaned Mabel, groveling under the spare-room bed in hopes that the hook might be there. "If I'd dreamed that my child's life was going to depend on that hook, I'd have kept it locked up in father's fire-proof safe."

"That's what you get," said Marjory, with one eye glued to the top of a very tall vase, "for being so careless. It isn't in here, anyway."

"Here's one," announced Bettie, scrambling in hastily and locking the door behind her. "I skipped home for it. But there's no time to lose. All our mothers and Aunty Jane are going out of Mrs. Mapes's gate with their best hats and gloves on. There's something doing!"

In another moment, the cellar door was closed, a rocking chair was placed upon it, and Mabel, with ball of yarn and crochet hook in hand, was nervously twitching in the chair. Her fingers were stiff with dust—there had been no time to wash them—so the loop that she tied in the end of the white yarn was most decidedly black; but Mabel was thankful to achieve a loop of any color, with her whole body quivering with excitement and suspense.

"Goodness!" she quavered. "That soldier lady was a wonder! Think of her looking calm outside with her heart going like a Dover egg-beater. Do—do I look calm?"

"Here," said Bettie, extending a basin of warm water. "Soak your hands in this. Warm water is said to be soothing."

"Also cleansing," giggled Marjory.

"Hurry!" gasped quick-eared Jean, snatching the basin and hurling a towel in Mabel's direction. "I heard our gate click. There's somebody coming."

"Don't let 'em in," breathed Mabel, defiantly.

"I'm afraid," said Jean, "we'll have to."

"Anyway," soothed Bettie, "we'll peek first—there's the door-bell!"

CHAPTER IX
A Surprise

JEAN and Bettie flew to one window, Marjory to the other. Mabel wanted to fly, too, but she remained faithfully at her post, feeling quite cheered by her own heroism.

"It's dark gray trousers with a crease in 'em; not skirts," announced Marjory, peering under the edge of the shade.

"Probably a man from the asylum," shuddered Bettie. "Let's keep very still. He may think that this is the wrong house and go somewhere else."

"But," objected Jean, "he'll only come back again."

"Yes," sighed Bettie. "I s'pose we will have to open the door. You do it, Marjory."

"I don't want to," returned Marjory, unexpectedly shrinking. "It seems too much like giving Rosa Marie into the hands of the enemy. After all, we're going to miss her dreadfully and Mabel'll be just about broken-hearted. She does get so attached to things—Oh! He's ringing again."

"We'll have to unlock the door," sighed Jean, placing her hand on the key, "but dearie me, I feel just as Marjory does about it. Knit fast, Mabel."

The key turned in the lock, but the girls did not need to open the door; the visitor did that. Then there were rapturous cries of "Mr. Black! Mr. Black!"

Mabel wanted to greet Mr. Black, too, for there was nobody in the world that was kinder to little girls than the stout gentleman who had just opened their door; but she remembered that the soldier lady (in spite of the Dover egg-beater heart) had remained seated, placidly knitting; so Mabel likewise sat still and plied her crochet hook.

"Hi, hi!" exclaimed Mr. Black. "What are you all locked in for? And here I had to ring four times when I came with a present—apples right off the top of my own barrel. Began to be afraid I'd have to eat them all myself, you were so long letting me in."

"If we'd guessed that it was you and apples," said Marjory, "we'd have met you at the gate."

"Where's the other girl?" asked Mr. Black's big, cheery voice. "Doesn't she like apples, too?"

"In the kitchen," chorused Jean, Marjory and Bettie.

"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Black, striding kitchenward, "here she is, knitting like any old lady. Aren't you coming in here to eat apples with the rest of us?"

"Can't," mumbled Mabel.

"What's the matter, grandma?" teased Mr. Black. "Rheumatism troubling you to-day?"

"Nope," returned Mabel.

"Lost all your teeth?"

"Nope."

"Are you knitting me a pair of socks or is it mittens?"

"Just a chain," replied Mabel, suddenly beaming. "But, Mr. Black, does it really look as if I were knitting?"

"Precisely," smiled Mr. Black. "So much so that you remind me of the story of the woman who sat on the trap door and knitted—By Jove! That is a trap door! Here's the ring sticking up."

The girls shot a quick glance at the floor. Then they gazed guiltily at one another. Sure enough! The tell-tale ring stood upright, ready for use. No one had thought to conceal it.

"Is there a wounded soldier down there?" asked Mr. Black, jokingly.

"No!" shouted all four with suspicious haste.

The deep silence that followed was suddenly punctuated by a muffled sneeze from Rosa Marie. Undoubtedly, some of the pepper dislodged from the crack in the floor had sifted down to the prisoner.

The faces of the four girls flushed guiltily. Mr. Black looked wonderingly at the little group. It was plain that something was wrong. Jean, who had always met her friend's glance with level, truthful eyes, was now looking most sheepishly at her own toes. Bettie, hitherto always ready to tell the whole truth, was now fiddling evasively with the corner of her apron. Marjory's fair skin was crimson; her usually frank blue eyes were intent on something under the kitchen table.

"Is there some sort of an animal in that cellar?" demanded Mr. Black.

Rosa Marie chose this moment to give another large sneeze.

"Is it something you're afraid of?" demanded Mr. Black.

"'Fraid of losing," mumbled Mabel, shamefacedly. Poor Mabel realized only too well that she, with her knitting and her too-perfect playing of the part, had given the secret away; and she felt all the bitterness of failure.

Seizing the back of Mabel's chair, Mr. Black drew it swiftly off the trap door. In another moment, he had the door open.

Rosa Marie, blinking at the sudden light, bobbed upward. Mr. Black involuntarily started back from the opening.

"What under heavens is that!" he gasped. "A monkey?"

And, indeed, the error was a perfectly natural one, for all he had been able to see was a tousled head of hair, beneath which gleamed small black eyes.

"I should say not!" blazed Mabel. "It's my little girl—my Rosa Marie."

"Does she bite? Is she dangerous? Is that why you treat her like potatoes?"

"Most certainly not," returned Mabel, with dignity. "She's an Indian."

"Bless me!" said Mr. Black, leaning cautiously forward. "Let's have a look at her."

Now that the secret was out, everybody eagerly clutched some portion of Rosa Marie's clothing. She was drawn, with some difficulty and sundry tearings of cloth, from the "Soldier's Retreat." Mabel cuddled the blinking small person in her lap.

"Did you pick her up in the woods?" asked Mr. Black, "or did you simply kidnap her? Or, dreadful thought! Did you order her by number from some catalogue? And did they charge you full price?"

Then Mabel, helped by the other three, told all that they knew of the history of Rosa Marie; and of Mabel's affection for the queer brown baby. They told him everything. Mabel, with visions of the orphan asylum's doors yawning to engulf precious Rosa Marie, considered it a very sad story. She felt grieved and indignant because Mr. Black, instead of sympathizing, laughed until his sides shook. Even the pathetic diet of liver, codfish and prunes seemed to amuse him.

"What would you have said if your mothers had asked you where this child was?" inquired Mr. Black presently. "I mean, when you had her down cellar?"

Jean looked at Bettie, Bettie looked at Marjory, Marjory looked at Mabel.

"We never thought of that," confessed Bettie.

"Oh," groaned Mabel, holding Rosa Marie closer, "our plan isn't any good after all. We'd have to tell the truth if they asked; we always do."

"Yes," said Jean, "they'd get it out of us at once."

"Even," teased Marjory, shrewdly, "if Mabel, sitting upon that trap door, were not every bit as good as a printed sign."

"Never mind," soothed Jean, slipping an arm about Mabel's shoulders, "we'd rather be honest than smart, since we can't be both."

Mabel needed soothing. She sat still and made no sound; but large tears were rolling down her cheeks and splashing on Rosa Marie's black head. Mr. Black regarded them thoughtfully. He noticed too that Mabel's moderately white hand was closed tightly over Rosa Marie's brown fingers. It reminded him, some way, of his own youthful agony over parting with a puppy that he had not been allowed to keep—he had always regretted that puppy.

Suddenly the front door, propelled by some unseen force, opened from without to admit the three mothers and Aunty Jane, followed closely by Mr. Tucker, Dr. Bennett and two young women in nurses' uniform. They crowded into the little parlor and filled it to overflowing. None of the Cottagers said a word; but Mabel, tears still rolling down her cheeks, silently clasped both arms tightly about Rosa Marie's body. It began to look as if Rosa Marie would have to be taken by force.

"It's all arranged," announced Mrs. Bennett, breathlessly. "The asylum is willing to take her and she is to go at once with these young ladies. Come, Mabel, don't be foolish. Take your arms away. You're behaving very badly—There, there, I'll buy you something."

"You're just a little too late," said Mr. Black, keeping watchful eyes on Mabel's speaking countenance. "I've decided to take the responsibility of Rosa Marie into my own hands."

CHAPTER X
Breaking the News

WHEN Mr. Black went home that afternoon to explain the matter to his good sister, Mrs. Crane, he took with him not only Rosa Marie, but Jean, Marjory, Bettie and Mabel, whose parents had given them permission to escort the brown baby to her new home.

"You see," said he, while waiting for Rosa Marie to be made somewhat more attractive, "I want you to tell the story to Mrs. Crane, precisely as you told it to me. But don't mention me until you get to the very end."

With her hair brushed and braided and her fat little body stuffed into a pink gingham apron that the Cottagers had laboriously cut down from a wrapper of Mrs. Halliday's, Rosa Marie looked her best, in spite of the fact that she wore no shoes and stockings. She trotted contentedly at Mabel's side; but Bettie, who was supposed to be walking with Mr. Black, pranced delightedly about him in circles, to show her gratitude. Jean and Marjory followed more sedately but with beaming countenances.

Now that Mrs. Crane was no longer poor, she was always dressed very neatly in black silk. Except for that she was precisely the same jolly, good-natured woman that she had been when she lived alone in the little house just across the street from Dandelion Cottage. Now, however, she lived with her brother, Mr. Black, in his big, imposing, but rather gloomy house. She had no husband, he had no wife and neither had any children. Perhaps that is why they were both so fond of the Dandelion Cottagers.

Mrs. Crane was planting bulbs in the garden when Mr. Black ushered his procession in at the gate.

"Bless my soul!" said she, "here you are just in time to help. I always said that if ever I got a chance to plant all the tulip bulbs I wanted, I'd die of pure happiness; but I guess I stand more chance of dying of a broken back. My land! I've planted two thousand three hundred and forty-eight of the best-looking bulbs I ever laid eyes on, and there ain't a hole in those boxes yet. They're all named, too. Here's Rachel Ruish, Rose Grisdelin, Rosy Mundi, Yellow Prince, the Duke of York—think of having him in your front yard—and Lady Grandison, two inches apart, clear to the gate. But land! I suppose a body's tongue'd go lame counting diamonds."

"Why don't you let Martin plant them?" asked Mr. Black, with a twinkle in his eye. It was plain that he enjoyed his talkative elderly sister.

"And have them all bloom in China?" retorted Mrs. Crane. "Now you know, Peter, that Martin couldn't get a bulb right end up if there were printed directions on the skin of every bulb. But Jean there, and Bettie——"

"We'll do it," cried the girls. "Just tell us how."

"Two inches apart, pointed end up, all the way along those little trenches," directed Mrs. Crane, seating herself in the wheelbarrow. "No, not you, Mabel. You and Martin—Well, I won't say it. Why! What's the matter with your face? Looks to me as if you'd dusted the coal bin with yourself and then cried about it. What's the trouble?"

Thereupon Mabel introduced Rosa Marie, who had been shyly hiding behind a rosebush, told her story and graphically described the horrors of the orphan asylum.

"While I don't believe that any orphan asylum is as black as you've painted that one," said Mrs. Crane, "it does seem a pity to shut a little outdoor animal like that up in a cage when she ain't used to it. Now, Peter, you listen to me. Why couldn't we keep Rosa Marie here for a time. Like enough, her mother'll be back after her most any day. In the meantime, she'd be more company than a cat and easier to wash than a poodle."

"Well now, I don't know," returned Mr. Black, winking at Mabel. "A child is a great deal of trouble."

"Shame on you, Peter Black. It's only yesterday that you bought a wretched old horse to keep his owner from ill-treating him; and here you are refusing——"

"Oh, not exactly refusing——"

"Begrudging, anyway, to rescue that innocent lamb——"

"She means black sheep," whispered Marjory, into Jean's convenient ear.

"From that institution. Peter Black! I'm just going to keep that child, anyway."

At this, all five laughed merrily. Rosa Marie, cheered by the sound, reached gravely into a paper bag, gravely handed each person a tulip bulb and appropriated one herself. She took a generous bite out of hers.

"We'll plant 'em in a ring around that snowball bush," said Mrs. Crane, rescuing the bitten bulb, bite and all. "That shall be Rosa Marie's own flower bed."

"There's a nursery on the second floor," said Mr. Black. "You girls must help us fix it up. And, Mabel, perhaps you would like to spend this money for some toys that would just exactly suit Rosa Marie."

Mabel beamed gratefully as she accepted the money and the responsibility. Never before had any one singled her out to perform a task that required discretion. It was always Jean, or Bettie, or sometimes even Marjory that was chosen. Never before had greatness been thrust upon Mabel. She lavished grateful, affectionate glances on Mr. Black and inwardly determined to save part of the cash with which to buy him a Christmas present, not realizing that that would be a misappropriation of funds.

Mabel, however, felt a pang of jealousy when Rosa Marie, digging contentedly in the sand at Mrs. Crane's feet, allowed her former guardian to depart absolutely unnoticed.

"I did think," confided Mabel to Bettie, who walked beside her, "that she'd at least look as if she cared."

That night the mothers made peace with their daughters, and Aunty Jane extended a flag of truce to Marjory.

"It was all for your own good," explained Mrs. Bennett, her arm about Mabel, who was missing the pleasant task of putting Rosa Marie to bed. "I couldn't let you grow up with a little Indian continually at your heels. You'd have grown tired of her, too. And by keeping silence so long, you did a great deal of harm. If we'd known about the matter at once, we might have been able to find her mother. Now it's too late."

"I never thought of that," said Mabel, contritely. "I'll tell right away, next time."

"Mabel! There mustn't be a next time. Promise me this instant that you'll never borrow another baby unless you know that its mother really wants to keep it. Promise."

"All right, I promise," said Mabel, cheerfully.

"But I can't think," remarked Mrs. Bennett, "what possessed Mr. Black to be so foolish as to take such a child into his own home."

There were other persons that wondered, too, why Mr. Black should burden his household with the care of what Martin, his man, called an uncivilized savage; but the truth of the matter was just this. The large silent tears rolling down Mabel's forlorn countenance had suddenly proved too much for the tender heart of Mr. Black. In some ways, perhaps, impulsive Mr. Black was not a wise man; but, where children were concerned, there was no doubt of his being an exceedingly tender person.

CHAPTER XI
The Alarm

NOW that the burden of caring for Rosa Marie was shifted to older and more competent shoulders, the Cottagers' thoughts returned to their school-work. It was time. Never had lessons been so neglected. Never before had four moderately intelligent little girls seemed so stupid. But of course with their minds filled with Rosa Marie, it had been impossible to keep the rivers of South America from lightmindedly running over into Asia, or the products of British Columbia from being exported from Calcutta.

These fortunate girls attended a beautiful school. That is, the building was beautiful. It stood right in the middle of a great big grassy block, entirely surrounded, as Bettie put it, by street, which of course added greatly to its dignity. It was built of "raindrop" sandstone, a most interesting building material because no two blocks were alike and also because each stone looked as if it had just been sprinkled with big, spattering drops of rain. It was hard when looking at it to believe that it wasn't raining, and certain naughty youngsters delighted in fooling new teachers by pointing out the deceiving drops that flecked the balustrade. Perhaps even the grass was fooled by this semblance to showers for, in summer time, it grew so thriftily that no one had to be warned to "Keep off," so a great many little people frolicked in the schoolyard even during vacation.

Of course the Dandelion Cottagers were not in the same classes in school. Jean, being the oldest, the most sedate and the most studious, was almost through the eighth grade. Marjory, being naturally very bright and also moderately industrious, was in the seventh. Mabel and Bettie were not exactly anywhere. You see, Bettie had had to stay out so often to keep the next to the youngest Tucker baby from falling downstairs, that naturally she had dropped behind all the classes that she had ever started with; and Mabel—of course Mabel meant well, but when she studied at all it was usually the lesson for some other day; for this blundering maiden never could remember which was the right page. But one day she happened by some lucky accident to stumble upon the right one, and on that solitary occasion she recited so very brilliantly that Miss Bonner and all the pupils dropped their books to listen in astonishment, and Mabel was marked one hundred.

But in spite of this high mark in good black ink (if one stood less than seventy-five red ink was employed) the thing did not happen again that fall because Mabel was too busy bringing up Rosa Marie to study even the wrong lesson. However, she was exceedingly fond of pretty Miss Bonner and, having learned the exact date of that young woman's birthday, hoped to appease her by a gift to be paid for by contributions from all the pupils in Miss Bonner's room. Mabel herself received and cared for the slowly accumulating funds, and the little brown purse was becoming almost as weighty a responsibility as Rosa Marie had been. Sometimes it rested in Mabel's untrustworthy pocket, sometimes in her rather untidy desk, sometimes under her pillow in her own room at home. One day Mrs. Bennett found it there.

"Why, Mabel!" she exclaimed. "Where did all this money come from? I know you don't possess any."

"It's the M. B. B. P. F.," responded Mabel, who was brushing her hair with evident enjoyment and two very handsome military brushes. "I guess I'd better put it in my pocket."

"The what?" asked puzzled Mrs. Bennett.

"The Miss Bonner Birthday Present Fund. I'm the Cus—Cus—Custodium."

"The what kind of cuss?" asked Dr. Bennett, who had just poked his head in at the door to ask if, by any chance, Mabel had seen anything of his hair brushes.

"The Custodium," replied Mabel, with dignity.

"I think she means 'Custodian.'" explained Mrs. Bennett, rescuing the brushes.

"Well," retorted Mabel, "the toad part was all right if the tail wasn't. Marjory named me that, and she's always using bigger words than she ought to."

"So is somebody else," said Dr. Bennett, forgetting to scold about the brushes. "But I think the 'Custodium' had better hurry, or she'll be late for school."

That was Friday, and the little brown purse contained two dollars and forty-seven cents, which seemed a tremendous sum to inexperienced Mabel.

She remembered afterwards how very big, imposing and substantial the school building had looked that morning as she approached it and noticed some strangers fingering the "rain-drops" to see if they were real. Indeed, everybody, from the largest tax-payer down to the smallest pupil, was proud of that building because it was so big and because there was no more rain-drop sandstone left in the quarry from which it had been taken. Even thoughtless Mabel always swelled with pride when tourists paused to comment on the queer, spotted appearance of those massive walls. She meant to point that building out some day to her grandchildren as the fount of all her learning; for the huge, solid building looked as if it would certainly outlast not only Mabel's grandchildren but all their great-great-grandchildren as well. But it didn't.

The catastrophe came on Saturday. Afterwards, everybody in Lakeville was glad, since the thing had to happen at all, that the day was Saturday, for no one liked to think what might have happened had the trouble come on a schoolday. It was also a Saturday in the first week of November, which was not quite so fortunate, as there was a stiff north wind.

At two o'clock that afternoon the streets were almost deserted, but weatherproof Dick Tucker, with his hands in his pockets, was going along whistling at the top of his very good lungs. By the merest chance he glanced at the wide windows of Lakeville's most pretentious possession, the big Public School building.

From four of the upper windows floated thin, softly curling plumes of gray smoke. The windows were closed, but the smoke appeared to be leaking out from the surrounding frames.

"Hello!" muttered Dick, suddenly shutting off his whistle. "That looks like smoke. The janitor must be rebuilding the furnace fire. But why should smoke—I guess I'll investigate."

The puzzled boy ran up the steps, pulled the vestibule door open and eagerly pressed his nose against the plate-glass panel of the inner door, which was locked. Through the glass, however, he could plainly see that the wide corridor was thick with smoke. He could even smell it.

"Great guns!" exclaimed Dick. "There's things doing in there! That furnace never smokes as hard as all that and besides the Janitor always has Saturday afternoons off. Perhaps the basement door is unlocked."

Dick ran down the steps to find that door, too, securely fastened.

"I guess," said Dick, with another look at the curling smoke about the upper windows, "the thing for me to do is to turn in an alarm."

Dick happened to know where the alarm-box was situated, so, feeling most important, yet withal strangely shaky as to legs, the lad made for the corner, a good long block distant, smashed the glass according to directions, and sent in the alarm, a thing that he had always longed to do.

Five minutes later, the big red hosecart, with gong ringing, firemen shouting and dogs barking, was dashing up the street. The hook and ladder company followed and a meat wagon, or rather a meat-wagon horse, galloped after. The foundry whistle began to give the ward number in long, melancholy, terrifying toots and the hosehouse bell joined in with a mad clamor. People poured from the houses along the hosecart's route, for in Lakeville it was customary for private citizens to attend all fires.

