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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Girl Scouts at Home, by Katherine Keene
+Galt
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Girl Scouts at Home
+       or Rosanna's Beautiful Day
+
+
+Author: Katherine Keene Galt
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2007  [eBook #20736]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL SCOUTS AT HOME***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Bruce Albrecht, Paul Stephen, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/c/) from
+material generously made available by the Ruth Sawyer Collection of the
+College of Saint Catherine Libraries
+(http://library.stkate.edu/spcoll/ruthsaw.html)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 20736-h.htm or 20736-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/3/20736/20736-h/20736-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/3/20736/20736-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+Girl Scouts Series, Volume 1
+
+THE GIRL SCOUTS AT HOME
+
+or
+
+Rosanna's Beautiful Day
+
+by
+
+KATHERINE KEENE GALT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The little procession turned and made its way back to the
+lunch basket.]
+
+
+
+
+The Saalfield Publishing Company
+Chicago Akron, Ohio New York
+Made in U. S. A.
+Copyright, MCMXXI, by
+The Saalfield Publishing Company
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUTS SERIES
+
+1 THE GIRL SCOUTS AT HOME
+
+2 THE GIRL SCOUTS RALLY
+
+3 THE GIRL SCOUT'S TRIUMPH
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUTS AT HOME
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Little Rosanna Horton was a very poor little girl. When I tell you more
+about her, you will think that was a very odd thing to say.
+
+She lived in one of the most beautiful homes in Louisville, a city full
+of beautiful homes. And Rosanna's was one of the loveliest. It was a
+great, rambling house of red brick with wide porches in the front and on
+either side. On the right of the house was a wonderful garden. It
+covered half a square, and was surrounded by a high stone wall. No one
+could look in to see what she was doing. That was rather nice, but of
+course no one could look out either to see what they were doing on the
+brick sidewalk, and that does not seem so nice.
+
+At the back of the garden, facing on a clean bricked alley, was the
+garage, big enough to hold four automobiles. The garage was covered with
+vines. Otherwise, it would have been a queer looking building, with its
+one door opening into the garden, and on that side not another door or
+window either upstairs or down. The upstairs part was a really lovely
+little apartment for the chauffeur to live in, but all the windows had
+been put on the side or in front because old Mrs. Horton, Rosanna's
+grandmother, did not think that chauffeurs' families were _ever_ the
+sort who ought to look down into the garden where Rosanna played and
+where she herself sat in state and had tea served of an afternoon.
+
+At one side of the garden where the roses were wildest and the flowers
+grew thickest was a little cottage, built to fit Rosanna. Grown people
+had to stoop to get in and their heads almost scraped the ceilings. The
+furniture all fitted Rosanna too, even to the tiny piano. This was
+Rosanna's playhouse. She kept her dolls here, and there was a desk with
+all sorts of writing paper that a maid sorted and put in order every
+morning before Rosanna came out.
+
+This doesn't sound as though Rosanna was such a poor little girl, does
+it? But just you wait.
+
+A good ways back of this playhouse was another small building that
+looked like a little stable. It was a stable--a really truly stable
+built to fit Rosanna's tiny pony. He had a little box stall, and at one
+side there was space for the shiniest, prettiest cart.
+
+Rosanna did not go to school. There was a schoolroom in the house, but I
+will tell you about that some other time. Rosanna disliked it very much:
+a schoolroom with just one little girl in it! _You_ wouldn't like it
+yourself, would you?
+
+Rosanna's clothes were the prettiest ever; much prettier then than they
+are now. And such stacks of them! There was a whole dresser full of
+ribbons and trinkets and jewelry besides. (Poor little Rosanna!)
+
+She danced like a fairy, and every day she had a music lesson which was
+given her, like a bad pill, by a severe lady in spectacles who ought
+never to have tried to smile because it made her face look cracked all
+over and you felt so much better when the smile was over. Oh, poor,
+poor, _poor_ little Rosanna!
+
+Do you begin to guess why?
+
+You have not heard me say a word about her dear loving mother and her
+big joky father, have you? They were both dead! This is such a pitiful
+thing to have come to any little girl that I can scarcely bear to tell
+you. Both were dead, and Rosanna lived with her grandmother, who was a
+very proud and important lady indeed. There was a young uncle who might
+have been good friends with Rosanna and made things easier but she
+scarcely knew him. He had been away to college and after that, three
+years in the army. Once a week she wrote to him, in France; but her
+grandmother corrected the letters and usually made her write them over,
+so they were not very long and certainly were not interesting.