Dick, feeling most important, stood on the schoolhouse steps and pointed upward. The hosecart stopped with a jerk that must have surprised the horses, firemen leaped down and in a twinkling the foremost had smashed in the big glass door.

"It's a fire all right," said he.

Meanwhile the Janitor, chopping wood in his own backyard (which was his way of enjoying his afternoons off), had listened intently to the fire alarm.

"Six-Two," said he, suddenly dropping his ax. "Guess I'll have a look at that fire. That's pretty close to my school."

CHAPTER XII
The Fire

JEAN, Bettie, Marjory and Mabel ran with the rest to see what was happening, for their homes were not far from the schoolhouse. Indeed, owing to its ample setting, the building was plainly visible from all directions; and from a distance, it always loomed larger than anything else in the town. To all the citizens it was a most unusual and alarming sight to see thick, black smoke curling about the eaves and rising in a threatening column above the familiar building. Such a thing had never happened before.

Marjory was the first of the quartette to discover what was going on. She had opened her bedroom window the better to count the strokes of the fire-bell when, to her astonishment, she saw the fire itself or at least the smoke thereof. Her first thought was of her three friends; for of course no Cottager could view such a spectacle as this promised to be without the companionship of the other three.

So Marjory flew around the block—like a little excited hen, Dr. Tucker said—and collected the girls. They ran in a body to join the swelling crowd that surrounded the smoking building.

"Keep back out of danger," called Aunty Jane, who was watching the fire from her upstairs window.

"We will," shrieked Marjory, who, with the other three, was rushing by.

"Don't get mixed up with the hose," warned Dr. Tucker, who was carrying young Peter to view the fire.

"We won't," promised Bettie. "We'll stand on the very safest corner."

"This is it," declared Jean, stopping short on the sidewalk. "We can see right over the heads of the folks that are close to the building."

"Should you think," panted Mabel, hopefully, "that there'd be school Monday?"

"Looks doubtful," said Marjory.

"Not upstairs, anyway," returned Jean. "Everything must be smoked perfectly black. And it's getting worse every minute instead of better."

"Goodness!" cried Mabel, suddenly turning pale at a new and alarming thought. "I do hope it won't burn my room. The money for Miss Bonner's birthday present is in my desk. It's—it's a horrible lot of money to lose. I ought never to have left it there. Dear me! Do you think——"

"Phew!" cried Jean, paying no heed to Mabel. "Look at that!"

"That" was a terrifying flash of red that suddenly illumined six of the big upper windows.

"The High School room," groaned Bettie. "It's—it's flames!"

"Hang it!" growled an indignant tax-payer. "Why doesn't somebody do something? That building cost fifty thousand dollars."

"Fire started from a defective flue on top floor," explained another bystander, "but that's no reason why the whole place should go. There's no fire downstairs, but there will be—What's that? No water? Broken hydrant?"

Mabel listened attentively. The bystander continued:

"Then the whole building is doomed. It's had time enough to get a tremendous start."

"Oh, look!" cried Jean. "It's bursting through into the next room—my room! Oh, how dreadful! All our plants, our books, our pictures—Oh, oh! I can't bear to look."

Firemen and volunteer helpers were, hurrying in and out the wide south door. Men carried out towering piles of books and tossed them ruthlessly to the ground. Miss Bonner's big pink geranium was added to the heap. The Janitor appeared with the big hall clock, that wouldn't go at all on ordinary occasions but was now striking seven hundred and twenty-seven—or something like that—all at one stretch. It seemed to be crying out in alarm. The roar of flames could now be heard, likewise.

"Why!" exclaimed Jean, wheeling suddenly. "Where's Mabel? Wasn't she right beside you a minute ago, Bettie? I certainly saw her there."

"She was—but she isn't now," returned Bettie, looking about anxiously. "I thought she was behind me."

"Dear me!" murmured motherly Jean. "I hope she hasn't gone any closer. Suppose the scallops on that roof should begin to melt off."

"Oh, look!" cried Marjory. "There! In the doorway!"

All three looked just in time to see a short, not-very-slender girl in an unmistakable red cap dart in at the smoky doorway.

"Oh," groaned Jean, "it's Mabel!"

"Oh," moaned Marjory, "why did I ever tell her that there was a fire?"

"I'm afraid," hazarded Bettie, "that she's gone to Miss Bonner's room to get that money."

Bettie was right. That was exactly what Mabel had done.

All along Mabel's way hands had stretched out to stop the flying figure. But the hands were always just a little too late. You see, the owners of the tardy hands did not realize quickly enough that rash little Mabel actually meant to enter a building whose top floor was all in flames. She was fairly inside before the onlookers grasped the situation.

"How perfectly foolish!" cried Marjory, stamping her foot in helpless rage. "Of course somebody'll get her out—there's two men going in now—but how perfectly silly for her to go in at all!"

Mabel, however, was not feeling at all foolish. No, indeed. The little girl, to her own way of thinking, was doing a worthy, even a heroic, deed. She was rescuing the precious two dollars and forty-seven cents that her class had so laboriously raised to buy Miss Bonner a birthday gift. She would have liked to accomplish it in a little less spectacular manner, but, no other way being available, she had made the best of circumstances and was ignoring the crowd. She hoped, indeed, that no one had noticed her; with so much else to look at it seemed as if one small girl might easily remain unobserved. To be sure she was risking her life, the life of the only little girl that her parents possessed; but that seemed a small affair beside two dollars and forty-seven cents. The roof might fall, the cornice might drop, the huge chimney might collapse, the suffocating smoke or scorching flames might suddenly pour into that still unburned lower room. Let them! Heroes never stopped for such trifles with such a sum at stake.

By this time, Jean, Marjory and Bettie were white and absolutely speechless with fear. Four firemen were sitting on Dr. Bennett to keep him from rushing in after the little girl he had promptly recognized as his own, and five women were supporting and encouraging Mrs. Bennett, who had grown too weak to stand although she still had her wits about her.

"Fifty dollars reward," Mr. Black was shouting, "to the man that gets that child!"

He would have gone after her himself, but Mrs. Crane had him firmly by the coat-tails and both Dr. and Mrs. Tucker were clinging to his arms.

"Be aisy, be aisy," Mrs. Malony, the egg-woman was murmuring to the world in general. "Miss Mabel's the kind thot's always escapin' jist be the skin av her teeth. Rest aisy. Thim fire-laddies'll be havin' her out av thot dure in another jiffy."

But, although the crowd rested as "aisy" as it could, the moments went by and no Mabel appeared.

With every instant the fire grew worse. By this time, the smoke and angry sheets of flame had burst through the roof and were streaming, with a mighty, threatening roar, straight up into the blackened sky—a splendid sight that was visible for a long distance. There was no water to check the mighty fire, for, a very few moments after the hose had been attached, the hydrant had burst and the water that should have been busy quenching the fire was quietly drenching the feet of many an unheeding bystander.

And presently the thing that everybody expected happened. With a lingering, horrible crash a large part of the upper floor dropped to the main hall below. Smoke poured from the lower doors and windows. In another moment leaping hungry flames were visible in every room except the basement. The entire superstructure seemed now just like a gigantic, topless furnace; and of course it was no longer possible for even the firemen to venture inside.

But where was Mabel?

CHAPTER XIII
A Heroine's Come-Down

MABEL, with the Janitor and four pursuing firemen at her reckless heels, had made a bold dash through the long corridor that led to Miss Bonner's room. Owing to a strong upward draft, there was surprisingly little smoke in this corridor and none at all in Miss Bonner's distant corner.

Still hotly pursued, Mabel, who had the advantage of knowing exactly whither she was bound, darted down the narrow aisle, reached into her desk, and, unselfishly passing by sundry dearly loved treasures of her own, seized the fat brown purse. Such joy to find it when so many of the desks had been stripped of their contents!

She was none too soon, for the next moment the Janitor's hands had closed upon her and, plump as she was, the sturdy fellow easily carried her out of the room, although Mabel protested crossly that she would much rather walk. In this uncomfortable fashion they reached the corridor.

THE STURDY FELLOW CARRIED HER OUT OF THE ROOM.

"Not that way—not that way!" shouted the firemen, pointing towards a glowing, spreading patch on the ceiling of the main hall. "It's breaking through—you can't reach the door! It's not safe at that end."

"Down to the basement!" shouted the Janitor, nodding toward a narrow doorway, through which the men promptly vanished.

Then, seemingly, a new thought assailed the Janitor.

"Open door number twelve," he shouted after the men.

Then, hurriedly pushing up a sliding door at the safest end of the hall and murmuring "Quicker this way," the Janitor unceremoniously lifted Mabel and dropped her down the big dust-chute.

What a place for a heroine! In spite of her surprise, Mabel felt deeply mortified. It was humiliating enough for a would-be rescuer to be rescued; but to be dropped down a horrid, stuffy dust-chute and to land with a queer, springy thud on a pile of sliding stuff—the contents of a dozen or more waste-baskets and the results of innumerable sweepings—was worse.

In a very few seconds, the hasty Janitor had opened the lower door of the chute and, with the firemen standing by, was calmly hauling her out by her feet—Oh! She could never tell that part of it.

And then, as if that were not bad enough, that inconsiderate Janitor seized her by the elbow and hurried her right into the coal bin, forced her to march over eighty tons of black, dusty, sliding coal and finally compelled her to crawl—yes, crawl—out of a small basement window on the safest side of the building. The only explanation that the rescuer vouchsafed was a gruff statement that the fire was "More to the other end" and that short-cuts saved time. Mabel tried to tell him what she thought about it, but the Janitor seemed too excited to listen.

Of course, by this time, the Bennetts, the Cottagers, the firemen, the Janitor's wife and most of the bystanders were in a perfectly dreadful state of mind; for the coal-hole window was not on their side of the building—Mabel was glad of that—so none of her friends witnessed her exit. The Cottagers, in particular, were clutching each other and fairly quaking with fear when a familiar voice behind them panted breathlessly:

"I saved it, girls."

Jean, Marjory and Bettie wheeled as one girl. It was certainly Mabel's voice, the shape and size were Mabel's, but the color——

"Oh!" cried Jean, in a horrified tone. "Are you burned? Are you all burned up to a crisp?"

But thoughtful Bettie, after one searching look to make certain that it really was Mabel, had not stopped to ask questions, nor to hear them answered. She remembered that the Bennetts were still anxious concerning their missing daughter, and straightway flew to relieve their minds.

"She's safe, Mabel's safe," she shouted, running to the Bennetts, to Mr. Black, to the Tuckers, to all Mabel's friends, and completely forgetting her own usual shyness. "Yes, she's all safe. No, not burned; just scorched, I guess."

Then everybody crowded around Mabel. Mrs. Bennett was about to kiss her, but desisted just in time.

"Mabel!" she cried, as Jean had done. "Are you burned?"

"No," mumbled Mabel, indignantly. "I'm not even singed. I—I just came out through the coal hole, but you needn't tell. That horrid Janitor dragged me out over a whole mountain of coal."

"Thank Heaven!" breathed Mrs. Bennett.

"Huh!" snorted Mabel, "that's a mighty queer thing to thank Heaven for, when it was only last night that I had a perfectly good bath. That's the meanest Janitor——"

"Where is he?" demanded Dr. Bennett, eagerly. "I must thank him."

"Yes," said Mrs. Bennett, "I must thank him too."

"And I," said Dr. Tucker, "should like to shake hands with him."

And would you believe it! Not a soul had a word of praise for Mabel's bravery. Not a person commended her for saving that precious purse. Instead, the local paper devoted a whole column to lauding the prompt action of that sickening Janitor, Dr. Bennett gave him a splendid gold watch, the School Board recommended him for a Carnegie medal—all because of the dust-chute.

"Don't let me hear any more," Dr. Bennett said that night, "about that miserable two dollars and forty-seven cents. I'd rather give you two hundred and forty-seven dollars than have you take such risks."

"Yes, sir," rejoined Mabel, meekly. "But you didn't say anything like that day before yesterday when I asked for three more cents to make it an even two-fifty. I must say I don't understand grown folks."

"Mabel, you go—go take that bath. And when you're clean enough to kiss, come back and say good-night."

"Yes, sir," sighed Mabel, "but I do wish I could raise three more cents."

Mr. Bennett fished two quarters and three pennies from his pocket and handed them to Mabel.

"There," said he, "you have an even three dollars, but I hope you won't consider it necessary to rescue them in case of any more fires."

Fortunately, there were no more fires; but the original one made up for this lack by lasting for an astonishing length of time. For seven days the school building continued to burn in a safe but expensive manner; for the eighty tons of coal over which Mabel had walked so unwillingly had caught fire late in the afternoon and had burned steadily until entirely reduced to ashes. It was a strange, uncanny sight after dark to see the mighty ruin still lighted by a fitful glare from within. Only the four walls, the bare outer shell of the huge structure, remained. You see, all the rest of it had been wood—and steam pipes. Every splinter of wood was gone; but the pipes, and there seemed to be miles of them, were twisted like mighty serpents. They filled the cellar and seemed fairly to writhe in the scarlet glow. It made one think of dragons and volcanoes and things like that; and caused creepy feelings in one's spine.

Even the dust-chute was gone. Mabel was glad of that. She hated to think of the Janitor proudly pointing it out to visitors and saying:

"I once dropped a girl down there."

CHAPTER XIV
A Birthday Party

BUT if Mabel derived little joy from her experience as a heroine, there was at least some satisfaction in knowing that there could be no school on Monday, for Mabel was decidedly partial toward holidays.

"If I ever teach school," she often said, "there'll be two Saturdays every week and no afternoon sessions."

Jean, however, really liked to go to school. So did Marjory, but Bettie was uncertain.

"If," said Bettie, "I could go long enough to know what grade I belonged in it might be interesting; but when you only attend in patches it's sort of mixing. There's a little piece of me in three different grades."

When Mrs. Crane realized that there could be no school on Monday, she too was pleased. She stopped a moment after church on Sunday to intercept the girls on their way to Sunday School.

"My!" said she. "How spruce you look!"

They did look "spruce." Tall Jean was all in brown, even to her gloves and overshoes. Marjory's trim little winter suit was of dark green broadcloth with gray furs, for neat Aunty Jane, whatever her other failings, always kept Marjory very beautifully dressed. Bettie's short, kilted skirt was red under a boyish black reefer that had once belonged to Dick, and a black hat that Bob had discarded as "too floppy" had been wired and trimmed with scarlet cloth to match the skirt. This hand-me-down outfit was very becoming to dark-eyed Bettie, but then, Bettie was pretty in anything. Plump Mabel was buttoned tightly into a navy blue suit. Although she had owned it for barely six weeks it was no longer big enough either lengthwise or sidewise.

"But," said Mabel, cheerfully, "by holding my breath most of the time I can stand it for one hour on Sundays."

"How would you like," asked Mrs. Crane, "to spend to-morrow with me and Rosa Marie?"

"We'd love to," said Jean.

"We'd like it a lot," said Marjory.

"Just awfully," breathed Bettie.

"Oh, goody!" gurgled Mabel.

"You see," said Mrs. Crane, "I'm not altogether easy about Rosa Marie. I do every living thing I can think of, but someway I can't get inside that child's shell. I declare, it seems sometimes as if she really pities me for being so stupid. And I think she's falling off in her looks."

"Oh, I hope not," cried Mabel, fervently.

"No," agreed Marjory, "it certainly wouldn't do for Rosa Marie to fall off very much."

"However," returned Mrs. Crane, loyally, "she might be very much worse and at any rate she is warm and well fed, even if she does seem a bit—foreign. So that Janitor put you down through the dust-chute, did he, Mabel? You must have landed with quite a jolt."

"No," returned Mabel, rather sulkily, for every one was mentioning the dust-chute. "I had all September's and October's sweepings to land on. It was all mushy and springy, like mother's bed."

"How," pursued kindly Mrs. Crane, "did he get you out?"

"I'd—I'd rather not say," mumbled Mabel, flushing a brilliant crimson. No one else had thought to ask this dreaded question, and the papers, fortunately, had overlooked this detail.

"Why!" giggled teasing Marjory, "he must have dragged her out by her feet because she's so fat that she couldn't possibly have turned herself over in that narrow space. It's just like a chimney, you know. I've often looked down that place and wondered if Santa Claus could manage the trip down. Oh, Mabel! It must have been funny! Tell us about it."

Mabel grinned, but it was rather a sickly grin.

"First," she said, "he clawed out a lot of papers and stuff. Ugh! It was horrid to feel everything sliding right out from under me—I didn't know how far I was going to drop. Then he grabbed my two ankles and just jerked me out on the bias through the little door at the bottom. I suppose it was a lot quicker. But he didn't need to make me climb all that coal."

"Yes, he did," returned Jean. "The cornice on the other three sides was all loose and flopping up and down in the flames. Pieces kept falling. The coal-bin side was the last to burn—the wind went the other way—and Miss Bonner's room was the last to catch fire."

"That Janitor," declared Mrs. Crane, with conviction, "knew exactly what he was about. Now, girls, you'll be sure to come to-morrow, won't you? I think it will do Rosa Marie good and there's a reason why I'd like a little company myself, but I shan't tell you just now what it is."

"Oh, do," begged all four.

"No," returned Mrs. Crane. "It's a secret, and not a living soul knows it but me. I'll tell you to-morrow."

"We'll surely come," promised the girls.

Of course they kept their promise. The four Cottagers arrived very soon after breakfast, were let in most sedately by Mr. Black's man, who smiled when the unceremonious visitors rushed pell-mell past him to fall upon Mrs. Crane, who was watering plants in the breakfast room.

"Tell us the secret!" shouted Mabel. "Oh—I mean good-morning!"

"Good-morning," smiled Mrs. Crane, setting the watering pot in a safe place. "The secret isn't a very big one. It's only that to-day is my birthday and I thought I'd like to have a party. You're it. The cook is making me a birthday cake, but she doesn't know that it is a birthday cake."

"Goody!" cried Mabel.

"Doesn't Mr. Black know it's your birthday?" queried Jean.

"I don't think so. You see, it's a long time since Peter and I spent birthdays under the same roof, and men don't remember such things very well. We'll surprise him with the cake to-night. Now let's go to the nursery."

Rosa Marie's dull countenance brightened at sight of her four friends. She gave four solemn little bobs with her head.

"Mercy!" cried Marjory, "she's learning manners."

"And see," said Bettie, "she's stringing beads."

"That's a surprise," said Mrs. Crane, proudly. "I taught her that."

"Fourteen," said Rosa Marie, unexpectedly.

"Goodness me!" cried Mabel. "Can she count?"

"Ye-es," admitted Mrs. Crane, guardedly, "but not to depend on. In fact, fourteen is the only counting word she can say. Peter taught her that."

"Fourteen," repeated Rosa Marie, holding up her string of beads.

"You ridiculous baby!" laughed Mabel, hugging her. "Who are the pretty beads for?"

Rosa Marie hurriedly clapped the string about her own brown throat.

"No, no," remonstrated Mrs. Crane. "You're making them for Mabel."

But Rosa Marie set her small white teeth firmly together and continued to hold the beads against her own plump neck.

"She knows whose beads they are," laughed Jean.

"I can't teach her a single Christian virtue," sighed Mrs. Crane. "There isn't one unselfish hair in that child's head."

"She's too young," encouraged Bettie. "All babies are little savages."

"Not Anne Halliday," said Jean, who fairly worshiped her small cousin.

"That's different," said Marjory. "Anne was born with manners."

"The little Tuckers weren't," soothed Bettie. "Rosa Marie will be generous enough in time."

"I wish I could believe it," sighed Mrs. Crane.

"Hi, hi! What's all this racket?" cried Mr. Black from the doorway. "Is Rosa Marie doing all that talking? Get your things on quick, all of you, and come for a ride with me."

"A ride!" exclaimed Mrs. Crane. "What in?"

"An automobile," returned Mr. Black, turning to wink comically at Bettie.

"An automobile!" echoed Mrs. Crane. "I'd like to know whose. There's only one in town and I don't know the owners."

"Yours," twinkled Mr. Black. "It's your birthday present."

"How did you know that this was the day?"

"Perhaps I remembered," said Mr. Black, smiling rather tenderly at his old sister. "You used to have them on this day."

"I do still," beamed Mrs. Crane. "That's why I invited the girls; they're my birthday party. But what's this about automobiles?"

"Only one. It's yours."

"Peter Black! I don't believe you."

"Look out the hall window."

Everybody rushed to the big window in the front hall. Sure enough! A splendid motor car stood at the gate.

"Peter," faltered Mrs. Crane, "have I got to ride in that? I've never set foot in one, and I'm sure I'd be scared to at this late day."

"What! Not ride in your own automobile? Bless you, Sarah, in another week you'll refuse to stay out of it. Get your things on, everybody; and warm ones, too. Find extra wraps for these girls, Sarah. There's room for everybody but Rosa Marie."

"Now, isn't that just like a man?" said Mrs. Crane, looking about helplessly. "Whose clothes does he think you're going to wear for 'extra wraps'? His, or mine?"

Everybody laughed, for obviously Mr. Black's house was a poor one in which to find little girls' garments.

"We'll stop at your houses," said he, "and pick up some duds. Besides, perhaps your mothers might like to know that you've been kidnaped. What! no hat on yet? Here, pin this on," said Mr. Black, handing Mrs. Crane a pink dust-cap. "I can't wait all day."

"Mercy! That's not a bonnet," cried Mrs. Crane, scurrying away. "I'll be ready in two minutes."

CHAPTER XV
An Unexpected Treat

"PETER," demanded Mrs. Crane, stopping short on the horse-block, "who's going to run that thing?"

"I am."

"Not with me in it. You don't know how."

"My dear, I've been learning the business for five weeks."

"So that's what has taken you to Bancroft every afternoon for all that time?"

"That's exactly what," admitted Mr. Black.

"And you're sure," queried Mrs. Crane, doubtfully, "that you understand all those fixings?"

"Every one of them."

"Will you promise to go slow?"

"There's a fine for exceeding the speed limit," twinkled Mr. Black.

"Well, I'm glad of that," said Mrs. Crane, permitting her patient brother to help her into the vehicle. "My! but these cushions are soft."

"Yes," said Bettie, "it's just like sitting on baking powder biscuits before they're baked."

"How do you know?" asked Mr. Black.

"Because I've tried it. You see, ministers' wives are dreadfully interrupted persons, and one night when Mother was making biscuits some visitors came. Instead of popping one of the pans into the oven, mother dropped it on a dining-room chair on her way to the door and forgot all about it. When I came in to supper that chair was at my place and I flopped right down on those biscuits! And I had to stay sitting on them because Father had asked one of the visitors—such a particular-looking person—to stay to tea; and I knew that Mother wouldn't want a perfectly strange man to know about it."

"That was certainly thoughtful," smiled Mr. Black. "Now, is every one comfortable? If she is, we'll go for those extra wraps."

The new machine rolled down the street and turned the corner in the neatest way imaginable. Mrs. Crane looked decidedly uneasy at first; but when Mr. Black had successfully steered the birthday present past the ice wagon, a coal team, a prancing pony and two street cars, she folded the hands that had been nervously clutching the side of the car and leaned back with a relieved sigh.

But when Mabel asked a question, Mrs. Crane silenced her quickly.

"Don't talk to him," she implored. "There's no telling what might happen to us if he were to take any part of his mind off that—that helm, for even a single second. Don't even look at him."

What did happen was this. After the extra wraps had been collected and donned, Mr. Black carried his charges all the way to Bancroft, a distance of seventeen miles, in perfect safety. The road was good, the day was mild and the only team they passed obligingly turned in at its own gate before they reached it. They stopped in front of the biggest and best hotel in Bancroft.

"Everybody out for dinner," ordered Mr. Black.

"But, Peter," expostulated Mrs. Crane, hanging back, bashfully, "I'm in my every-day clothes."

"Well, this isn't Sunday; and you always look well dressed. You're a very neat woman, Sarah."

"Well I am neat, but black alpaca isn't silk even if my sleeves are this year's. And for goodness' sake, Peter, don't ask me to pronounce any of that bill of fare if it isn't plain every-day English, for you know there isn't a French fiber in my tongue. You order for me. There's only one thing I can't eat and that's parsnips."

It was a very nice dinner and plain English enough to suit even matter-of-fact Mrs. Crane. After the first few bashful moments, the four girls chattered so merrily that all the guests at other tables caught themselves listening and smiling sympathetically.

"I never ate a really truly hotel dinner before," confided Bettie, happily.

"And to think," sighed Jean, contentedly, "of doing it without knowing you were going to! That always makes things nicer."

"And I never expected to ride in a navy-blue automobile," murmured Marjory.

"Or to have four kinds of potatoes," breathed Mabel, who sat half surrounded by empty dishes—"little birds' bath-tubs," she called them.

"You must be a vegetarian," smiled Mr. Black.

"N-no," denied Mabel. "Only a potatorian."

"Mabel!" objected Marjory. "There isn't any such word."

"Yes, there is," returned Mabel, calmly. "I just made it."

"Well, I'm sure," sighed Mrs. Crane, "I never expected to have any such birthday as this."

"You see," said Mr. Black, giving his sister's plump elbow a kindly squeeze, "this is a good many birthdays rolled into one."

"It seems hard," mourned Mabel, who was earnestly scanning the bill of fare, "to read about so many kinds of dessert when you've room enough left for only three. I wish I'd began saving space sooner."

"You're in luck," laughed Bettie. "A very small, thin one is all I can manage—pineapple ice, I guess."

"Anyway," said Marjory, "I shan't choose bread pudding. We have that every Tuesday and Friday at home. Aunty Jane has regular times for everything, so I always know just what's coming. I'm going to have something different—hot mince pie, I guess."

"Ice-cream," said Jean, "with hot chocolate sauce."

"Bring me," said Mabel, turning to the waiter, "hot mince pie, ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce and a pineapple ice with little cakes."

"Bring little cakes for everybody," added Mr. Black.

"I declare," said Mrs. Crane, "I don't know when I've been so hungry."

"Now," remarked Mr. Black, half an hour later, "I think we'd better be jogging along toward home because it won't be as warm when the sun goes down and I want to show you some of the sights in Bancroft—there's a pretty good candy shop a few blocks from here—before we start toward Lakeville. We can run down in about an hour."

"Peter," demanded Mrs. Crane, "what is that speed limit?"

"About eight miles an hour."

"Hum—and it's seventeen miles——"

"Now, Sarah, don't go to doing arithmetic—you know you were never very good at it. If I were to keep strictly within that limit you'd all want to get out and push. Got all your wraps? Whose muff is this? Here's a glove. Whose neck belongs to this pussy-cat thing? Here's a handkerchief and two more gloves—Well, well! It's a good thing you had somebody along to gather up your duds. What! My hat? Why, that's so, I did have a cap—here it is in my coat pocket."

There was still time after the pleasant ride home for a good frolic with Rosa Marie and a cozy meal with Mrs. Crane; strangely enough, everybody was again hungry enough to enjoy the big birthday cake and the good apple-sauce that went with it. Then Mr. Black carried them all home in the motor car and delivered each damsel at her own door. But only one stayed delivered, for the other three immediately ran around the block to meet at Jean's always popular home. You see, they had to talk it all over without the restraint of their host's presence.

"I think," said Mabel, ecstatically, "that Mr. Black is just too dear for words. Some folks are too stingy to live, with their automobiles and horses and never think of giving anybody a ride."

"He's certainly very generous," agreed Jean.

"Of course," ventured Marjory, meditatively, "he has plenty of money or he couldn't do nice things."

"He would anyway," declared Bettie. "It's the way he's made. Don't you remember how Mrs. Crane was always being good to people even when she was so dreadfully poor? Well, Mr. Black would be just like that, too, even if he hadn't a single dollar. He has a Santa Claus heart."

"There are folks," admitted Marjory, "that wouldn't know how to give anybody a good time if they had all the money in the world. There's Aunty Jane, for instance. She's a very good woman, with a terribly pricking conscience, and I know she'd like to make things pleasant for me if she knew how, but she doesn't, poor thing. She doesn't know a good time when she sees one. And Mrs. Howard Slater doesn't, either."

"Good-evening, girls," said Mrs. Mapes, coming in with a newspaper in her hand. "I thought I heard voices in here. Have you had a nice day? You're just in time to read the paper; there's something in it that will interest you."

CHAPTER XVI
A Scattered School

IT seemed too bad for such a delightful day to end sorrowfully, but the evening paper certainly brought disquieting news. It stated that the School Board hoped to provide, within a very few days, suitable schoolrooms for all the pupils. And, in another item, the unfeeling editor complimented the Board on its enterprise.

"I'd like that Board a whole lot better," said Marjory, "if it weren't so enterprising. I s'posed we were going to have at least a month to play in."

"Just before Christmas, too," grumbled Mabel. "They might at least have waited until I'd finished Father's shoe-bag. And what do you think? Mother says I'd better give that Janitor a Christmas present!"

"Perhaps the paper is mistaken," soothed Jean. "You know it always is about the weather reports. If it says 'Fair,' it's sure to rain; and when it says 'Colder,' it's quite certain to be warm. Besides, there isn't a place in town big enough for all that school."

But this time it was Jean and not the paper that was mistaken. In just a few days the School Board announced that its hopes were realized. It had found "suitable quarters" for all the classes. Two grades went into the basement of the Baptist Church. The underground portion of the Methodist edifice accommodated two more. The A. O. U. W. Hall opened its doors to three others. A benevolent private citizen took in the kindergarten. A downtown store hastily transformed itself from an unsuccessful harness shop into nearly as unsuccessful a haven for two other grades. The City Hall gave up its Council Chamber to the Seniors, and the Masons loaned their dining-room to the Juniors, without, however, providing any refreshment. The enterprising Board had telegraphed for desks the very day of the fire; and as soon as that dreadfully prompt furniture arrived, it was remorselessly screwed into place. The Stationer, too, had speedily ordered books. They, too, traveled with unseemly haste from New York to Lakeville. By Thursday, less than a week after the fire, there were desks and seats and books for everybody; and would you believe it, they even kept school on Saturday, that week!

And now, an utterly unforeseen thing happened. Hitherto Jean, who was usually the first to be ready, had stopped for Marjory and Bettie. All three had stopped to finish dressing Mabel, who always needed a great deal of assistance, and then all four had walked merrily to school together. But now this happy scheme was entirely ruined, for here was Jean doing algebra under the Baptist roof, Bettie struggling with grammar in the Methodist basement, Marjory climbing two long flights of stairs to the A. O. U. W. Hall and Mabel passing six saloons to reach her desk in the made-over harness shop.

"It isn't just what we'd choose," apologized the School Board, "but it won't last forever. We'll build just as soon as we can."

Except for the inconvenience of having to go to school separately the children were rather pleased with the novelty of moving into such unusual quarters as the Board had provided; but the mothers were not at all satisfied.

"That Baptist cellar is damp and Jean's throat is delicate," complained Mrs. Mapes. "I know she'll be sick half the winter; but of course she'll have to go to school there as long as there's no better place."

"That Methodist Church is no place for children," declared Mrs. Tucker. "Its brick walls were condemned seven years ago and it's likely to fall down at any moment, even if they did brace it up with iron bands. But Bettie's too far behind now for me to take her out of school, so I suppose she'll just have to risk having that church tumble in on her."

"It's a shame," sputtered Aunty Jane, "for Marjory to climb all those stairs twice a day. It's all very well for the Ancient Order of United Workmen to climb two flights with grown-up legs, but it isn't right for delicate girls. However, there's no help for it just now, and I can't say I blame the child for sliding down the banisters, though of course I do scold her for it."

"There are saloons on both sides of that harness shop," said Mrs. Bennett, "and six more this side of it, besides a livery stable that is always full of loafers and bad language. Mabel has never been allowed to go to that part of town alone, and now I have to send a maid with her twice a day. But of course she has to go, even if the maid is more timid than Mabel is."

"By next year," consoled the Board, "we'll have a bigger and better schoolhouse than the old one. In the meantime we must all have patience."

Except that Mabel, without the others to get her started, was always late and that Bettie, without Marjory to coach her on the way, found it difficult to learn her lessons, school life went on very much as usual, for matters soon settled down as things always do and Lakeville turned its attention to fresher problems.

Poor Bettie, indeed, was busier than ever because Miss Rossitor, the Domestic Science teacher, whose classes were temporarily housed in the Methodist kitchen, discovered that Bettie could draw. Every day or two she asked Bettie to remain after school to copy needed illustrations on the blackboard. One day, Miss Rossitor demanded a cow. She needed it, she explained, to show her class the different cuts of meat.

"A side view of a plain cow," said she.

"I think," said Bettie, reflectively nibbling the fresh stick of chalk, "that I could do the outside of that cow, but I know I couldn't get his veal cutlets in the proper spot."

"I'll give you a diagram," smiled Miss Rossitor, "for I see very plainly, that it wouldn't be safe not to."

"Perhaps Miss Bettie thinks," ventured a belated pupil, a pink-cheeked girl with an impertinent nose, "that one cow is a whole butcher shop."

"Well," returned Miss Rossitor, meaningly, "it isn't a great while since some other folks were of the same opinion. But, since you are now so very much wiser, you may label the parts after Bettie has drawn them."

The girl made such a comical face that Bettie's gravity was in sad danger, but she accepted the chalk. On the cow's shoulder she printed "Pork sausages," on the flank, "Mutton chops," on the backbone, "Oysters on the half-shell," on the breast, "buttons."

Bettie looked puzzled and doubtful but Miss Rossitor laughed outright.

"Henrietta Bedford," she said, "you're a complete humbug. If you don't settle down to business you won't get home to-night."

"I'm going to walk home with Bettie," returned Henrietta, quickly substituting the proper labels. "I can easily write out that luncheon menu while she's putting feathers on the cow's tail."

And the new girl did walk home with Bettie, and teased her so merrily all the long way that Bettie didn't know whether to like her or not.

Near the Cottage they met Jean, Marjory and Mabel just starting out to look for belated Bettie.

"This," said Bettie introducing her new acquaintance, "is Henrietta—Henrietta——"

"Plantagenet," assisted Henrietta Bedford, smoothly. "I am really a Duchess in disguise, but I've left all my retainers in Ohio and I'm simply dying for friends. This is my day for collecting them—I always collect friends on Tuesdays. You are indeed fortunate to have happened upon me on Tuesday. But, Elizabeth, why not finish your introductions?"

"This," obeyed overwhelmed Bettie, "is Jean, this is Marjory and this is Mabel Bennett."

"What! The Damsel of the Dust-chute! I am indeed honored."

Then, as her quick eye traveled over Mabel's plump figure, Henrietta added wickedly:

"Was that chute built to fit?"

Mabel flushed angrily.

"It is I," apologized Henrietta, "that should wear those blushes. Forgive me, dear Damsel. I have an over-quick tongue and all my speeches are followed by repentance. But I have a warm heart and I'm really much nicer than I sound. See, I kneel at your insulted feet."

Whereupon this ridiculous girl with the impertinent nose flopped down on her knees on the sidewalk and made such comically repentant faces that all four giggled merrily.

"Get up, you goose," laughed Mabel. "Your apology is accepted."

"Come along with us," urged Jean. "We're going to have hot chocolate at our house. Mother is trying to fatten Marjory, Bettie and me."

"She seems to succeed best with—hum—no personal remarks, please. Dear maiden, I will inspect your home from the outside, but I regret that I'm strictly forbidden to go inside any strange house without my grandmother's permission. You'll have to call on me first. She is very particular in such matters. But," added Henrietta, with a sudden twinkle, "I'm not. So, if you'll kindly rush in and make that chocolate, there's no earthly reason why I shouldn't stand just outside your gate and drink it."

"Oh," cried Bettie, "is it possible that you're Mrs. Howard Slater's new granddaughter?"

"I am," admitted Henrietta, "but I'm not so new as you seem to think. She has owned me for fourteen years. Now, hustle up that chocolate. I've just remembered that I'm to have a dress tried on at four. It is now half-past."

CHAPTER XVII
An Invitation

"BETTIE," asked Jean, when the girls were "hustling up" the chocolate in Mrs. Mapes' kitchen (the weather was now too cold for Dandelion Cottage to be habitable), "where did you find her?"

"At school," replied Bettie. "She comes in for Domestic Science. I've seen her about three times, and every time she's had that stiff Miss Rossitor laughing. You know who that girl is, don't you?"

"I've heard something," said Marjory, "but I can't just remember what, about some girl named Henrietta."

"Well, you've seen Mrs. Howard Slater?"

All the girls had seen Mrs. Slater, the beautifully gowned, decidedly aristocratic old lady with abundant but perfectly white hair and bright, sparkling black eyes. Mrs. Slater, who seemed a very reserved and exclusive person, had spent many summers and even an occasional winter in her own handsome home in Lakeville. She lived alone except for a number of servants; for both her son and her daughter were married. The son lived abroad, no one knew just where; and some four years previously Mrs. Slater's daughter, who was Henrietta's mother, had died in Rome. Since that event Henrietta had been cared for by her uncle's wife; and she had spent a winter in California and another in Florida with her grandmother, but this was her first visit to Lakeville. It was said that Henrietta's mother had left her little daughter a very respectable fortune, that her father, an English traveler of note, was also wealthy, and it was known to a certainty that Mrs. Howard Slater was a moneyed person.

"Yes," said Marjory, replying to Bettie's question, "we sit behind Mrs. Slater in church, and she's the very daintiest old lady that ever lived. She's as slim and straight as any young girl. She's perfectly lovely to look at, but——"

"Yes, 'but,'" agreed Jean. "She seems very proud and not very—get-nearable. I don't know whether I'd like to live with her or not; but I know I'd feel terribly set up to own a few relatives that looked like that."

"How do you like Henrietta?" asked Mabel.

"I don't know," said Bettie.

"Neither do I," replied Jean.

"It takes time," declared Marjory, "to discover whether you like a person or not. And when it's such a different person—truly, she isn't a bit like any other girl in this town—it takes longer."

"The chocolate's ready," announced Jean, opening a box of wafers. "Here, Bettie, you carry Henrietta's cup and I'll take these. Let's all have our chocolate on the sidewalk."

Henrietta, her hands in her pockets, was leaning against the fence and humming a tune. Her voice, in speaking, was very nicely modulated—which was fortunate, because she used it a great deal. She straightened up when the door opened.

"I'm an icicle," said she. "I hope that chocolate's good and hot. My! What a nice big cup! And wafers! I'm glad I stayed for your party. I've had chocolate in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Switzerland and in England, but I do believe this is the very first time I've had any in America."

"I'm sorry," said Jean, "that you have to have your first on the sidewalk."

"I shan't, next time," promised Henrietta. "I have a beautiful plan. I made it while waiting for the chocolate. You're all to come after school to-morrow and pay me a formal call. Then I'll return it. After that, I suspect I shall be allowed to run in. But first you'll have to call, formally."

"A formal call!" gasped Bettie.

"We never made a formal call in all our lives," objected Jean.

"They're dreadful," agreed Henrietta, "but in this case you'll really have to do it. I've planned it all nicely. In the first place, you must hand your cards to the butler——"

"Cards!" gasped Jean and Bettie.

"Cards!" snorted Mabel, flushing indignantly. "We haven't a card to our names!"

"You must have them," declared Henrietta, firmly, "or Simmons may consider you suspicious characters. Simmons is a very lofty person. You can write some, you know, because Simmons holds his chin so high that it interferes with the view, so he'll never know what's on them. Then you must be very polite to Grandmother and say 'Yes, ma'am,' 'No, ma'am,' 'Thank you, ma'am'—and not very much else. You've seen Grandmother, of course? Then you know how very formal and stiff she looks. Well, you must be like that, too."

"I'll try," said Mabel, "but it'll be pretty hard work."

"Be sure to wear gloves," cautioned Henrietta. "Grandmother is exceedingly particular about shoes and gloves. I know it's a lot of trouble, but you'll find it pays; for after you've beaten down the icy barrier that surrounds me, you'll find me quite a comfortable person. And do come just as early as you can—I'm really desperately lonely."

This was a different Henrietta from the merry one that Bettie had encountered. That other Henrietta had made her laugh. This one, with the wistful, sorrowful countenance and the four words "I'm really desperately lonely," was almost moving her to tears.

"You'll surely come," pleaded Henrietta.

"We'll come," promised Bettie, "cards and all."

"Au revoir," said Henrietta, carefully balancing her cup on the top rail of the fence. "I must run along now to try on my clothes."

"Was that French?" queried Mabel, gazing after the departing figure.

"I think so," replied Jean.

"She can certainly talk English fast enough," said Marjory. "I suppose just one language isn't enough for anybody that chatters like that."

"Do you think," asked Bettie, "she meant all that about cards and gloves and butlers? She's so full of fun most of the time that I don't exactly know whether to believe her or not."

"I think she did," said Marjory. "You see, I sit behind Mrs. Slater in church—and I'm thankful that it's behind."

"Perhaps that's the reason," ventured Bettie, "that nobody'll rent the three pews in front of her. Father says it's hard to even give them away. No one likes to sit in them."

"That's it," agreed Marjory. "One would have to be sure that her back hair was absolutely perfect to be at all comfortable in front of Mrs. Slater."

"And that," groaned discouraged Mabel, "is the sort of person I'm to make my first formal call on."

"You'd better take your bath to-night," advised Jean, "and lay out all your very best clothes. And don't forget to polish your shoes."

"Father has some blank cards," said Bettie, "and he writes beautifully. I'll get him to do cards for all of us."

"I think," said Marjory, with a puzzled air, "that we ought to take five or six apiece. I know Aunty Jane leaves a whole lot at one house, sometimes."