+
+Mrs. Horton was sure that her son's little daughter could never be
+worthy of her name and family if she was allowed to "mix," as she put
+it, with other children. So Rosanna was not allowed to _have_ any other
+children for friends, and Mrs. Horton was too blind with all her
+foolish family pride to see that Rosanna was getting queer and vain and
+overbearing. Every day they took a drive together, usually through the
+parks or out the river road. Mrs. Horton did not like to drive down
+town. She did not like the people who filled the streets. She said they
+were "frightfully ordinary." It was a shameful thing to be ordinary in
+Mrs. Horton's opinion. She had not looked it up in the dictionary or she
+would have chosen some other word because being ordinary according to
+the dictionary is no crime at all. It is not even a disgrace.
+
+Rosanna's books were always about flowers and fairies, or animals that
+talked, or music that romped up and down the bars spelling little words.
+There were never any people in them, and if any one sent her a book at
+Christmas about some poor little girl who wore a pinafore and helped her
+mother and lived in two rooms and was ever so happy, _that_ book had a
+way of getting itself changed for some other book about bees or flowers
+the very night before Christmas.
+
+"She will know about those things soon enough," said Rosanna's
+grandmother.
+
+But every afternoon when they sat in the rose arbor in the middle of the
+beautiful garden, Rosanna would get tired reading and she would stare up
+at the clouds and see how many faces she could find.
+
+One day she startled and of course shocked her grandmother by saying in
+a low voice, "Dean Harriman!"
+
+"Where?" said Mrs. Horton, staring down the walk.
+
+"In that littlest cloud," said Rosanna, unconscious of startling her
+grandmother. "It is very good of him, only his nose is even funnier than
+it is really. Sort of knobby, you know."
+
+"Please do not say 'sort of,'" said Mrs. Horton. "And if you are looking
+at pictures in the clouds, I consider it a waste of time, Rosanna!"
+
+She struck a little bell, and the house boy came hurrying across the
+lawn. Mrs. Horton turned to him.
+
+"Find Minnie," she said, "and tell her to send Miss Rosanna a volume of
+_Classical Pictures for Young Eyes_."
+
+So Rosanna looked at _Classical Pictures_, and for that afternoon at
+least kept her young eyes away from the clouds. And never again did she
+share her pictures with her grandmother.
+
+Rosanna was not a spiritless child, but every day and all day her life
+slipped on in its dull groove and she did not know how to get out.
+
+Poor little Rosanna! To the little girl behind it, a six-foot brick wall
+looks as high as the sky. And the garden, as I have told you before, was
+a very, _very_ big garden indeed. Plenty large enough to be very
+lonesome in.
+
+One morning Mrs. Horton was not ready to drive at the appointed time.
+Rosanna was ready, however, and was dancing around on the front porch
+when the automobile rolled up. She ran toward it but drew back at the
+sight of a strange chauffeur. He touched his cap and said "Good
+morning!" in a hearty, friendly way, very different to the stiff manner
+of the man who had been driving them. Rosanna went down to him.
+
+"Where is Albert?" she asked.
+
+"He does not work here now," said the man. "I have his place."
+
+"What is your name?" said Rosanna.
+
+"John Culver," said the new chauffeur. "What is your name?"
+
+Rosanna frowned a little. She liked this new man with his crinkly,
+twinkly blue eyes and white teeth. A deep scar creased his jaw, but it
+did not spoil his friendly, keen face. But chauffeurs usually did not
+ask her name. There had been so many going and coming during the war.
+She decided to walk away but could not resist his friendly eyes.
+
+"I am Miss Rosanna," she said proudly.
+
+"Oh!" said the man, and Rosanna had a feeling that he was amused. So she
+went on speaking. "I will get in the car, if you please, and wait for my
+grandmother."
+
+He opened the door of the limousine and before she could place her foot
+on the step, he swung her lightly off her feet and into the car.
+
+"There you are, kiddie!" he said pleasantly, and Rosanna was too stunned
+to say more than "Thank you!" as the door opened and her grandmother
+appeared, the maid following, laden with the small dog.
+
+Mrs. Horton nodded to the new man and gave an order as he closed the
+door.
+
+"Our new man," said Mrs. Horton to Rosanna, then settled back in her
+corner and took out a list which she commenced to check off with a gold
+pencil. Rosanna, holding the dog, looked out the windows.