"No," corrected Jean, "we need just two. One for Mrs. Slater and one for Henrietta. My aunt, Mrs. Halliday, always gets two whenever her sister-in-law is visiting there."

"There are holes in my best gloves," mourned Bettie. "They came in a missionary box, and missionary gloves are never very good even to start with. Besides, Dick wore them first—I never had a new pair of kid gloves."

"Never mind," said always generous Mabel. "I must have about six pairs and I've never had any of the things on. I know I've outgrown some of them. Your hands are lots smaller than mine. Come over and I'll fix you out—Mother said we'd have to give them to somebody and I guess you're just exactly the right somebody. I hate the thing myself."

"Goody!" rejoiced Bettie.

"I wish," said Jean, "that my shoes were newer, but I'll get the boys to black 'em."

"I can't help you out," laughed Mabel. "My shoes are short and fat and yours are long and slim."

"A coat of Wallace's blacking will be all that's needed, thank you, Mabel. There's nothing like having brothers when it comes to blacking shoes."

"We'll have to get up a little earlier to-morrow morning," said Marjory.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Jean, "are you leaving all those chocolate cups on the fence for me to carry in?"

"Of course not," said obliging Bettie, seizing two. "Come on, you lazy people."

CHAPTER XVIII
Obeying Instructions

THE four girls were wonderfully excited all the next day. They were restless in school and fidgety at home.

"A body would think," scoffed Aunty Jane, at noon, "that you were going to your own wedding. Don't worry so. I'll have everything ready for you to put on the moment you get out of school."

"Oh, thank you," breathed Marjory, fervently. "That'll help a lot; but I do hope that Bettie's father will remember to do those cards. And, Aunty Jane, could you lend me a perfectly inkless hankerchief?"

"Jumping January!" growled Wallace Mapes, Jean's older brother. "That makes nineteen times, Jean, that you've reminded me of those miserable shoes. I'll black them when I've finished lunch. I'm not going to rush off in the middle of my oyster soup to black anybody's best shoes."

"Is it a reception?" asked Roger.

"No," replied Wallace, "just a formal call on Henrietta Bedford."

"She's in my French class," said Roger. "And kippered snakes! You ought to hear her recite. She talks up and down and all around poor little Miss McGinnis, whose French was made right here in Lakeville. It's a daily picnic."

"You won't forget my shoes, will you?" reminded anxious Jean.

"I'd like to know how I could," demanded Wallace, feelingly.

Although Mabel had taken a most complete bath the night before, she spent the noon-hour taking another. She put on her best stockings and shoes, but looked doubtfully at her Sunday suit.

"If I have to do my language in ink," reflected she, "it'll be all up with my clothes. I'll just have to change after school."

The girls were out by half-past three. Fortunately, Miss Rossitor needed no more cows that afternoon, so Bettie was home in good season. All four dressed speedily. Three of them got into their gloves unassisted; but Jean, Marjory and Bettie found plump, impatient Mabel seated on the piano stool with her mother working over one hand, her perspiring father over the other. Several other gloves that had proved too small were scattered on the floor.

"You needn't think," said Mabel, greeting her friends with an expressive grimace, "that I ever picked out these lemon-colored frights. Somebody sent 'em for Christmas. None of the pretty ones were big enough—I've tried four pairs."

"Neither are these," returned Mrs. Bennett, "and the color certainly is outrageous, but it's Hobson's choice. And just remember, Mabel, if you touch a single door-knob they'll be black before you get there. And don't put your hands in your pockets. And please don't rub them along the fences. There! Mine's on as far as it will go."

THE DECIDEDLY DEPRESSED FOUR STARTED DOWN THE STREET.

"I guess you'd better finish this one," said Dr. Bennett, abandoning his task. "I rather tackle a case of smallpox than wrestle with another job like that. She'd look much better in mittens."

"Mittens!" snubbed Mabel. "You can't make formal calls in mittens! Now, Somebody, please put me into my jacket and hat, if I'm not to touch anything."

The decidedly depressed four, in their Sunday best, started down the street. Mabel's gloves, owing to their brilliant color, were certainly conspicuous, and unconsciously she made them more so by the careful and rigid manner in which she carried them. It was plain that she had them very much on her mind. And when her hat tilted forward over one eye she left it there rather than risk damaging those immaculate lemon-hued gloves.

"Take my muff," implored Marjory. "That yellow splendor lights up the whole street."

"No, siree," declined Mabel. "If Mrs. Slater wants gloves she's going to have 'em. Do you think I'm going to suffer like this and not have 'em show?"

So Mabel, a swollen, imprisoned but gorgeous hand dangling at each side, a big navy-blue hat flopping over one eye, strutted muffless down the street.

"That's the house," announced Jean, as they turned the corner. "That big one with the covered driveway."

"Ugh!" shuddered Marjory, "it gives me chills to think of ringing such a wealthy doorbell. Are the cards safe, Bettie? My! I hope you haven't lost them."

"In my pocket in an envelope," assured Bettie.

"Can you see any white?" queried Jean, nervously. "I think my top petticoat has broken loose."

"It seems all right," said Marjory, stooping to test it with little sharp jerks. "Firm as the Rock of Gibraltar."

"It won't be if you pull like that," objected Jean.

"Somebody open the gate," requested Mabel. "I can't touch things."

"Everybody stand up straight," commanded Marjory. "We must look our best when we go up the walk."

"I wish I hadn't come," demurred Bettie, hanging back, diffidently. "Let's wait till it's darker."

"No," asserted Jean. "We'd better get it over."

"Yes," agreed Mabel, "I don't want to wear these gloves a minute longer than I have to."

"All right," sighed Bettie, despondently, "but you go first, Jean."

They had waited on the imposing doorstep for a long five minutes when it occurred to Marjory to ask if any one had pushed the bell.

"No," replied Jean, with a surprised air. "I thought you had."

"And I," said Bettie, "supposed that Mabel had."

"How could I," demanded Mabel, hotly, "in these gloves?"

And then, all four began to giggle. Never before had such an inopportune fit of helpless, hysterical giggling seized the Cottagers. No one could stop. Tears rolled down Mabel's plump cheeks, and, fettered by her lemon-colored gloves, she had to let them roll, until Bettie wiped them away. And that set them all off again. In the midst of it Marjory's sharp elbow inadvertently struck the push-bell and Simmons, the imposing, much-dreaded butler, opened the door. Instantly the giggling ceased. Four exceedingly solemn little girls filed into the big hall. Bettie groped nervously for her pocket, found it and endeavored to extract the cards. But the large, stiff envelope stuck and, for a long, embarrassing moment, Bettie fumbled in vain; while the butler, his chin "very high and scornful" as Marjory said afterwards, waited.

At last the cards were out. Diffident Bettie dropped them, envelope and all, on the extended plate; but Jean deftly seized the envelope and shook out the cards. Next followed a most unhappy moment. Simmons was evidently expecting them to do something, they hadn't the remotest idea what.

Then, to their great relief, there was a sudden "swish" of silken skirts, a flash of scarlet and lively Henrietta, who had slid down the broad banister, was greeting them warmly.

"Grandmother's out," said she. "Come up to my room and have a real visit before she gets back. Simmons, just toddle down to the lower regions for some fruit and anything else you can find; send them up to my room."

Something very like a smile flitted across Simmons's wooden countenance. Perhaps it amused him to be ordered to "toddle."

"Do you like my new gown?" queried Henrietta, leading the way upstairs and flirting her accordion-pleated skirts in graceful fashion. "It's my dinner dress. I have to dress for dinner every night—such a fuss for just two of us. Come in here—this is my sitting-room."

"How very odd," said Jean, finding her voice at last.

"Isn't it?" laughed Henrietta, shaking her brown curls. She wore them tied back with two enormous black bows. "Grandmother's a mixture of everything, you know—French, English, New York Dutch—and her furniture shows it. Lots of it came from Europe and Father picked up things in India and China—such a jolly dad as he is. That's why this place is such a jumble."

"I like it," declared Jean. "It looks interesting—as if there were lovely stories in it."

"There are," said Henrietta, drawing aside a heavy, silken curtain, "and I keep making new ones to fit. This is my bedroom, this next one is my dressing-room and this is my bath."

"Ugh!" shuddered Mabel, "do you take shower baths?"

"Every morning," laughed Henrietta.

"What a lovely dressing table!" exclaimed Bettie, peering into the oval mirror and smiling into her own dark eyes. "I never saw such pretty things, even in a catalogue."

"It's French," said Henrietta, "but all those little jeweled boxes came from Calcutta—Father just loves to buy little boxes with inlaid tops. Oh, here's Greta, with things to eat." Henrietta hastily swept her belongings from a dainty little table and the smiling maid deposited the heavy tray.

"Tangerines, nuts, figs and sponge cake," chattered Henrietta. "That's very nice, Greta. Help yourselves to chairs, girls. Here's a tabouret for you, little Marjory. Catch, Jean," and the merry little hostess tossed a golden tangerine to Jean. "Oh, wait," she added. "You mustn't take off your gloves or get them soiled, because Grandmother always gets in about this time, and you know you must be very formal with Grandmother. I'll peel them for you. Now draw up closer. You mustn't spot your gloves, so I'll feed you. First, a bit of sponge cake all around. Now an almond. Now the orange. Oh, I'm forgetting myself! Now more sponge cake."

"This is fine," said Bettie. "I'm always hungry after school."

"So am I," said Jean.

"If I'd s'posed," said Mabel, "that formal calls were like this, I'd have started sooner."

"Are you a different person every time anybody sees you?" asked Bettie, curiously.

"Why?" queried Henrietta.

"Because," explained Bettie, "you seem so very changeable. You're a mischief in school, yesterday you seemed almost sad and to-day you're so polite."

"Oh, thank you," said Henrietta, rising to sweep a deep and very much exaggerated courtesy. "Nobody ever before said that I was polite."

"Miss Henrietta," said Greta, tapping at the door, "the carriage has just turned the corner."

"Follow me," said Henrietta, with an instant change of tone, as she hurriedly brushed the crumbs from her lap and pulled Mabel's jacket into place. "Follow me and don't make a sound. It's time to be formal."

CHAPTER XIX
With Henrietta

THROUGH a long corridor, around several corners and down two flights of back stairs, the formal callers, their hearts in their throats, followed Henrietta, who finally paused at the basement door.

"There," said Henrietta, mysteriously, "you're safe at last. Now listen. You must slip out through the alley, walk slowly round the block, approach the house with dignity, ring the doorbell and present your cards to Simmons."

"We—we can't," faltered Bettie. "He has them now."

"I'll poke them out through the letter slot," laughed resourceful Henrietta. "You're not going to escape that formal call. Wait, your hat's over one ear, Mabel. There now, you're perfectly lovely. Now don't forget to pick up the cards."

Entirely bewildered by Henrietta's pranks, the conventional visitors walked out through the alley, strolled round the block and nervously ascended the front steps. There, sure enough, were eight white cards popping out through the letter slot.

"My goodness!" gasped Jean, "they're not our cards. This one says 'Mrs. Francis Patterson.'"

"And this," said Marjory, picking up another, "says 'John D. Thomas, sole agent for Todd's shoes.'"

"According to mine," giggled Bettie, "I'm Miss Ethel Louise Cartwright. What's on yours, Mabel?"

"'With love from Father,'" groaned Mabel.

"What in the world shall we do?" queried Jean, gathering up the remaining cards. "Not one of them will fit us."

"Give them to Simmons in a bunch," suggested Marjory. "He didn't look at the last lot, so perhaps he won't now."

So the girls, gathering what courage they could, touched the bell, presented their odd assortment of cards to Simmons—who almost succeeded in not looking astonished at seeing the callers again so soon—and were ushered into the reception room.

Such a sedate Henrietta advanced to meet them! Such a dignified, but charming old lady rose to shake hands all around! Such a sheepish quartette of visitors perched on the extreme edge of the nearest four chairs! Mrs. Slater smiled encouragingly; but Henrietta, from her post behind her grandmother's chair, displayed every sign of abject terror.

"We—we came to call," faltered Jean.

"That was pleasant," responded Mrs. Slater. "You are just in time to have some tea. Midge, will you please ring for Greta? I'm very glad you came, for I wanted my granddaughter to meet some of the young people."

Mrs. Slater, her slender, beringed fingers moving daintily among the cups, made the tea. Henrietta, in absolute silence and much subdued in manner, passed the cups, the delicate sandwiches and the little frosted tea cakes.

"Midge," demanded Mrs. Slater, turning suddenly to her granddaughter, "what in the world is the matter with you? You haven't said a word for fifteen minutes. I never knew you to be still for so long a time."

"It's my conscience," groaned Henrietta, dolefully. "I'm in another scrape."

"What have you done now?" asked Mrs. Slater, who seemed very much less terrifying than the girls had expected to find her. "Confession is good for the soul, my dear."

Henrietta's infectious laugh gurgled out suddenly and merrily.

"I've frightened four girls almost into spasms," said she. "You see, Grannie, I told them that they'd have to call formally if they wanted me to visit them. When they came you were out, so I took them upstairs, gave them things to eat and a jolly good time, generally. Then, just for a joke, I had Greta tell me when you were coming and I led them carefully down the back way, made them go round the block and do it all over again, cards and all. You see, Grannie, they don't know you. They haven't seen anything but your husk; and I had them scared blue; didn't I, girls?"

"Midge, you shouldn't have done it," reproved Mrs. Slater, whose black eyes, however, were sparkling with only half-suppressed merriment. "That wasn't quite a courteous way to treat your guests!"

"Forgive me," pleaded Henrietta, flopping down on her knees and looking the very picture of penitence. "Walk on me, Jean. Wipe your shoes on me, Bettie. I grovel at your feet—at everybody's feet."

"Don't grovel too hard in that dress," warned Mrs. Slater.

"Am I forgiven?" implored Henrietta, gathering up her ruffles with elaborate care.

The girls were not certain. Their pride had been injured and they eyed Henrietta doubtfully.

"When you've known Midge as long as I have," said Mrs. Slater, "you'll discover that she is really too tender-hearted to hurt a fly. But you'll also discover that she never misses an opportunity to play pranks on every soul she loves. It's a symbol of her favor. She will never tell you an untruth, she is too honorable to practise downright deceit; but depend on it, girls, she will fool you until you won't believe your own ears. And she's always sorry, afterwards. She spends half her time apologizing."

"Ah, do forgive," pleaded extravagant Henrietta, suddenly extending imploring hands. "I mean it, truly. It wasn't nice of me."

Jean, stooping suddenly, kissed the upturned lips.

"Why!" exclaimed Jean, genuinely surprised, "I didn't know I was going to do that."

"She gets around everybody," said Mrs. Slater, "and the worst of it is she's so good and so naughty that you'll never know whether you like her or not."

"Why, Grannie!" exclaimed Henrietta, "don't you know?"

"I know that I like you," said the old lady, smiling fondly at pretty, whimsical Henrietta, "but you know very well that I also regard you with strong disapproval. I consider you a very faulty young person."

"You're a dear Grannie," breathed Henrietta, kissing the old lady's delicate hand, "but I'm quite sure you're spoiling me; isn't she, Bettie?"

"Were you like Henrietta," queried Jean, "when you were young?"

"My dear, you've found me out," laughed Mrs. Slater. "I was just such a piece of impishness; but my father was very severe, and I think I began earlier to restrain my prankishness. Midge, unfortunately, has a lenient father and a doting grandmother. Between them she is having pretty much her own way."

"I'll be good," promised Henrietta, comically, "in spite of them; but you see, girls, with such a pair of relatives dogging my footsteps, it's uphill work."

After a little more conversation, the girls rose to depart. Mrs. Slater begged them to come again. She said that she enjoyed young people. Then the big front door was closed behind them and the dreaded visit was over.

"So," said Marjory, "that's what Mrs. Slater is like inside."

Mabel, unable to bear them longer, was recklessly peeling off her lemon-colored gloves.

"She's lovely, inside and out," declared Bettie, "but I never dreamed that she was like that."

"She wouldn't have cared if I had gone without gloves," mourned aggrieved Mabel. "I'd like to pay Henrietta back for that."

"Girls," asked Marjory, "do you like Henrietta?"

"I adore her," declared Jean.

"I think I like her," said Bettie.

"I know I don't," asserted Mabel, waving her throbbing hands in the evening breeze to cool them.

"I do and I don't," said Marjory. "I admire her, but she makes me uncomfortable. I feel as if she were just playing with me."

"She seems more than fourteen," murmured Jean, dreamily.

"That's because she's traveled so much," explained Bettie.

"She's like the big opal in Mother's ring," mused imaginative Jean. "One moment all warm and sparkly, the next, all cold and quiet."

"And you never know," supplemented Marjory, "which way it's going to be."

"I like folks that are downright bad or good," said Mabel, crossly. "Burglars ought to be burglars and ministers ought to be ministers and they all ought to be marked so you can tell 'em apart; else, how are you going to?"

CHAPTER XX
The Call Returned

THE following Saturday, the girls carried their Christmas sewing to Jean's. The sewing had not reached a very exciting stage, so tongues moved faster than fingers. Mabel was still working on a shoe-bag for her father but, owing to some misadventure, one of the two compartments was several sizes larger than the other. Mabel regarded this difference with disapproval until comforting Jean came to the rescue.

"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "there's a difference in the size of your father's feet."

"Oh, there is," cried Mabel, gleefully. "His right shoe is always tighter than the left."

"But," objected quick-witted Marjory, "it isn't his feet that are going into that bag. It's his shoes, and they're the same size."

"Oh," groaned Mabel, settling into a disconsolate heap, "that's so."

"Never mind," said Bettie. "Give me the bag, and I'll fix those pockets."

Bettie was embroidering an elaborate pincushion for her mother, but she stopped so often to help the others that there seemed small hope of its ever getting finished. Marjory, who was making one just like it for her Aunty Jane, was progressing much more rapidly.

Jean, rummaging in her work-bag, was trying to decide which of four partly completed articles to sew on when a carriage stopped at Mrs. Mapes's gate.

"It's a caller," said Jean. "We'll have to vacate. Here, scurry into the dining-room with all your stuff. I'll answer the bell; and you, Bettie, remind Mother to take off her apron—she's apt to forget it."

Jean, stopping long enough to twitch the chairs into place, went primly to the door.

"Good-morning," said a familiar voice, "I've come to return your visit. It's all right, James. You needn't wait."

"Come back, girls," called Jean, when she had ushered the caller in. "It's Henrietta."

"What luck!" cried Henrietta, pulling off her gloves. "Now I can make a long, long call instead of four short ones. What are you doing—Christmas presents? Give me a spool of fine white thread, some pins and a sofa pillow. I'm going to make one, too."

"Take off your things," said Jean, smilingly.

Henrietta wriggled out of her jacket and tossed her hat on the couch.

"What is it going to be?" asked Bettie, watching the merry visitor's deft fingers fly to and fro.

"Lace," returned Henrietta. "I learned to make it in France. Of course these aren't the right materials for very fine lace, but I can make an edge for a pincushion or a mat. I like to do things with my fingers."

"Can you draw?" asked Bettie.

"A little," returned Henrietta, modestly, "but you mustn't tell Miss Rossitor, or she'll have me doing cows and pigs and roosters."

"What grade do you belong in?" asked Jean.

"None," laughed the visitor, arranging the pins in what looked like a very intricate pattern. "I couldn't be graded. I'm having Domestic Science under the Methodist church, Senior Latin in the Council Chamber, Post-graduate French in a cloak-room off the A. O. U. W. Hall, Sophomore American History with the Baptists, and I'm doing mathematics in the kindergarten—or somewhere down there. I had to go back to the very beginning. If I ever tell you anything with numbers in it don't believe it. I don't know six from six hundred. But I'm doing lessons in five different buildings and getting lots of exercise besides. That's doing pretty well for my first year in school."

"Your first year!" cried Marjory. "Surely you're fooling!"

"Not this time," assured Henrietta. "I've had governesses and tutors ever since I could think, but this is truly my first school year. And it's great fun. But if I stay in America, I'm to go to boarding school, Grandmother says. I've always wanted to, and Grannie thinks it will be good for me to be with other girls. You see, I've always lived with grown folks, so I need to renew my youth."

"Mother's been reading the boarding-school advertisements in the magazines lately," said Mabel. "I heard her read some of them aloud to Father. But of course they couldn't have been thinking about me. But they sounded interesting."

"Perhaps," offered Bettie, "they had read all the stories and those boarding schools were all they had left to read."

"I guess so," said Mabel.

"Aunt Jane reads them, too," added Marjory. "There's some money that is to be used for my education and for nothing else. When I've finished with High School I'm to go to College."

"Oh well," laughed, Jean, lightly, "you're safe for another five years."

"I'm not," returned Henrietta. "I'm going next September, and if Grandmother had known how the schools were going to be you wouldn't be having the pleasure of my company now. She says I'm getting thin in the pursuit of knowledge—it's too scattered, in Lakeville. That's why she made me ride to-day."

"Look!" cried Mabel, her eyes bulging with astonishment. "She's really making lace!"

"It's for you," said Henrietta, flashing a bright glance at Mabel. "It's an apology, Mam'selle, for my past—and perhaps my future—misdeeds."

"I said I didn't like you," blurted honest Mabel, "but I do."

"Don't depend on me," sighed Henrietta. "I don't wear well. You'll find the real me rubbing through in spots. Granny says I'm an imp that came in one of Dad's Hindoo boxes."

"Why does your grandmother call you Midge?" asked Bettie.

"Because she doesn't like Henrietta. You see, I have five names—they do that sort of thing on the other side—and I take turns with them. When I find out which one suits me best, I'll choose that one for keeps."

"What are they?" demanded Mabel.

"Henrietta Constance Louise Frederika Francesca—you see, there isn't a really suitable name in the lot. But when you have five quarrelsome aunts, as Father had, you have to please all or none of them by giving your poor helpless baby all their horrid names. Call me Sallie—I've always wanted to be Sallie."

"Think of anybody," laughed Jean, "with as many names as that wanting a new one."

"Where's that baby you adopted?" asked Henrietta, abruptly changing the subject. "Didn't one of you adopt a baby or something like that?"

"It was Mabel," replied Marjory. "The rest of us are pretty good, but Mabel's sort of thoughtless about borrowing things. She just happened to borrow an unreturnable baby, one day."

"Where is it now?"

"At Mr. Black's. Her name is Rosa Marie."

"I'd like to see her," said Henrietta, carefully moving a pin.

"Stay to luncheon," urged Jean. "Father's away, so there'll be plenty of room. Afterwards we can all pay a visit to Rosa Marie."

"I'm afraid," said Marjory, "she's getting to be a burden to Mrs. Crane."

"Yes," agreed Bettie, "but it isn't Rosa Marie's fault. Mrs. Crane has been reading a lot of books about bringing up children—you know she never had any. Before she discovered how many things might happen to a baby she was quite comfortable; but now she's always certain that Rosa Marie is coming down with something."

"And she doesn't seem very bright," mourned Jean.

"Who—Mrs. Crane?"

"No, Rosa Marie. You see, we don't know exactly how old she is—Mabel didn't think to ask—but she seems big enough to be lots smarter than she is. We're rather disappointed in her."

"I'm not," protested Mabel, loyally. "She's just slow because she hasn't any little brothers and sisters. She's a dear child."

"Cheer up, Mabel," soothed Henrietta. "As long as she's beautiful she doesn't need to be bright."

At this, Marjory looked at Jean, then at Bettie, and smiled an odd, significant smile. Here was a chance to get even with Henrietta; and, unconsciously, Mabel helped.

"She's beautiful to me," said Mabel, "and she's ever so cunning."

"What color are her eyes?"

"Dark," said Marjory. "Darker than yours."

"Then she's a brunette?"

"Ye-es," said Marjory, as if considering the question. "She's darker, at least, than I am."

"We all are," said Henrietta, with an admiring glance at Marjory's golden locks. "We seem to shade down gradually. Mabel comes next, then Jean, then Bettie; I'm the darkest, because Bettie's eyes are like brown velvet, but mine are black, like bits of hard coal. Where does Rosa Marie come in?"

"I think," said Marjory, with an air of pondering deeply, "that Rosa Marie is almost, if not quite, as dark as you; even darker, perhaps. But her hair isn't as curly."

"Dear little soul," breathed Henrietta, tenderly. "I've a tremendous liking for babies, but they're pretty scarce at our house. But there was one in England that was—Oh, if I could just see that English baby now! Wouldn't I just hug her!"

Henrietta's eyes were unwontedly tender, her expression unusually sweet.

"You're not a bit like you've been any of the other times," observed Bettie. "I like you a lot better when you're like this."

"I'm not myself to-day," twinkled Henrietta. "I'm Sallie—just plain Sallie. But beware of me when I'm Frederika, the Disguised Duchess. That's when I'm not to be trusted."

"I think," said Jean, listening to some faraway sound, "that lunch is about ready."

"Good!" exclaimed Henrietta. "The sooner it's over, the sooner I can hug that darling baby. It's months since I've held one in my arms—the dear little body."

"You'll find——" began Mabel; but the other three promptly headed her off before she had time to explain that Rosa Marie was a pretty big armful.

"It's time to go home," exclaimed Marjory and Bettie, in chorus. "Come on, Mabel."

"If you'll excuse me," said Jean, speaking directly to Mabel, "I'll go set a place for Henrietta. Sorry I can't ask everybody to stay; but come back at two o'clock."

CHAPTER XXI
Getting Even

LUNCHEON at Jean's that day proved a lively affair, for both boys were home; Henrietta chatted as frankly and as merrily as if she had known them all her life. Wallace, who was shy, squirmed uneasily at first and kept his eyes on his plate; but Roger, who had encountered the visitor in his French class, was able to respond to her friendly chatter.

"I like boys," asserted Henrietta, frankly, "but I haven't any belonging to me but one and he's a horrid muff—sixteen and a regular baby. He's my cousin."

"I thought you liked babies," laughed Jean.

"I do, but not that kind. He's been molly-coddled until it makes you sick to look at him."

"Trot him out," offered Roger. "I'll give him an antidote."

"He's in England," said Henrietta, "and I hope he'll stay there. He hasn't any idea of doing anything for himself; he's always talking about what he'll do when somebody else does such and such a thing for him."

"You mean," said Roger, "he hasn't any American independence."

"That's it," agreed Henrietta. "He'd have made a nice pink-and-white girl, but he's no use at all as a boy."

"How dark it's getting," said Jean. "I can hardly see my plate."

"I think," prophesied Wallace, breaking his long silence, "that it's going to snow. The sky's been a little thick for three days; when it comes we'll get a lot."

"Goody!" cried Henrietta, "I've never seen a real Lake Superior snowstorm and I want to. So far all the snow we've had has come in the night. I want to see it snow."

"You wouldn't," growled Wallace, "if you had to shovel several tons of it off your sidewalk."

"Will it snow very soon?" queried Henrietta, eagerly.

"Probably not before dark," returned Wallace, turning to glance at the dull sky. "It's only getting ready."

Enthusiastic Henrietta, that odd mixture of extreme youth and premature age, was all impatience to see Rosa Marie. She had telephoned her grandmother to ask permission to spend the day with her new friends, and now she was eager to add Rosa Marie to the list. It was easy to see that she was expecting to behold something very choice in the line of babies. Jean was tempted to undeceive her, but loyalty to Marjory kept her silent.

"A baby," breathed Henrietta, rapturously, "is the loveliest thing in all the world. Isn't it most two o'clock? Wait, I'll look at my watch—Mercy! I forgot to wind it!"

"Hark!" said Jean, "I think I hear the girls. Yes, I do."

"Get on your things," commanded Marjory, opening the door. "Bettie stopped to feed the cat, sew a button on Dick, wash Peter's face, tie up her father's finger and hook her mother's dress, but she's here at last and we're to pick up Mabel on the way because Dr. Bennett called her back to wash her face."

"We mustn't stay too long," warned Jean, glancing at the dull sky. "It looks as if it would get dark early."

Mrs. Crane was glad to see her visitors and appeared delighted to add a new girl to her collection of youthful friends.

"You and Jean are just of a size," said she.

"And about the same age," added Bettie, who had always regretted the two years' difference in her age and Jean's. "I wish I were as old as that."

"Aren't you afraid," blundered well-meaning Mrs. Crane, turning to Bettie, "that she'll cut you out? You and Jean have always been as thick as thieves. Don't you let this pretty Henrietta steal your Jean away from you."

Bettie, dear little unselfish soul, had hitherto been conscious of no such fear, but now her big brown eyes were troubled. This new possibility was alarming.

"We'd like to see Rosa Marie," said Marjory. "Is she well?"

"She has a bad cold," returned Mrs. Crane, shaking her head, sorrowfully. "I've just been looking through my books, and in the very first one I found more than twenty-five fatal diseases that begin with a bad cold."

"Didn't you find any that folks ever get over?" suggested Jean, comfortingly.

"Why, yes," replied Mrs. Crane, brightening. "I've known of folks pulling through at least twenty-four of them. But there's one thing. You won't like Rosa Marie's clothes to-day. They're—they're sort of an accident."

"An accident?" questioned Bettie. "What happened?"

"Why, you see, I ordered her a ready-made dress out of a catalogue. It sounded very promising but—Well, it's warm, but I guess that's about all you can say for it. I'll take you to the nursery; I have to keep her out of drafts."

Rosa Marie, well and becomingly clad, would hardly have captured a prize in a beauty show, even with very little competition. Poor little Rosa Marie, suffering with a severe cold, appeared a most unlovable object. Her eyes were dull and all but invisible, her nose and lips were red and swollen and her wide mouth seemed even larger than usual. The catalogue dress was more than an accident; it was an out and out calamity. Its gorgeous red and green plaid was marked off like a city map in regular squares with a startling stripe of yellow. Moreover, the alarming garment was a distressingly tight fit.

"It looked," sighed Mrs. Crane, apologetically, "as pretty as you please in that book; but of course nobody would think of buying such goods as that outside a catalogue. But Rosa Marie liked it."

After the first glance, however, the Cottagers did not look at Rosa Marie or the hideous plaid. They gazed instead at Henrietta's speaking countenance. Having led their new friend to expect something entirely different in the way of infantile charms, they wanted to enjoy her surprise; but strangely enough they did not. It was evident that something was wrong with their plan.

The bright, expectant look faded suddenly from the sparkling black eyes. All the animation fled swiftly from the girlish countenance. Two large tears rolled down Henrietta's cheeks.

"Oh," she mourned, "I was so lonely for a real, dear little baby."

"Dear me," sighed penitent Jean, "we thought you'd enjoy the joke. We saw at once that you supposed that Rosa Marie was an ordinary child—a nice little pink and white creature in long clothes. It seemed such a good chance to get even that we——"

"It was my fault," apologized Marjory. "I tried to fool you. I never thought you'd care."

"I'm sorry," said offended Mabel, stiffly, "that you don't like Rosa Marie. She's much more interesting than a common baby, and I think, when I picked her out——"

"It isn't that," said Henrietta, smiling through her tears. "You see, I had a baby cousin in England that I just hated to leave—Oh, the sweetest, daintiest little-girl baby—and she'll be all grown up and gone before I ever see her again. I simply adored that baby."

"Never mind," soothed Bettie, generously. "We've any number of real babies at our house and three of them are small enough to cuddle. And even the littlest one is big enough to be played with."

"What an accommodating family," said Henrietta, wiping her eyes. "I guess they'll make up for this remarkable infant."

"Rosa Marie certainly isn't looking her best to-day," admitted Jean, "but you'll really find her very interesting when you know her better. But she never does appeal to strangers—we've found that out."

"And just now," said Bettie, "she's surely a sight; but when you've seen her in the cunning little Indian costume that Mr. Black bought for her you'll really like her."

"Perhaps," said Henrietta, doubtfully.

CHAPTER XXII
A Full Afternoon

"NOW," said Mrs. Crane, with a note of pride in her tone, "I want to show you what Peter Black's been doing this time. It's in the library."

The interested girls followed Mrs. Crane into the cozy, book-lined room. Mr. Black's purchases were apt to be worth seeing, for, now that he had a family after so many years of solitude, he was spending his money lavishly. And he delighted in surprising his elderly sister with unusual gifts.

"There," said Mrs. Crane, pointing to a square cabinet of polished wood. "What do you think of that! Can you guess what it is?"

"I think," replied Jean, "it's a cupboard for your very prettiest tea-cups—the ones that are too nice to use."

"I think," said Marjory, "that it's a fire-proof safe to keep Rosa Marie's plaid dress in, so it won't set the house afire."

"I guess," said Bettie, "it's some sort of a refrigerator to use on Sundays only."

"It looks to me," ventured Mabel, "like a cage with a monkey in it. I've seen them in processions, only they were fancier."

"I know what it is," said Henrietta, "because we have one like it, but ours isn't as nice as this."

"Now turn your backs," requested Mrs. Crane.

In another moment the girls were listening to a delightful concert. Wonderful music was pouring from the polished cabinet.

"I was the nearest right," asserted Mabel.

"Why!" objected Bettie, "you said it was a monkey—monkeys don't sing."

"I was right, just the same. It's a hand organ, and everybody knows that a monkey's pretty near the same thing."

The girls laughed, for Mabel, who was usually wrong, always insisted obstinately that she was right.

"It's a phonograph," explained Henrietta, "and the very best one I ever heard."

"It's a whole brass band," breathed Bettie.

"I knew it was good," said Mrs. Crane, contentedly, "for Peter refused to tell what he paid for it."

It took a long time for the phonograph to give up all that was inside its polished case, and before the entertainment was quite over Mr. Black came in.

Bettie, eager to display her new acquaintance, hardly waited to greet him before introducing Henrietta. It was a pleasure, as well as a novelty, to have so attractive a friend to present.

"This," said Bettie, proudly but a little flustered, "is my hen, Frenriet—I mean, my hen——"

Bettie turned scarlet and stopped. The girls shrieked with delight. Mrs. Crane laughed till she cried. Mr. Black's roars of laughter drowned the phonograph's best effort.

"I'm not your hen," giggled Henrietta. "Not even your chicken. This settles that name—I can't risk being mistaken for any more poultry."

"She's Henrietta Bedford," explained Jean, wiping her eyes.

"And how long," teased Mr. Black, "have you been keeping poultry, Miss Bettykins?"

"About two weeks," giggled Bettie. "She's Mrs. Slater's granddaughter."

"I don't like to seem inhospitable," said Mr. Black, a few moments later, "but it's beginning to snow, and the weather's going to be a good deal worse before it gets any better. If you start now, you'll be home before the snow begins to drift—there's a strong north wind and the thermometer's a bit down-hearted."

The girls had removed their wraps and it took time to get into them. Also, Mrs. Crane, noticing that the girls were dressed for mild weather, detained them while she hunted up a silk handkerchief to wrap about Marjory's throat, a veil to tie over Bettie's ears and some warmer gloves for Jean. Henrietta and Mabel refused to be bundled up.

The outside air was many degrees colder than it had been two hours earlier, and was full of flying snow. The wind came in gusts, yet there was something bracing and stimulating about the stirring atmosphere, particularly to Henrietta.

"Oh!" cried she, "this is fine! Why can't we take a long walk? It's a shame to hurry home. I just love this. Isn't there somebody we can go to see? Hasn't anybody an errand?"

"Ye-es," said Mabel, doubtfully. "We could go down to Mrs. Malony's. Mother told me this morning to get her bill, and I forgot all about it."

"Mabel always has a few forgotten errands laid away," teased Marjory. "She can show you, too, where she found Rosa Marie—it's down that way."

"I hope," said Henrietta, making a comical grimace, "that there's no danger of finding any more like her. But let's go. It's a shame to miss any of this."

Going down the long hill toward Mrs. Malony's was entirely delightful, for the wind, of which there was a great deal, was at their well-protected backs; they fairly scudded before it, laughing joyously as they were swept along almost on a run. Going westward at the bottom of the hill was not so very bad either, for here the road was somewhat sheltered, though the snow was much deeper than the girls had expected to find it.

Mrs. Malony, the garrulous egg-woman, was at home; she expressed her surprise and delight at the advent of so many unexpected visitors.

"'Tis mesilf thot's glad to see so manny purty faces," said she, flying about to find chairs. "'Tis the lovely complexion you have to-day, Miss Jean. An' who's the little lady wid the rosy cheek? The gran'choild av Mrs. Lady Slater—wud ye hark to thot now! An' how's Bettie darlin' wid all her purty smiles? Thot's good—thot's good. An' Miss Mabel here—sure she's the fat wan——"

"Mother," explained Mabel, with dignity, "would like her egg-bill."

"Bill, is ut?" replied Mrs. Malony, graciously. "Sure there's no hurry at all, at all. The sooner it comes the sooner 'tis spint. Ah, well, if you're afther insistin' [no one had insisted] joost count the banes in me owld taypot. Ivery wan stands fer wan dozen eggs at twinty-foive cints the dozen."

"Thirteen beans," announced Jean, who had counted them several times to make certain.

"Sure," persuaded smooth-tongued Mrs. Malony, "you'd best be takin' wan more dozen, Miss Mabel. 'Twould be sore unlucky to stop wid t'irteen."

While she was counting the eggs, Mr. Malony, redolent of the stable and bearing two steaming pails of milk, came into the kitchen. Mrs. Malony, beaming with hospitality, went hastily to the cupboard, brought forth five exceedingly thick cups, filled them with milk and passed them to her dismayed guests.

Some persons like warm milk, fresh from the cow, with the cow-smell overshadowing all other flavors. Mrs. Malony's visitors did not. They were too polite to say so, however, so there they sat, five martyrs to courtesy, sipping the distasteful milk. It clogged their throats, it made them feel queerly upset inside, but still, solely out of politeness, they continued to sip.

"Take bigger swallows," advised Mabel, in a smothered whisper.

"I cuk—can't," breathed Bettie.

Mr. Malony had left the room. Presently, Mrs. Malony, in search of a basket for the eggs, stooped to rummage in the untidy recess beneath the cupboard. Quick as a wink, Henrietta emptied her cup into the original pail, but the other unfortunates were left to struggle with their unwelcome refreshment. Henrietta, however, gained nothing by her trick, for the egg-woman, discovering that her cup was empty, promptly refilled it, much to the amusement of the other victims.

Henrietta, discovering their state of mind, was moved to defiance. Lifting her cup, with a determined glint in her black eyes, she drank every drop in four courageous, continuous gulps. In a twinkling, the other girls had imitated her example and were declining Mrs. Malony's pressing offer of more milk.

"Joost a wee sup," pleaded Mrs. Malony, reaching for Jean's cup.

"No, thank you," said Jean, rising hastily. "We ought to be getting home."

Getting home, however, proved a different matter from getting away from home. After escaping Mrs. Malony's insistent hospitality, the girls waded across the snowy street and out toward the point to see if Rosa Marie's home were still there. The door hung from one hinge and snow had drifted, and was still drifting, in at the doorway.

"Do you think," asked Henrietta, gazing at the deserted house, "that Rosa Marie's mother will ever come back?"

"No," returned Jean.

"Not to any such homely baby as that," declared Marjory.

"She will come back," asserted Mabel, loyally. "She loved Rosa Marie—I saw it in her eyes."

"Looks don't matter, with mothers," soothed Bettie. "A cat likes a homely yellow kitten as well as a lovely white one. And Dick has more freckles than Bob, but Mother likes him just as well."

"Rosa Marie's mother stood right in that doorway," said Mabel, "and, as long as I could see her, her eyes were stretching out after Rosa Marie."

"They must have stuck out on pegs like a lobster's," giggled Henrietta, "by the time you reached the corner."

"I think you're mean," muttered Mabel.

"I repent," apologized Henrietta. "For a moment I relapsed into Frederika, the Disguised Duchess; but now I'm your own kind-hearted Sallie and I wish that my toes were as warm as my affections. Let's start for civilization—we seem to have the world to ourselves. Doesn't anybody else like snow, I wonder?"

CHAPTER XXIII
Taking a Walk

"PHEW!" gasped Jean, wheeling as the north wind, sweeping round the corner, caught her square in the face. "I don't think much of that! It's like ice."

"Ugh!" groaned Marjory, "I wish I'd stayed home."

"Mercy!" gulped Henrietta, "it's blowing my skin off."

After that, no one had very much to say. The girls needed their breath for other purposes. With heads down and jackets pulled tightly about them, they started up the long hill with the wind in their faces. It was not a pleasant wind. Cold and cutting, it flung icy particles of snow against their cheeks, nipped their unprotected ears, stung their fingers and found the thin places in their garments. It rushed down their throats when they opened their mouths to speak, wrapped their petticoats so tightly about them that they had to keep unwinding themselves in order to walk at all, heaped the whirling snow in drifts and filled the air so full of flakes that it was only between gusts that the houses were visible. Worst of all, the way was very much uphill, and Mabel, besides being short of breath, was burdened with the basket of eggs. The snow seemed to take a delight in piling itself directly in front of them.

"Ugh!" gasped Henrietta, "I wish my stockings were fur-lined. They thawed out in Mrs. Malony's and now they're frozen stiff. I don't like 'em."

"Mine, too," panted Mabel.

"And all my skirts," groaned Marjory. "The edges are like saws and they're scraping my knees."

"How do you like a real storm?" queried Jean, steering Henrietta through a mighty drift.

"Not so well as I thought I should," admitted Henrietta. "I miss my blizzard clothes."