+
+There were children all along the street: little girls playing dolls on
+front doorsteps and other little girls walking in happy groups or
+skipping rope. Boys on bicycles circled everywhere and shouted to each
+other. They made a short cut through one of the poor sections of the
+city. Here it was the same: children everywhere, all having the best
+sort of time. They were not so well dressed, that was all the
+difference. They had the same carefree look in their eyes. Rosanna gazed
+out wistfully, longingly.
+
+And now you surely guess why Rosanna, with her beautiful home, her pony
+and her playhouse, her lovely garden, and her room full of pretty
+things, still was so very, very poor.
+
+Rosanna did not have a single friend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+John Culver brought them home and as they left the car Mrs. Horton
+enquired, "Is your apartment comfortable, John?"
+
+"Perfectly comfortable, thank you," said Culver.
+
+"You are married?" Mrs. Horton continued.
+
+"Yes," replied Culver.
+
+"Any children?"
+
+"One little girl," said Culver, glancing at Rosanna with a smile.
+
+Mrs. Horton saw the look. She said nothing, but when Rosanna sat before
+her at the great round table, eating her luncheon, Mrs. Horton remarked,
+"Of course, Rosanna, you will make no effort whatever to meet the child
+living over the garage. Unless you make the opportunity, she will never
+see you, thanks to the arrangement of the windows. She is a child that
+it would be impossible for you to know."
+
+Rosanna did not reply.
+
+"Rosanna?" said her grandmother sharply.
+
+"Yes, grandmother," sighed poor Rosanna.
+
+After luncheon Mrs. Horton dressed and was driven away to a bridge
+party. Rosanna practiced scales for half an hour, talked French with her
+governess for another long half, and then wandered out into the garden
+and commenced to wonder about the child over the garage. How old was
+she? What was she like? Rosanna wished she could see her. There was a
+rustic seat near the garage and Rosanna went over and curled up on its
+rough lap. She stared and stared at the garage, but the blank brick
+walls with their curtains of vines gave her no hint.
+
+It seemed as though she had been sitting there for hours when she
+fancied a small voice called, "Hello, Rosanna!"
+
+Rosanna sat perfectly still, staring at the brick wall.
+
+"Hello, Rosanna!" said the voice again softly. It was a strangely sweet,
+gentle voice and seemed to come from the air. Rosanna cast a startled
+glance above her.
+
+There was a little laugh. "Look in the tree," said the pleasant voice.
+
+Rosanna, mouth open, eyes popping, looked up.
+
+A big tree growing in the alley, close outside the brick wall, leaned
+its biggest bough in a friendly fashion over Rosanna's garden. High up
+something blue fluttered among the thick leaves. Then the branches
+parted, and a face appeared. Rosanna continued to stare.
+
+The little girl in the tree waved her hand.
+
+"You don't know me, do you, Rosanna?" she teased. "But I know you. You
+are Rosanna Horton, and you live in that lovely, lovely house and this
+is your garden. Is that your playhouse over there? And oh, _is_ there an
+honest-for-truly pony in that little barn? Dad says there really is. Is
+there?" She stopped for breath, and beamed down on Rosanna.
+
+"How did you get up there?" said Rosanna. _She_ was not allowed to climb
+trees.
+
+"Father made a little ladder and fastened it to the trunk with wires so
+it won't hurt the wood. If Mrs. Horton doesn't mind, he is going to fix
+a little platform up here. There is a splendid place for it. Then I can
+study up here where it is all cool and breezy and whispery. Don't you
+like to hear the leaves whisper? He is going to put a rail around it so
+we won't fall off."
+
+"Who is _we_?" asked Rosanna. "Have you brothers and sisters?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said the little girl. "Mother says it is my greatest
+misfortune. She says that I shall have to make a great many friends to
+make up for it, and that if I don't I will grow selfish. Wouldn't you
+hate to be selfish? I 'spect you have dozens and _dozens_ of little
+girls to play with. How happy you must make everybody with your lovely
+garden and things! My mother says that is what things are for: to share
+with people. She says it is just like having two big red apples. If you
+eat them both, why, you don't feel good in your tummy; but if you give
+one to some one, you feel good everywhere, and you have a good time
+while you are eating them and get better acquainted, and it just does
+you good. Do little girls come to see you every day?"
+
+"No," said Rosanna, "I don't know any little girls. My grandmother won't
+let me."
+
+"Won't _let_ you?" said the girl in the tree in a shocked tone. "Why
+won't she let you?"
+
+"She says I would learn to speak bad grammar and use slang, and grow up
+to be vulgar."