The streets, when the girls finally reached the top of the hill, were deserted. Even the sides of the houses looked like solid walls of snow, for the wind had hurled the big flakes in gigantic handfuls against the buildings until they were all nicely coated with a thick frosting; and so, all the world was white. And, by the time the five girls reached Jean's house, for they finally accomplished that difficult feat, they, too, were nicely plastered from head to heels with the clinging snow. They looked like animated snow men as they piled thankfully into Mrs. Mapes's parlor.

The girls themselves were warm and glowing from the unusual exercise, but their stockings and cotton skirts were frozen stiff.

"Henrietta will simply have to stay all night," said Mrs. Mapes, discovering the wet stockings. "I sent the coachman home half an hour ago for the sake of the horses. I'll telephone Mrs. Slater that you're safe. You other girls must go home at once and change your clothes before they thaw. And, Jean, you and Henrietta must get into bed at once. I'll bring you a hot supper inside of five minutes."

"That'll be fun," declared Jean, seizing Henrietta's hand and making for the stairs. "Good-night, girls."

"I guess," said Marjory, when the Mapes's door had closed behind Bettie, Mabel and herself, "Jean and Henrietta are going to be great chums."

"I'm afraid so," sighed Bettie. "I like Henrietta; but, dear me, I don't want Jean to like her better than she does me."

"She won't," comforted Marjory. "Henrietta's all right for a little while at a time, but you're always nice."

Thanks to Mrs. Mapes's instructions, none of the girls caught cold; but their mothers were so afraid that they might that not one of them was permitted to poke her nose out of doors the next day. To Henrietta's delight, the drifts reached the fence tops; and, until a huge plow, drawn by six horses arranged in pairs, had cleared the way, the roads were impassable. The wind, after raging furiously all night, had quieted down; but the snow continued to fall in big, soft, clinging flakes, every tree and shrub was weighted down with a heavy burden and all the world was white. To Henrietta, who had never before seen snow in such abundance, it was a most pleasing spectacle.

Bettie, however, was sorely troubled. There was Jean shut in with attractive Henrietta and getting "chummier" with her every minute. There was Bettie, a solitary prisoner in a fuzzy red wrapper and bed slippers, sighing for her beloved Jean. To be sure, Bettie had brothers of assorted sizes and complexions, but not one of them could fill Jean's place in Bettie's troubled affections.

Had Bettie but known it, however, Jean was not having an entirely comfortable day. It happened to be one of Henrietta's "Frederika" days. The lively girl tormented bashful Wallace by pretending that she herself was excessively shy, and, as shyness was not one of her attributes, her victim was covered with confusion. She teased and bewildered Roger by chattering so rapidly in French that he couldn't understand a word she said, although he had studied the language for three years under Miss McGinnis and was proud of his progress. A number of times she became so witty at Jean's expense that "Sallie" had to rush to the rescue with profuse apologies. Also, she disturbed both Mr. and Mrs. Mapes by her extreme restlessness.

"My sakes," confided Mrs. Mapes, in the privacy of the kitchen, whither she had fled for the sake of quiet, "I'm glad that girl doesn't belong to me; she isn't still a minute."

"Perhaps," said Roger, who had escaped on the pretext of blacking his shoes, "it's because she has traveled so much. Maybe she feels as if she had to keep going."

"Bettie's certainly a great deal quieter," agreed Jean, who looked tired, "and she doesn't talk all night when a body wants to sleep; but Henrietta's more fun. You see, you never know what she's going to do next, but Bettie's always just the same."

At dinner time that day, Mrs. Mapes asked her husband if he knew whether the School Board had accomplished anything at the meeting held the night previously.

"No," replied Mr. Mapes, a tall, thin man with a preoccupied air. "And they never will as long as each one of them wants to put that schoolhouse in a different place. They can't come to any sort of an agreement."

Indeed, the poor School Board was having a perplexing time. The citizens that lived at the north end of the town wanted the new school built there. Other tax-payers declared that the southern portion of Lakeville, being more densely populated, offered a more suitable site. Then, since the town stretched westward for a long distance, a third group of persons were clamoring for the building in their part of the town. Besides all these, there were persons who declared that the old site was the only place for a school building. As the Board itself was divided as to opinion, it began to look as if Lakeville would have to get along without a schoolhouse unless it could afford to build four, and the tax-payers said it couldn't do that.

"I wish," said Mrs. Mapes, "that I could find a first-class girls' school within a reasonable distance. If they don't have a proper building in Lakeville by next September I'll send Jean away. That Baptist cellar is damp, and I know it. Besides, I went to a good boarding school myself and I'd like Jean to have the experience—I'll never forget those days."

"Send her," suggested Henrietta, "to the school I'm going to."

"Which one is that?" asked Mrs. Mapes.

"I don't know; but Grandmother says it mustn't be too far away. She wants me within reach."

"I think," said Mrs. Mapes, reflectively, "I'll send for some catalogues."

The next morning the sun shone brightly on a glittering world. Henrietta went into ecstasies over it, for even the tree trunks seemed incrusted with diamonds—or at least rhine-stones, Henrietta said. The coachman arrived with the Slater horses a little before nine o'clock and the two girls were carried off to school in state. They waved their hands to Bettie as they passed her trudging in the snow; and poor Bettie was suddenly conscious of a sharp twinge of jealousy.

Now that Henrietta had been properly called on and had returned the call, she became a permanent part of all the Cottagers' plans. Thereafter, there was hardly a day when one or another of the four girls did not see the fascinating maid of many names. They always found her interesting, attractive and entertaining. Yet, there were days when she teased them almost to the limit of their endurance, times when they could not quite approve her and moments when she fairly roused them to anger; but, in spite of her faults, they could not help loving her, because, with all her impishness and her distressing lack of repose, she was warm-hearted, loyal and thoroughly true. And, although she possessed dozens of advantages that the other girls lacked, although she was beautifully gowned, splendidly housed and bountifully supplied with spending money, never did she show, in any way, the faintest scrap of false pride. She mentioned her life abroad, in a simple, matter-of-fact way (as if it were a mere incident that might have happened to anybody), but never in any boasting spirit. Her prankishness, however, kept her from being too good or too lovable; for, as her Grandmother said, she spared no one; sometimes even Jean, who was a model of patience, found it hard to forgive fun-loving Frederika, the Disguised Duchess.

CHAPTER XXIV
The Statue from India

ALL the shops in Lakeville wore a holiday air, for money was plentiful and trade was unusually brisk. The windows were gay with wreaths of holly and glittering strings of Christmas-tree ornaments. Clerks were busy and smiling. Customers, alert for bargains, crowded about the counters and parted cheerfully from their cash. Persons in the streets, laden with parcels of every shape, size and color, pushed eagerly through the doors or hurried along the busy thoroughfares. All wore an air of eager expectancy, for two weeks of December were gone and Christmas was fairly scrambling into sight.

The five girls had money to spend. Very little of it, to be sure, belonged to the Cottagers; but Henrietta had a great deal, and, as they all went together on their shopping expeditions, it didn't matter very much, as far as enjoyment went, who did the purchasing. Bettie said that it was quite as much fun to help Henrietta pick out a five-dollar scarf pin for Simmons, the butler, as it was to choose ten-cent paper weights for Bob and Dick. Besides, no one was obliged to go home empty-handed, because it took all five to carry Henrietta's purchases.

All five were making things besides. Sometimes they sewed at Jean's, sometimes at Henrietta's, occasionally at Marjory's and once in a while at Mabel's. They liked least of all to go to Marjory's because Aunty Jane, who was a wonderfully particular housekeeper, objected to their walking on her hardwood floors and seemed equally averse to having them step on the rugs. As they couldn't very well use the ceiling or feel entirely comfortable under the battery of Aunty Jane's disapproving glances, they liked to go where they were more warmly welcomed. Perhaps Henrietta's once-dreaded home was the most popular place, though in that fascinating abode they could not accomplish a great deal in the sewing line because Henrietta invariably produced such a bewildering array of unusual belongings to show them that their eyes kept busier than their fingers. In another way, however, they accomplished a great deal. Henrietta, who was really very clever with her needle, had started at one time or another a great many different articles. These, in their half-finished condition—the changeable girl was much better at beginning things than at completing them—she lavishly bestowed on her friends. Lovely flowered ribbons, dainty bits of silk and lace, curious scraps of Japanese and Chinese embroidery, embossed leather and rich brocades, all these found their way into the Cottagers' work-bags.

Out of these fascinating odds and ends they fashioned gifts for Mrs. Crane, Anne Halliday's mother, their out-of-town relatives, their parents and their school-teachers. They wanted, of course, to buy every toy that ever was made for Rosa Marie, little Anne Halliday, Peter Tucker and the Marcotte twins; but Mr. Black, meeting them in the toy-shop one day, implored them to leave just a few things in the shops for him to buy, particularly for Rosa Marie and little Peter Tucker, his namesake.

And now, Mabel was immensely pleased with Henrietta; for, one day, Rosa Marie, cured of her cold, had been dressed in her cunning little Indian costume for the new girl's benefit. Rosa Marie had looked so very much more attractive than when she had had a cold that Henrietta had been greatly taken with her. As the way to Mabel's affections was through approval of Rosa Marie, Henrietta quickly found it, so the threatened breach was healed.

"Oh, Mrs. Crane," Henrietta had cried, on beholding the little brown person in buckskin and feathers, "do let me telephone for James to bring the carriage so I can take Rosa Marie to our house and show her to my Grandmother. I'll take the very best of care of her. And all four of the girls can come with her, so she won't be afraid."

"Oh, do," pleaded the others.

"Well, it's mild out to-day," returned Mrs. Crane, glancing out the window, "and a little fresh air won't hurt her. I guess her coat will go on right over these fixings and I can tie a veil over her head. You'll find a telephone in the library, on Mr. Black's desk."

Half an hour later, the six youngsters, carefully tucked between splendid fur robes, were on their way to Mrs. Slater's.

"I have a perfectly heavenly plan," said Henrietta, her black eyes sparkling with impishness. "Want to hear it?"

"Of course we do," encouraged the Cottagers.

"You see," explained Henrietta, "a large box came from Father this morning. It hasn't been opened yet; but Greta and Simmons don't know that. I'm going to make them think that Rosa Marie is what came in that box—it's time I cheered them up a little, for Simmons has lost some money he had in the bank and Greta is homesick for the old country. Will you help?"

"Ye-es," promised Jean, doubtfully, "if you're not going to hurt anybody's feelings."

"Shan't even scratch one," assured Henrietta. "Now, when we reach the house, I'll slip around to the basement door with Rosa Marie—the cook will let us in—and you must ring the front-door bell because that will take Simmons out of the way while I get up the back stairs. Ask for Grandmother, and I'll come down and get you when I'm ready."

So the girls asked for Mrs. Slater—every one of them now liked the entertaining old lady very much indeed—and chatted with her merrily until Henrietta came running down the stairs.

"Grannie," asked the lively girl, pressing her warm red cheek against Mrs. Slater's much paler one, "would you like to be amused? Would you like to be a black conspirator and humble your most haughty servitor to the dust? Then you must ascend to my haunted den and not say a single word for at least five minutes. Come on, girls."

In Henrietta's oddly furnished room there were two large East Indian gods and one heathen goddess. Henrietta had managed to group these interesting, Oriental figures in one corner of the spacious chamber, with appropriate drapings behind them. Near them she had placed an empty packing case, oblong in shape and plastered with curious, foreign labels. It looked as if it were waiting to be carried away to the furnace room or some such place.

Darkening her bedroom and her dressing room, she placed her obliging grandmother and her four friends behind the heavy portières.

"You can peek round the edges," said she, "but you mustn't be seen or heard or even suspected."

Then, fun-loving Henrietta brought Rosa Marie from another room, removed her wraps, concealed them from sight and placed the stolid child in a sitting posture on a large tabouret near one of the richly colored statues. Next she rang for Greta, and ran downstairs in person to ask Simmons to come at once to remove the heavy packing case.

Simmons obeyed immediately and just as the pair reached Henrietta's door, Greta, who had been in her own room, joined them. All three entered together.

"Don't you want to see my lovely new statue?" asked Henrietta. "There, with the rest of my heathen friends."

"Ho," said Simmons, leaning closer to look. "That's wot came in that 'eavy box. Another 'eathen god from Hindia."

"ANOTHER 'EATHEN GOD FROM HINDIA."

"He ees very pretty god-lady, Miss Henrietta," approved Greta. "Looks most like real."

Rosa Marie, awed by her strange surroundings, played her part most beautifully. For a long moment she sat perfectly still. But, just as Simmons leaned forward to take a better look at her, Rosa Marie, who had suddenly caught a whiff of pungent smoke from the joss-sticks that Henrietta had lighted to create a proper atmosphere for her gods and goddesses, gave a sudden sneeze. The effect was all that could be desired. Simmons leaped backward and Greta, who was excitable, gave a piercing shriek.

The hidden girls restrained their giggles, but only with difficulty; and Bettie said afterwards that she could feel Mrs. Slater shaking with helpless laughter.

"My heye!" exclaimed Simmons, "wot'll they be mykin' next! Look! Hit's movin' 'is 'ead."

Rosa Marie proceeded deliberately to move more than her head. Putting both hands on the tabouret, she managed somehow to lift herself clumsily to all-fours, balancing uncertainly for several moments in that ungainly attitude. Then she rose to her feet, and, stiffly, like some mechanical toy, stretched out her arms toward Henrietta. Greta backed hastily through the doorway; but Simmons eyed the swaying youngster with enlightened eyes.

"Hit's a real biby, from Hindia," said he, "but think of hit comin' hall that wy in that there box. But them Indoos 'ave a lot of queer tricks and Hi suppose they drugged 'im, mide a bloomin' mummy of 'im and sent directions for bringin' of 'im to."

"Take the box downstairs, please," said Henrietta, succeeding in the difficult task of keeping her face straight. "This is a little North Indian from Lakeville, Simmons, not an East Indian from India, and it was only some things that I'm not to look at till Christmas that came in the box."

"Hi thought hit was mighty stringe," returned Simmons, looking very much relieved and not at all resentful. "Hit seemed sort of hawful, Miss 'Enrietta, to think as 'ow 'uman bein's could tike such chances with heven their hown hoffsprings. But, just the sime, Miss 'Enrietta, Hi've 'eard of them 'Indoos doing mighty queer things, and Hi, for one, don't trust 'em."

CHAPTER XXV
Comparing Notes

IT was eight o'clock, the morning of the twenty-fourth day of December, which is twice as exciting a day as the twenty-fifth and at least ten times as interesting as the twenty-sixth.

Bettie, and as many of the little Tuckers as had been able to find enough clothes for decency, were eating pancakes a great deal faster than Mrs. Tucker could bake them over the Rectory stove. Marjory, her young countenance somewhat puckered because of the tartness of her grapefruit, was sitting sedately opposite her Aunty Jane. Jean had finished her breakfast and was tying mysterious tissue paper parcels with narrow scarlet ribbon; and Mabel, having suddenly remembered that this was the day that the postman brought interesting mail, was hurrying with might and main to get into her sailor blouse in order to capture the letters. Of course she didn't expect to open any of her Christmas mail; but she did like to squeeze the packages. Henrietta was reading a long, delightful letter from her father. Mrs. Slater, too, had Christmas letters.

Five blocks away Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were finishing their breakfast. Their dining-room was at the back of the house, where its three broad windows commanded a fine view of the lake. Just at the top of the bluff and well inside the Black-Crane yard stood a wonderfully handsome fir tree, a truly splendid tree, for in all Lakeville there was no other evergreen to compare with it in size, shape or color.

Every now and again, Mr. Black would turn in his chair to gaze earnestly out the window at the tree. For a long time, Mrs. Crane, her nice dark eyes dancing with fun, watched her brother in silence. But when he began to consume the last quarter of his second piece of toast she felt that it was time to speak.

"Peter," said she, "you can't do it."

"Do what?" asked Mr. Black, with a guilty start.

"Cut down that tree. I know, just as well as I know anything, that you're just aching to make that splendid big evergreen into a Christmas-tree for Rosa Marie and those four girls."

"How do you know it?" queried Mr. Black, eying his sister with quick suspicion.

"Because I had the same thought myself. It would be fine for Christmas—it looks like a Christmas-tree every day of the year. And if you've been a sort of bottled-up Santa Claus all your life you're apt to be pretty foolish when you're finally unbottled. And that tree——"

"But," queried Mr. Black, "what would it be the day after?"

"That," confessed Mrs. Crane, "is what bothers me."

"It does seem a shame," said Mr. Black, rising and walking to the window, "to cut down such a perfect specimen as that; and yet, in all my life I never met a tree so evidently designed for the express purpose of serving as a Christmas-tree. It's a real temptation."

"I know it," sighed Mrs. Crane. "It's been tempting me; but I said: 'Get thee behind me, Santa Claus, and send me to the proper place for Christmas-trees.'"

"And did you go to that place?"

"It came to me. I engaged a twelve-foot tree from a man that was taking orders at the door."

"So did I," confessed Mr. Black. "I'm not sure that I didn't order two."

"Peter Black! You're spoiling those children."

"I'm having plenty of help," twinkled Mr. Black, shrewdly.

With so many trees to choose from, it certainly seemed probable that the Black-Crane household would have at least one respectable specimen to decorate; but half an hour later, when the three ordered balsams arrived, both Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were greatly disappointed. The trees had shrunk from twelve to six feet, and the uneven branches were thin and sparsely covered.

"Why!" exclaimed Mr. Black, "all three of those trees together wouldn't make a whole tree."

"They look," said Mrs. Crane, "as if they were shedding their feathers."

"Most of them," agreed Mr. Black, "have already been shed. I said, Mr. Man, that I wanted good trees."

"My wagon broke down," explained the tree-man, "so I couldn't bring anything that I couldn't haul on a big sled. They weigh a lot, those big fellows."

"Can't you make a special trip," suggested Mrs. Crane, "and bring us a first-class tree—just one?"

"It's too late. I have to go too far before I'm allowed to cut any."

"Well," said Mr. Black, "I'll pay you for these, and I'll give you fifty cents extra to haul them off the premises. We don't want any such sorrowful specimens round here to cast a gloom over our Christmas, do we, Sarah?"

"Peter," announced Mrs. Crane, when the man had departed with his scraggly trees, "I have an idea. The weather's likely to stay mild for another twenty-four hours, isn't it?"

"I think so."

"And this is an honest town?"

"As honest as they make 'em."

"And all those girls are accustomed to being outdoors——"

"I see!" cried Mr. Black, giving Mrs. Crane's plump shoulders a sudden, friendly whack. "I almost thought of that myself. We'll certainly surprise 'em this time."

Although it was getting late, Mr. Black still hung about the house as if he had not yet freed his mind of Christmas matters.

"I suppose," said Mr. Black, breaking a long silence, "that you've thought of a few things to put on the tree for those girls?"

"Yes," admitted Mrs. Crane, guardedly, "I've gathered up some little fixings that I thought they'd fancy."

"It might be a good idea," said Mr. Black, rising to ring for Martin, "for us to compare notes. Two heads are better than one, you know; and after what they did for us, we owe those little folks a splendid Christmas."

"We certainly do," agreed Mrs. Crane, wiping away the sudden moisture that sprung to her eyes at thought of the memorable dinner party in Dandelion Cottage—the dinner that had brought her estranged brother to the rescue. "I don't know where I'd have been now if it hadn't been for those blessed children. In the poorhouse, probably."

"Martin," said Mr. Black, huskily, "you go to the storeroom in the basement. Take a hatchet with you and knock the top off that wooden box that is marked with a big blue cross and bring it up here to me."

Presently Martin, who always blundered if there was the very faintest excuse for blundering, returned, proudly bearing the cover of the large box.

"Thank you," replied Mr. Black, turning twinkling eyes upon Mrs. Crane, who twinkled back. "Now bring up the box with all the things in it."

"I'll get my things, too," offered Mrs. Crane. "They're right here in the library closet, in a clothes hamper."

Then when Martin had brought the box, the two middle-aged people began to sort their presents. They went about it rather awkwardly because neither had had much experience; but they were certainly enjoying their novel occupation.

"This," said Mr. Black, clearing a space on the big library table, "is Bettie's pile, and Heaven knows that I tried not to get it bigger than the other three; but everything I saw in the shops shouted 'Buy me for Bettie'—and I usually obeyed."

"This is Jean's pile," said Mrs. Crane, baring another space, "and I guess I feel about Jean the way you do about Bettie; but I love Bettie too—and all of them. Rosa Marie's things will have to go on the floor—they're mostly bumpy and breakable."

Mr. Black rummaged in his box, Mrs. Crane fished in her basket. Presently there was a rapidly growing, untidy heap of large, lumpy bundles on the floor for Rosa Marie, and four very neat stacks of square, compact parcels for the Cottagers.

"Let's open them all," suggested Mr. Black, eagerly. "We can tie them up again."

So the elderly couple, as interested as two children, opened their packages. At first, both were too busy renewing acquaintanceship with their own purchases to notice what the other was doing; but presently Mrs. Crane gave a start as her eye traveled over the table.

"Why, Peter Black," she exclaimed. "Here are two watches in Bettie's pile!"

"I didn't buy but one of them," declared Mr. Black, placing his finger on one of the dainty timepieces. "That's mine."

"The other's mine," confessed Mrs. Crane. "And, Peter, did you go and buy dolls all around, too?"

"I did," owned Mr. Black, opening a long narrow box. "One always buys dolls for Christmas."

"Well," sighed Mrs. Crane, "I guess they can stand two apiece, because ours are not a bit alike. You see, you got carried away by fine clothes and I paid more attention to the dolls themselves. The bodies are first-class and the faces are lovely. I bought mine undressed and I've had four weeks' pleasure dressing them—I sort of hate to give them up. The clothes are plain and substantial; I couldn't make 'em fancy."

"But the watches, Sarah?"

"Well, I guess we'll have to send half of those watches back. Yours are the nicest—we'll keep yours."

"I suspect," said Mr. Black, reflectively pinching two large parcels in Rosa Marie's heap, "that we've both bought Teddy bears for Rosa Marie. And we've both supplied the girls with perfume, purses and writing paper, but I don't see any books."

"We'll use the extra-watch money for books," decided Mrs. Crane, promptly. "Suppose you attend to that—if we both do it we'll have another double supply. I see we've both bought candy, too; but I need a box for the milk-boy and I'd like to send some little thing to Martin's small sister."

"On the whole," said Mr. Black, complacently, "we've managed pretty well considering our inexperience; but next time we'll do better."

CHAPTER XXVI
Christmas Eve

IN Lakeville, Christmas always began at exactly four o'clock the afternoon of the twenty-fourth; for the young people of that little town—even the very old young people with gray hair and youthful eyes—always indulged in an unusual and extremely enjoyable custom. The moment that marked this real beginning of Christmas found each person with gifts for her neighbor sallying forth with a great basketful of parcels on her arm. If one had a great many friends and neighbors it often took until ten o'clock at night to distribute all one's gifts. As each package was wrapped in white tissue paper, tied with ribbon and further adorned with sprigs of holly or gay Christmas cards, these Christmas baskets were decidedly attractive; and the streets of Lakeville, from four to ten, were certain to be full of gayety and genuine Christmas cheer.

On all other days of the year, the Cottagers traveled together; but on this occasion each girl was an entirely separate person. Bettie, wearing a fine air of importance, went alone to Mabel's, to Jean's and to Marjory's to leave her gifts for her three friends. Although, at all other times, it was her habit to run in unceremoniously, to-day she rang each door-bell and was formally admitted to each front hall, where she selected the package designed for each house. Jean and the other two, likewise, went forth by themselves to leave their mysterious little parcels. But when this rite was completed all four ran to their own homes, added more parcels to their gay baskets and then congregated in Mrs. Mapes's parlor.

They had gifts for dear little Anne Halliday, the Marcotte twins, Henrietta Bedford, Rosa Marie, Mr. Black, Mrs. Crane, some distant cousins of Jean's and for all their school-teachers that had not gone out of town for the holidays. Besides, their parents had intrusted them with articles to be delivered to their friends and Mabel had a gift for the dust-chute Janitor, a silver match-safe with the date of the fire engraved under his initials.

"We'll go to Henrietta's first," decided Jean, "because that's the farthest."

"And to the Janitor's next," said Mabel, "because I want to get it over and forget about it."

To make things more exciting for Henrietta, the girls went in singly to present their offerings, the others crouching out of sight behind the stone balustrades that flanked the steps. Each time the bell rang, Henrietta was right at Simmons's heels when he opened the door. Then, after a brief wait outside, all four again presented themselves to invite Henrietta, who had gifts for Rosa Marie, to go with them to Mr. Black's and all the other places. Henrietta was glad to go, because she herself was too new to Lakeville to have very many friends to favor with presents. The five had a very merry time with their baskets; but they were much too excited to stay a great while under any one roof. They shouted merry greetings to the rest of the basket-laden population and paused more than once to obligingly pull a door-bell for some elderly acquaintance who found that she needed more hands than she had started out with.

"How jolly everybody is!" remarked Henrietta. "I never saw a more Christmassy lot of people. It must be lovely to have a long, long list to give to."

"Father says this is an unusually nice town," offered Bettie. "The people seem actually glad to have folks sick and in trouble so they can send them flowers and things to eat."

"What a charitable place," laughed Henrietta, gaily. "I hope nobody's longing for me to come down with anything. I'd rather stay well than eat flowers—they're too expensive just now."

"My!" exclaimed Mabel, after all the gifts had been distributed and the girls, with their empty baskets turned over their heads, had started homeward, "won't to-morrow be a lively day. First, all our stockings; very early in the morning at home. Next, all our Christmas packages to open—I've about ten already that I haven't even squeezed—that is, not very hard, except one that I know is a bottle. Then our dinners——"

"Too bad we can't have all our dinners together," mourned Marjory, "but of course your mothers and my Aunty Jane and Henrietta's grandmother would be too lonely if we did; and all the families in a bunch would make too many to feed comfortably."

"And then," proceeded Mabel, "a tree at Mr. Black's just as soon as it's dark enough to light the candles, and supper and another tree at Henrietta's in the evening, and a ride home in the Slater carriage afterwards, because by that time we'll surely be too tired to walk."

"And I've trimmed a tree for the boys at home," said Bettie. "There won't be anything on it for you, but you can all come to see it."

"Aunty Jane says that Christmas-trees shed their feathers and make too much litter," said Marjory, "but with three others to visit I don't mind if I don't have one."

"You can have half of mine," offered Mabel, generously. "I shan't have time to trim more than half of it, anyway, so I'd like somebody to help."

"I suppose," said Marjory, doubtfully, "that we ought to do something for the poor, but I don't know where to find any since our washwoman married the butcher."

"I'm glad you don't," laughed Henrietta. "I've nine cents left and it's got to last, for I shan't have any more until I get my allowance the first of January, unless somebody sends me money for Christmas."

"I guess," giggled Jean, fishing an empty purse from her pocket, "the rest of us couldn't scare up nine cents between us; but I have an uncle who always sends me a paper dollar every year. I've spent it in at least fifty different ways already. I always have lovely times with that dollar before it comes, but it just sort of melts away into nothing afterwards."

"I wish," breathed Mabel, fervently, "I had an uncle like that."

"Yes," agreed Henrietta, "a few uncles with the paper-dollar habit wouldn't be bad things to have."

"I caught a glimpse of your tree, Henrietta," confessed Marjory. "I stood on the balustrade outside and peeked in the window when Jean was inside. It's going to be perfectly grand; but of course I didn't mean to peek. I just got up there because I was too excited to stay on the ground."

"So did I," owned Bettie.

"I wonder," said Mabel, "where Mr. Black's tree is. We were in all the downstairs rooms and I didn't see a sign of it."

"Probably," teased Henrietta, "he's forgotten to order one. Unless one forms the habit very early in life, one is very apt to overlook little things like that."

"Mr. Black never forgets," assured Bettie.

"Probably it's some place in the yard," ventured Marjory, not guessing how close she came to the truth.

"No," declared Mabel, positively. "I looked out the windows and there wasn't a single sign of a tree anywhere. I pretty nearly asked about it, but I wasn't sure that that would be polite."

"Don't worry," soothed Jean. "There'll be one if Mr. Black has to plant a seed and grow it over night. He and Mrs. Crane are more excited over Christmas than we are. They can't think of anything else."

CHAPTER XXVII
A Crowded Day

MABEL rose very early indeed on Christmas morning to explore her bulging stocking and to open her packages; but Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were even earlier, and they were delighted to find that the weather had remained mild. Putting on their outside wraps and warm overshoes, the worthy couple went with good-natured Martin and Maggie, the nimble nursery maid, to the garden as soon as it was light. They strung the tall tree from top to bottom with tinsel and glittering Christmas-tree ornaments, the finest that money could buy. Martin and the maid, perched on tall step-ladders, worked enthusiastically. Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane handed up the decorations. The cook, watching them from the basement window, grinned broadly at the sight.

"Sure," said she, "'tis a lot of children they are; but 'twould do no harrum if all the wurruld was loike 'em."

By church time the towering tree was in readiness except for a few of the more precious gifts, to be added later.

"I hope," said Mrs. Crane, with a lingering, backward glance, when there was no further excuse for remaining outdoors, "that the air will be as quiet to-night as it is now. It would be dreadful if we couldn't light the candles."

"We'll have to trust to luck," returned Mr. Black, "but I'm quite sure that luck will be with us."

Of course the girls enjoyed their stockings at home, their gifts that arrived by mail and express from out-of-town relatives and the bountiful dinners at the home tables. But the Black-Crane tree to which Henrietta, likewise, had been invited, was something entirely new and so proved particularly enjoyable; if not, indeed, the crowning event of the day. Martin had cleared away the snow and had laid boards and even a carpet for them to stand on, and there were chairs and extra wraps, only the girls were too excited to use them. But Mrs. Crane and placid Rosa Marie sat enveloped in steamer rugs while the others capered about the brilliantly lighted tree, constantly discovering new beauties.

"I declare," sighed Mrs. Crane, happily, "you're the youngest of the lot, Peter."

"Well," returned Mr. Black, "why not? It's the first real Christmas I've had for forty years—but let's have another Christmas dinner on New Year's Day; I was disappointed when all these young folks said, 'No, thank you,' to our invitation to dinner. Just remember, girls, we expect to see you all here the first of January or there'll be trouble—I'll see that it lasts all the year, too."

"Peter Black," warned Mrs. Crane, "that step-ladder's prancing on one leg. If you go over that bluff you won't stop till you land in the lake. Let Martin do all the circus acts."

"I've got it, now," said Mr. Black, coming down safely with the small parcel that had dangled so long just above his reach. "Here's something for Henrietta Bedford, with the tree's compliments."

"How nice of you to remember me," cried Henrietta, opening the parcel. "And what a dear little pin—just what I needed. Thank you very much indeed."

Of all their gifts, however, the Cottagers liked their lovely little watches the best. They had expected no such magnificent gifts from Mr. Black, and their own people had, of course, considered them much too young to be trusted with watches.

"Dear me," said Mabel, strutting about with her timepiece pinned to her blouse, "I feel too grown-upedy for words. I never expected this moment to come."

"I've always wanted a watch," breathed Jean, "but I certainly supposed I'd have to wait until I'd graduated from high-school—folks almost always get them then."

"And I," beamed Marjory, "never expected a pretty, really truly girl's watch, because—worse luck—I'm to get Aunty Jane's awful watch when she dies. Of course I don't want her to die a minute before her time, but getting even that watch seemed sort of hopeless because all Aunty Jane's ancestors that weren't killed by accident lived to enjoy their nineties. But that doesn't prevent Aunty Jane's promising me that clumsy old turnip whenever she's particularly pleased with me."

Bettie was too delighted for speech. But her big brown eyes spoke eloquently for her.

Rosa Marie accepted the unusual tree, all her Teddy bears, her dolls and other gifts, very much as a matter of course. Nothing it appeared was ever sufficiently surprising to astonish calm little Rosa Marie.

"Perhaps," offered Bettie, "she's awfully surprised inside."

"I know I am," laughed Mabel. "Inside and out, too."

Then, just as Mrs. Crane had decided that Rosa Marie had been outdoors long enough, the Slater carriage arrived for the girls. Mr. Black, beaming at the success of his Christmas party, packed them with all their belongings into the vehicle and they rolled happily away.

They stopped at their own homes just long enough to drop most of the gifts they had garnered from the Black-Crane tree; and then Henrietta whisked her friends to the Slater home, where Mrs. Slater entertained them for two hours over a delightful, genuinely English Christmas supper.

Henrietta's tree, too, was a very handsome one. A realistic Santa Claus who seemed as English as the supper, since he dropped the letter H just as Simmons always did, distributed the gifts. When the Cottagers opened odd, foreign-looking parcels and found that Henrietta had given each girl a set of three beautiful Oriental boxes with jewelled tops, their delight knew no bounds. They had expected nothing so fine.

"You see," explained Henrietta, "I told Father, months ago, to send me a lot of little things to give away for Christmas and of course he bought boxes. I believe he buys every one he sees."

"They're darlings," declared Jean, dreamily. "They take you away to far-off places where things smell old and—and magnificent."

"It's the grown-upness of my presents that I like," explained eleven-year-old Mabel, with a big sigh of satisfaction. "It's lovely to have people treat you as if you were somebody."

"You see," laughed Marjory, "it's only two years ago that an absent-minded aunt of Mr. Bennett's sent Mabel a rattle, and the poor child can't forget it."

"Miss 'Enrietta," inquired Santa Claus, anxiously, when the Slater tree, too, had been stripped of all but its decorations, "might Hi be hexcused now? Hi'm due at a Christmas ball and Hi'm hawfully afride these togs is meltin' me 'igh collar."

"Yes," laughed Henrietta, "you've done nobly and I hope you'll have a lovely time at the party."

It was half-past ten before the Cottagers got to bed that night—a long day because they had risen so early.

"But," breathed Bettie, happily, "when days are as nice as this I like 'em long."

"It's nice to have friends," said Jean.

"I wish," sighed Mabel, "they'd make some kind of a watch that had to be wound every hour; it seems awfully hard to wait until morning."

When Mrs. Bennett looked in that night to see if Mabel had remembered to take off her best hair ribbon, she found a doll on each side of the blissful slumberer, a watch pinned to her nightdress, a jeweled box clasped loosely in each relaxed hand and at least half a bushel of other treasures under the uncomfortable pillow. As Mrs. Bennett gently removed all these articles and straightened the bed-clothes Mabel murmured in her sleep, "Merry Christmas, girls."

CHAPTER XXVIII
A Bettie-less Plan

THE first thing that happened after Christmas was the announcement of the School Board's decision to wait a full year before beginning to build a new schoolhouse.

"Even if we could decide on a site," said they, "it would be hard on the tax-payers to furnish money for such a building all at one assessment. By spreading it over two years' tax-rolls it will come easier."

The fathers, for the most part, were pleased with the arrangement, but many of the mothers disliked it very much indeed.

"We must do something about it," said Aunty Jane, who had called at Mrs. Bennett's to talk the matter over. "I'm in favor of sending Marjory away to some good girls' school, because she has some money that is to be used solely for educational purposes. There is enough for college and for at least one year at a boarding school, besides something for extras. My conscience will feel easier when that money begins to go toward its proper purpose."

"The Doctor thinks of going to Germany next fall for a special course of study that he thinks he needs," returned Mrs. Bennett. "If we could place Mabel in a safe, comfortable school, I could go with him. We've been talking of it for a long time."

"I certainly am not satisfied," admitted Mrs. Mapes, when Aunty Jane put the matter to her. "There are too many pupils crowded into that Baptist basement and it's so damp that I've had to put cold compresses on Jean's throat four times since the fire. If you can find a good school to fit a modest pocketbook we'd be glad to send Jean for the one year."

Then Aunty Jane unfolded her plans to the Tuckers.

"It's a beautiful idea," said pleasant Dr. Tucker, "as far as the rest of you are concerned; but you will have to leave Bettie entirely out of the scheme; we simply can't afford it. We've always hoped to be able to do something for Dick—he wants to be a physician—but even that is hopelessly beyond us at present."

"No," added Mrs. Tucker, shifting the heavy baby to her other arm and hoping that Aunty Jane would not notice the dust on the battered table, "we couldn't even think of sending Bettie. But Mrs. Slater intends letting Henrietta go some place next fall; why don't you talk it over with her?"

"I mean to," assured Aunty Jane. "You see, it will need a great deal of talking over because it may prove hard to find exactly the right kind of school. The eastern seminaries are too far away. It must be some place south of Lakeville, within a day's journey, within reach of all our pocketbooks, and in a healthful location. It mustn't be too big, too stylish, or too old-fashioned. I'm sending out postal cards every day and getting catalogues by every mail; but so far, I haven't come to any decision except that Marjory is to go some place."

At first, the older people said little about school matters to the four girls, but as winter wore on it became an understood thing that not only fortunate Henrietta but Jean, Marjory and Mabel were to go away to school the following September.

"Won't it be simply glorious," said Henrietta, who was entertaining the Cottagers in her den, "if all four of us land in the same school; and we must—I shall stand out for that. And you and I, Jean, shall room together and be chums."

"Then Marjory and I," announced Mabel, "shall room together, too, and fight just the way we always do if Jean isn't on hand to stop us."

"Won't it be perfectly fine?" breathed Marjory. "I've always loved boarding-school stories and now we'll be living right in one."

Bettie kept silence, but her eyes were big and troubled. With the girls gone she knew that her world would be sadly changed. Her close companionship with the other Cottagers—she was only three when she first began to play with Jean—had prevented her forming other friendships. Without doubt, Aunty Jane would be lonely; the Bennetts, in Germany, might miss noisy, affectionate Mabel, Mrs. Mapes might long for helpful Jean and Mrs. Slater would certainly find her big, beautiful home dull with no sparkling Henrietta but it was Bettie, poor little impecunious, uncomplaining Bettie, who would be the very loneliest of all. The others would lose only one girl apiece; Bettie's loss would be fourfold. Lovely Jean, sprightly Marjory, jolly Mabel and attractive Henrietta—how could she spare them all at once! And the glorious times the absent four would have together—how could Bettie miss all that? It seemed, to the little, overwhelmed girl, too big a trouble to talk about.

For a long, long time the more fortunate girls were too taken up with their own prospects to think very seriously of Bettie's; but one day Jean was suddenly astonished at the depth of misery that she surprised in Bettie's wistful, tell-tale eyes. After that, the girls openly expressed their pity for Bettie, who would have to stay in Lakeville. This proved even harder to bear than their light-hearted chatter; for it made Bettie pity herself to an even greater extent.

Of course, it would be several months before the hated school—Bettie, by this time, was quite certain that she hated it—would swallow up her dearest four friends at one sudden, hideous gulp; but remote as the date was, the interested girls could talk of very little else. No matter what topic they might begin with, it always worked around at last to "when I go away next fall."

"I can't have any clothes this spring," said Jean, when the girls, in a body, were escorting Henrietta home from her dressmaker's. "Mother's letting my old things down and piecing everything till I feel like a walking bedquilt. You see, I'm to have new things to go away with."

"Same here," asserted Mabel. "Only my mother's having a worse time than yours to make my things meet. My waist measure is twenty-nine inches and my skirt bands are only twenty-seven."

"Only twenty-seven," groaned shapely Henrietta.

"If you see a second Aunty Jane," said Marjory, skipping ahead to imitate the elder Miss Vale's prim, peculiar walk, "running round Lakeville all summer, you'll know who it is. She's cutting down two of her thousand-year-old gowns to tide me over the season. One came out of the Ark and she purchased the other at a little shop on Mount Ararat."

"Grandmother's making lists," laughed Henrietta, "of all the things mentioned in all the catalogues. When she gets done, probably she'll add them all up and divide the result by me; and that will give a respectable outfit for one girl."

"Poor Bettie!" said sympathetic Jean, squeezing Bettie's slim hand. "You're out of it all, aren't you?"

But this was too much for Bettie. She turned hastily and fled.

The girls looked after her pityingly.

"Poor Bettie!" murmured Jean. "It's awfully hard on her to hear all this talk about school. She's always had us, you know, and she thinks there won't be a scrap of Lakeville left when we're gone."

In February Rosa Marie created a little excitement by coming down with measles. Maggie, the maid, had broken out with this unlovely affliction and no one had suspected what the trouble was until she had peeled in the actual presence of Rosa Marie. Of course Rosa Marie came down with measles too. But there was an unusual feature about this illness. Although it was Maggie and Rosa Marie who were supposed to be the sufferers it was really Mrs. Crane who did all the suffering. You see, this inexperienced lady read all the literature that she could find that touched on the subject of measles and its after-effects; and long after Rosa Marie had entirely recovered, conscientious Mrs. Crane remained awake nights waiting for the dreaded "after-effects" to develop.

"We'll bury Mrs. Crane with whooping cough," sputtered Dr. Bennett, writing a soothing prescription for the good lady, "if Rosa Marie ever catches it. She's a hen bringing up a solitary duckling, and she's certainly overdoing it. She ought not to have the responsibility of that child; she's not fitted for responsibilities, yet she's the sort that takes 'em."

"I'll adopt Rosa Marie myself," declared Henrietta Bedford, hearing of this opinion and waylaying Dr. Bennett in Mrs. Slater's hall to make her light-hearted offer. "She'd go beautifully with the other picturesque objects in my den and I'm very sure that the responsibility won't weigh me down."

"So am I," laughed Dr. Bennett. "So sure of it that I shan't allow you to afflict your grandmother with any carelessly adopted babies. But that child is on my conscience, since Mabel was the principal culprit in the matter. We'll try to get Mrs. Crane to send her to an asylum; only that dear lady's conscience will have to be bombarded from all sides before it will let her consent to any such sensible plan. Perhaps you can get the girls—particularly Mabel,—to look at the matter from that point of view; we must rescue Mrs. Crane."