+
+"Goodness me!" said the stranger. She sat rocking on her bough for a few
+minutes. Then: "Why would you have to learn bad things of other girls?"
+she demanded. "I wouldn't let _anybody_ teach me anything I didn't want
+to know. I should think it would be nice to have you teach _them_ good
+grammar if you know it, and not to use slang, and all that. She must
+think you are soft! My mother says if you are made of putty, you will
+get dented all over and never be more than an unshapely lump, but if you
+are made of good stone, you can be carved into something lovely and
+lasting. But that is just your grandmother," said the girl. "Where is
+your mother? Is she off visiting?"
+
+"She is dead," said Rosanna. A wave of unspeakable longing for the lost
+young mother swept over her and her lip trembled as she spoke.
+
+"Oh, poor, poor Rosanna!" said the little tree girl softly. "Oh,
+Rosanna, I feel so sorry! If you ever want to borrow mine, I wish you
+would. I wish you would! My mother says that when a woman has even just
+one child in her heart, it grows so big that it can hold and love all
+the children in the world. You borrow her any time you need her,
+Rosanna!" Then feeling that perhaps the conversation ought to take a
+livelier strain, she did not wait for Rosanna to answer, but continued,
+"I wish somebody hadn't built this apartment over your garage so that
+none of the windows look out on your garden. We are going to hate that,
+aren't we?"
+
+"Grandmother had it built that way so we would not see the people living
+there," Rosanna explained.
+
+"Oh!" said the tree girl. "Well, of course you know that _I_ live there
+now. We came two days ago, and my name is Helen Culver. We would love to
+play together, wouldn't we?"
+
+"Oh, indeed we would!" said Rosanna.
+
+"Well, then we will," said Helen joyfully. "I must go now. I think it is
+practice time. I will see you after luncheon. Good-bye!" and she slid
+down the tree and disappeared.
+
+Rosanna went skipping to the house. She was so happy. It was not her
+practice time, but she was going to practice because Helen was so
+engaged. Her mind was full of Helen as she sat doing finger exercises
+and scales. How lovely and clean and bright she looked with her big,
+blue eyes and blond docked hair! Her teeth were so white and pretty and
+her voice was so soft and low. And she had a dimple! It was Rosanna's
+dream to have a dimple in her thin little cheek.
+
+Rosanna commenced to play scales. She took the C scale--it was so easy
+that she could think. She was so happy that she played it in a very
+prancy way, up and down, up and down. Then it commenced to stumble and
+go ve-ry, v-e-r-y slowly. Rosanna had had an awful thought. The same
+thought had really been there all the time, but her heart was making
+such a happy noise that she wouldn't let herself hear it. Now, however,
+it made such a racket she just had to listen. Over and over with the
+scales it said loudly and harshly, "Will your grandmother let you play
+with that little girl who lives over the garage? Will your grandmother
+even let you _know_ that little girl who lives over the garage? Will
+she? Will she?"
+
+Rosanna Horton knew the answer perfectly well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The only thing to do, Rosanna decided, was to talk to her grandmother
+after luncheon when they usually sat in the rose arbor. Rosanna, playing
+scales, felt quite brave. She would explain everything: how Helen Culver
+used the best of grammar, and no slang, and climbed trees in rompers and
+did not scream. Then when she had assured her grandmother of all this,
+she would tell her quite firmly that she, Rosanna, needed a friend.
+
+It seemed simple and easy, but when luncheon was announced, she decided
+not to speak until later and when finally they went out to the rose
+arbor, Rosanna commenced to feel quite shaky and instead of talking she
+fell into a deep silence.
+
+And then, that minute, that very identical second, something happened
+that changed everything. A messenger boy came with a telegram. And if it
+hadn't been for that messenger boy this story would never have happened.
+If he had been a _slow_ messenger boy, half an hour late...but he just
+hurried along on his bicycle and arrived that second. Oh, a dozen things
+might have happened to delay the boy, but there he was just as Rosanna
+said, "Grandmother!" in a small but firm voice.
+
+Rosanna said nothing more because her grandmother opened the telegram
+with fingers that shook a little in spite of her iron will. But as she
+read it a look of relief and joy lighted her proud face.
+
+"Good news, Rosanna," she said. "The best of news! Your Uncle Robert has
+reached America!"
+
+"Won't he have to fight any more, grandmother?"
+
+"No; he will come home and be with us. But as I have told you, dear, he
+was slightly wounded over there in Germany, and I