"I'll try to," promised Henrietta.

CHAPTER XXIX
Anxious Days

FOR the next few weeks the Cottagers led as quiet a life as almost daily association with Henrietta would permit. Jean grew a trifle taller, Marjory discovered new ways of doing her hair and Mabel remained as round and ruddy as ever. But everybody was worried about Bettie. She seemed listless and indifferent in school, she fell asleep over her books when she attempted to study at night, she grew averse to getting up mornings and day by day she grew thinner and paler, until even heedless Mabel observed that she was all eyes.

"What's the trouble?" asked Jean, when Bettie said that she didn't feel like going to the Public Library corner to view the Uncle Tom's Cabin parade. "A walk would do you good, and it's only four blocks."

"I'm tired," returned Bettie. "My head would like to go but my feet would rather not. And my hands don't want to do anything—or even my tongue. You can tell me about the parade—that'll be easier than looking at it."

Now, this was a new Bettie. The old one, while not exactly a noisy person, had been so active physically that the others had sometimes found it difficult to follow her dancing footsteps. She had ever been quick to wait on the other members of her large family; or to do errands, in the most obliging fashion, for any of her friends. This new Bettie eyed the Tucker cat sympathetically when it mewed for milk; but she relegated the task of feeding pussy to one of her much more unwilling small brothers.

"She needs a tonic," said Mrs. Tucker, giving Bettie dark-brown doses from a large bottle. "It's the spring, I guess."

Two days after the parade there was great excitement among Bettie's friends. She had not appeared at school. That in itself was not an unusual occurrence, for Bettie often stayed at home to help her overburdened mother through particularly trying days; but when Jean stopped in to consult her little friend about homemade valentines, Mrs. Tucker met her with the news that Bettie was sick in bed.

"Can't I see her?" asked Jean.

"I'm afraid not," replied Mrs. Tucker, who looked worried. "She's asleep just now and she has a temperature."

When Mabel heard this latter fact she at once consulted Dr. Bennett.

"Father," she queried, "do folks ever die of temperature?"

"Why, yes," returned the Doctor. "If the temperature is below zero they sometimes freeze. Why?"

"Mrs. Tucker says that's what Bettie's got—temperature."

"It isn't a disease, child. It's a condition of heat or cold. But it's too soon to say anything about Bettie—go play with your dolls."

Henrietta and the remaining Cottagers immediately thought of lovely things to do for Bettie. So, too, did Mr. Black. Impulsive Henrietta purchased a large box of most attractive candy, Jean made her a lovely sponge cake that sat down rather sadly in the middle but rose nobly at both ends; Mabel begged half a lemon pie from the cook; Marjory concocted a wonderful bowl of orange jelly with candied cherries on top, Mrs. Crane made a steaming pitcherful of chicken soup and Mr. Black sent in a great basket of the finest fruit that the Lakeville market afforded.

But when all these successive and well-meaning visitors presented themselves and their unstinted offerings at the Rectory door, Dr. Tucker received them sadly.

"Bettie is down with a fever," said he. "She can't eat anything."

The days that followed were the most dreadful that the Cottagers had ever known. They lived in suspense. Day after day when they asked for news of Bettie the response was usually, "Just about the same." Occasionally, however, Dr. Bennett shook his head dubiously and said, "Not quite so well to-day."

For weeks—for years it seemed to the disheartened children—these were the only tidings that reached them from the sick-room. There was a trained nurse whose white cap sometimes gleamed in an upper window, the grave-faced, uncommunicative doctor visited the house twice a day, a boy with parcels from the drug store could frequently be seen entering the Rectory gate and that was about all that the terribly interested friends could learn concerning their beloved Bettie. They spent most of their time hovering quietly and forlornly about Mrs. Mapes's doorstep, for that particular spot furnished the best view of the afflicted Rectory. They wanted, poor little souls, to keep as close to Bettie as possible. If the sun shone during this time, they did not know it; for all the days seemed dark and miserable.

"If we could only help a little," mourned Jean, who looked pale and anxious, "it wouldn't be so bad."

"I teased her," sighed Henrietta, repentantly, "only two days before she was taken sick. I do wish I hadn't."

"I gave her the smaller half of my orange," lamented Mabel, "the very last time I saw her. If—if I don't ever see—see her again——"

"Oh, well," comforted Marjory, hastily, "she might have been just that much sicker if she'd eaten the larger piece. But I wish I hadn't talked so much about boarding school. It always worried her and sometimes I tried [Marjory blushed guiltily at the remembrance] to make her just a little envious."

"I'm afraid," confessed Jean, "I sometimes neglected her just a little for Henrietta; but I mean to make up for it if—if I have a chance."

"That's it," breathed Marjory, softly, "if we only have a chance."

Then, because the March wind wailed forlornly, because the waiting had been so long and because it seemed to the discouraged children as if the chance, after all, were extremely slight—as slight and frail a thing as poor little Bettie herself—the four friends sat very quietly for many minutes on the rail of the Mapes's broad porch, with big tears flowing down their cheeks. Presently Mabel fell to sobbing outright.

Mr. Black, on his way home from his office, found them there. He had meant to salute them in his usual friendly fashion, but at sight of their disconsolate faces he merely glanced at them inquiringly.

"She's—she's just about the same," sobbed Jean.

Mr. Black, without a word, proceeded on his way; but all the sparkle had vanished from his dark eyes and his countenance seemed older. He, too, was unhappy on Bettie's account and he lived in hourly dread of unfavorable news. The very next morning, however, there was a more hopeful air about Dr. Bennett when he left the Rectory. Mabel, waiting at home, questioned him mutely with her eyes.

"A very slight change for the better," said he, "but it is too soon for us to be sure of anything. We're not out of the woods yet."

Next came the tidings that Bettie was really improving, though not at all rapidly; yet it was something to know that she was started on the road to recovery.

Perhaps the tedious days that followed were the most trying days of all, however, for the impatient children; because the "road to recovery" in Bettie's case seemed such a tremendously long road that her little friends began to fear that Bettie would never come into sight at the end of it, but she did at last. And such a forlorn Bettie as she was!

She had certainly been very ill. They had shaved her poor little head, her eyes seemed almost twice their usual size and the girls had not believed that any living person could become so pitiably thin; but the wasting fever was gone and what was left of Bettie was still alive.

Long before the invalid was able to sit up, the girls had been admitted one by one and at different times, to take a look at her. Bettie had smiled at them. She had even made a feeble little joke about being able to count every one of her two hundred bones.

After a time, Bettie could sit up in bed. A few days later, rolled in a gaily flowered quilt presented by the women of the parish; she occupied a big, pillowed chair near the window; and all four of the girls were able to throw kisses to her from Jean's porch. And now she could eat a few spoonfuls of Mrs. Crane's savory broth, a very little of Marjory's orange jelly and one or two of Mr. Black's imported grapes. But, for a long, long time, Bettie progressed no further than the chair.

"I don't know what ails that child," confessed puzzled Dr. Bennett. "She's like a piece of elastic with all the stretch gone from the rubber. She seems to lack something; not exactly vitality—animation, perhaps, or ambition. Yes, she certainly lacks ambition. She ought to be outdoors by now."

"Hurry and get well," urged Jean, who had been instructed to try to rouse her too-slowly-improving friend. "The weather's warmer every day and it won't be long before we can open Dandelion Cottage. And we've sworn a tremendous vow not to show Henrietta—she's crazy to see it—a single inch of that house until you're able to trot over with us. Here's the key. You're to keep it until you're ready to unlock that door yourself."

"Drop it into that vase," directed Bettie. "It seems a hundred miles to that cottage, and I'll never have legs enough to walk so far."

"Two are enough," encouraged Jean.

"Both of mine," mourned Bettie, displaying a wrinkled stocking, "wouldn't make a whole one."

"Mrs. Slater wants to take you to drive every day, just as soon as you are able to wear clothes. She told me to tell you."

"It seems a fearfully long way to the stepping stone," sighed Bettie. "Go home, please. It's makes me tired to think of driving."

"There's certainly something amiss with Bettie," said Dr. Bennett, when told of this interview. "Some little spring in her seems broken. We must find it and mend it or we won't have any Bettie."

CHAPTER XXX
An April Harvest

SPRING is an unknown season in Lakeville. But if one waits sufficiently long, there comes at last a period known as the breaking of winter. Since, owing to the heavy snows of January, February and March, there is always a great deal of winter to break, the process is an extended and—to the "overshoed" young—a decidedly trying one. But even in northerly Lakeville there finally came an afternoon when the girls decided that the day was much too fine to be spent indoors; and that the hour had arrived when it would be safe to leave off rubbers. The snow had disappeared except in very shaded spots and the Bay was free of ice except for a line of white that showed far out beyond the intense blue. The sidewalks were comparatively dry, but streams of icy water gurgled merrily in the deep gutters that ran down all the sloping streets. Although this abundant moisture was only the result of melting snow in the hills back of Lakeville and possessed no beauty in itself, these impetuous streams gave forth pleasant springlike sounds and made one think sentimentally of babbling brooks, fresh clover and blossoms by the wayside. Yet one needed to draw pretty heavily on one's imagination to see either flowers or grass at that early date; but the feel of them, as Jean said, was certainly in the air.

"Let's walk down by Mrs. Malony's," suggested Mabel.

"She doesn't milk at this time of day, does she?" queried Henrietta, cautiously.

"We needn't go in," assured Mabel. "We'll just run down one hill and up the other; but it's always lovely to walk along the shore road. There's a sort of a side-walk—if folks aren't too particular."

"Wouldn't it be beautiful," sighed Jean, "if Bettie could only come too? This air would do anybody good."

"Yes," mourned Marjory, "nothing seems quite right without Bettie."

The girls, a trifle saddened, went slowly down the hill.

"We must certainly steer clear of Mrs. Malony," warned Henrietta, as the egg-woman's house became visible. "Another dose of her hot milk would drive me from Lakeville."

"There she is now!" exclaimed Mabel. "I recognize her by her cow; she's driving it home."

"Perhaps it ran away to look for summer," offered Marjory. "The lady seems displeased with her pet."

"An' how are the darlin' childer?" cried Mrs. Malony, greeting her friends while yet a long way off. "'Tis a sight for a quane to see, so manny purty lasses. But where's me little black-oiyed Bettie—there's the swate choild for yez? Sure Oi heard she was loike to die, wan while back. Betther, is ut? Thot's good, thot's good. An' wud yez belave ut, Miss Mabel,—'tis fatter than iver yez are, Oi see—Oi had yez in me moind all this blissid day."

"Why?" asked Mabel, rather coldly.

"Well, 'twas loike this, darlin'," explained Mrs. Malony, dropping her voice to a more confidential tone and nodding significantly toward a distant chimney. "'Twas siven o'clock the mornin' whin Oi seen smoke risin' from the shanty beyant. All day Oi've been moinded to be goin' acrost the p'int an' lookin' in at thot windy to see if 'twas thot big-eyed Frinch wan come back wid the spring."

"You don't mean Rosa Marie's mother!" gasped Mabel.

"Thot same," proceeded Mrs. Malony, calmly. "But what wid Malony white-washin' me kitchen, an' me pesky hins walkin' in me parlor and me cow breakin' down me fince, sure Oi've had no toime to be traipsin' about."

"Couldn't you go now?" queried Jean, eagerly. "If it is that woman we ought to know it."

"Wait till Oi toi up me cow," consented Mrs. Malony.

The four friends, with Mrs. Malony in tow, picked their way over the badly kept path that led to the shanty.

"The door's been mended," announced observant Marjory.

"It doesn't seem quite proper," said gentle-mannered Jean, "to peek into people's windows. Couldn't we knock and ask in a perfectly proper way to see the lady of the house?"

"Sure we could thot," replied Mrs. Malony.

"Do hurry!" urged Mabel, breathlessly.

There was no response to Jean's rather nervous knock; but when Mrs. Malony applied her stout knuckles to the door there were results. The door was opened cautiously, just a tiny crack at first, then to its full extent. A dark-eyed woman with two thick braids falling over her shapely shoulders confronted them.

She swept a mildly curious glance over Mrs. Malony, over Jean, over Marjory, over Henrietta. Then her splendid eyes fell upon Mabel; they changed instantaneously.

In a twinkling the woman had brushed past the others to seize startled Mabel by both shoulders and to gaze piercingly into Mabel's frightened eyes. The woman tried to speak; but, for a long moment, her voice would not come.

"You—you!" she gasped, clutching Mabel still more tightly, as if she feared that the youngster might escape. "Ees eet you for sure? But w'ere, w'ere——?"

No further words would come. The poor creature's evident emotion was pitiful to see, and the girls were too overwhelmed to do more than stare with all their might.

"Rosa Marie's all right," gulped Mabel, coming to the rescue with exactly the right words. "She's safe and happy."

"Ma babee, ma babee," moaned the woman, her long-lashed eyes beaming with wonderful tenderness, and expressive of intense longing. "Bring me to heem queek—ah, so queek as evaire you can. Ma babee—I want heem queek."

Then, without stopping for outer garments or even to close her door, and still holding fast to the abductor of Rosa Marie, the woman hurriedly led the way from the clearing.

Mrs. Malony would have remained with the party if she had not encountered her frolicsome cow, a section of fence-rail dangling from her neck, strolling off toward town.

On the way up the long hill the woman, who still possessed all the beauty and the "mother-looks" that Mabel had described, talked volubly in French, in Chippewa Indian and in broken English. As Henrietta was able to understand some of the French and part of the English, the girls were able to make out almost two-thirds of what she was saying.

On the day of Mabel's first visit the young mother had departed with her new husband, who, not wanting to be burdened with a step-child, had persuaded her to abandon Rosa Marie, for whom she had subsequently mourned without ceasing. As might have been expected, the man had proved unkind. He had beaten her, half starved her and finally deserted her. She had worked all winter for sufficient money to carry her to Lakeville and had waited impatiently—all that time without news of her baby—for mild weather in order that the shanty, the only home that she knew, might become habitable.

The hill was steep and long, but all five hastened toward the top. Marjory ran ahead to ring the Black-Crane door-bell. Mabel piloted the trembling mother straight to the nursery. Jean, learning from Martin where to look for Mrs. Crane, ran to fetch her.

Rosa Marie, in her little chair and placidly stringing beads, looked up as unconcernedly as if it were an ordinary occasion. The woman, uttering broken, incoherent sounds sped across the big room, dropped to her knees and flung her arms about Rosa Marie. Then, for many moments, her face buried in Rosa Marie's neck, the only-half-civilized mother sobbed unrestrainedly.

The child, however, gazed stolidly over her mother's shoulder at the other visitors, all of whom were much more moved than she. Mrs. Crane, indeed, was shedding tears and even Mr. Black seemed touched. As for Mabel, that sympathetic young person was weeping both visibly and audibly, without exactly knowing why.

Since the repentant mother, who refused to let her baby out of her arms for a single moment, begged to be allowed to take Rosa Marie to the shanty that very night, Mrs. Crane, aided by the willing girls and Mr. Black, did what they could toward making the place comfortable.

After Martin and Mr. Black had carried a whole motor-carful of bedding, food and fuel to the shanty, the now radiant mother, Rosa Marie, her toys, her clothes and all her belongings, were likewise transported to the humble lakeside dwelling. Everybody was so busy and the whole affair was over so quickly that no one had time for regrets.

"I declare," said Mrs. Crane, wonderingly, "I ought to feel as if I'd lost something. Instead, I'm all of a whirl."

"I said," Mabel triumphed, "that she'd come back."

Jean was commissioned to go the next morning to break the news to Bettie. It seemed to Dr. Bennett and to the hopeful Cottagers that this important happening would surely rouse the listless little maid if anything could. Mr. Black, who arrived with a great bunch of violets while Jean was telling the wonderful tale as graphically as she could, expectantly watched Bettie's pale countenance. Her wistful, weary eyes brightened for a moment and a faint, tender smile flickered across her lips.

"I'm glad," said she. "Now Mrs. Crane won't have to have whooping cough and all the other things."

"Mrs. Crane is going to find work for Rosa Marie's mother," announced Jean, "and the shanty is to be mended."

"That's nice," returned Bettie, who, however, no longer seemed interested in Rosa Marie's mother. "But my ears are tired now; don't tell me any more."

After this failure, Mr. Black followed crestfallen Jean downstairs; he drew her into the shabby Rectory parlor.

"Now, Jean," demanded he, sternly, "is there a solitary thing in this whole world that Bettie wants? Is there anything that could possibly happen that would wake her up and bring her back? I'm dreadfully afraid she's slipping away from us, Jean; and she's far too precious to lose. Now think—think hard, little girl. Has she ever wanted anything?"

"Why," responded Jean, slowly, as if some outside force were dragging the words from her, "right after Christmas there was something, I think. A big, impossible something that nobody could possibly help. She didn't talk about it—and yet—and yet—— Perhaps she did worry."

"Go on," insisted Mr. Black, "I want it all."

"She seemed to get used to the idea so—so uncomplainingly. Still, she may have cared more than anybody suspected. She's like that—never cries when she's hurt."

"What idea?" demanded Mr. Black. "Cared for what? Make it clear, child."

"You see," explained Jean, "all of us—Henrietta, Marjory, Mabel and I—have been talking a great deal about going away to boarding school—we're all going. But Bettie—Bettie, of course, knew that she couldn't go. There was no money and her father said——"

"And why in thunder," shouted Mr. Black, forgetting the invalid and striding up and down the room with his fists clenched, "didn't somebody say so? What do folks think the good Lord gave us money for? Why didn't—Come upstairs. We'll settle this thing right now."

Impulsive Mr. Black, with dazed Jean at his heels, opened Bettie's door and walked in. Bettie lifted her tired eyes in very mild astonishment.

"Bad pennies," she smiled, "always come back. What's all the noise about?"

"Bettie," demanded Mr. Black, "do you want to go away to school with those other girls next September?"

Bettie opened her eyes wide. Jean said afterwards that she "pricked up her ears," too.

"Because," continued Mr. Black, keeping a sharp watch on Bettie's awakening countenance, "you're going. And if I say you're going, you surely are. Now, don't worry about it—the thing's settled. You're going with the others."

"Open the windows," pleaded Bettie, her face alight with some of the old-time eagerness. "I want to see how it smells outdoors."

"I believe we've done it," breathed Jean. "She looks a lot brighter."

And they had. No one had realized how tender, uncomplaining Bettie had dreaded losing her friends. And in her weakened state, both before and after the fever, the trouble had seemed very big. The load had almost crushed sick little Bettie. Now that it was lifted, and it was, for Mr. Black swept everything before him, there was nothing to keep the little girl from getting well with truly gratifying speed.

"Bettie," asked Dr. Bennett, the next evening, "are you sure this is your own pulse? If it is, it's behaving properly at last."

"She ate every bit of her supper," said Mrs. Tucker, happily, "and she asked, this afternoon, if she owned any shoes. She's really getting well."

"I'm hurrying," laughed happy Bettie, "to make up for lost time. Do give me things to make me fat—as fat as Mabel."

"She's certainly better," said the satisfied doctor. "By to-morrow we'll have to tie her down to keep her from dancing. She's our own Bettie, at last."

THE END

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation retained.

Front page description, "Scovill" changed to "Scovel" (Florence Scovel Shinn)

Page 96, "Bennettt" changed to "Bennett" (Mrs. Bennett, rescuing)

Page 165, "shruddered" changed to "shuddered" ("Ugh!" shuddered Marjory)

Page 214, repeated word "a" removed from text. Original read (like a a lobster's)

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Table of Contents

- THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE
- CONTENTS
- THE PERSONS OF THE STORY
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE
- CHAPTER I Borrowed Babies
- CHAPTER II Rosa Marie
- CHAPTER III Mabel's Day
- CHAPTER IV An Unusual Evening
- CHAPTER V Returning Rosa Marie
- CHAPTER VI The Dark Secret
- CHAPTER VII Discovery
- CHAPTER VIII The Fugitive Soldier
- CHAPTER IX A Surprise
- CHAPTER X Breaking the News
- CHAPTER XI The Alarm
- CHAPTER XII The Fire
- CHAPTER XIII A Heroine's Come-Down
- CHAPTER XIV A Birthday Party
- CHAPTER XV An Unexpected Treat
- CHAPTER XVI A Scattered School
- CHAPTER XVII An Invitation
- CHAPTER XVIII Obeying Instructions
- CHAPTER XIX With Henrietta
- CHAPTER XX The Call Returned
- CHAPTER XXI Getting Even
- CHAPTER XXII A Full Afternoon
- CHAPTER XXIII Taking a Walk
- CHAPTER XXIV The Statue from India
- CHAPTER XXV Comparing Notes
- CHAPTER XXVI Christmas Eve
- CHAPTER XXVII A Crowded Day
- CHAPTER XXVIII A Bettie-less Plan
- CHAPTER XXIX Anxious Days
- CHAPTER XXX An April Harvest
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE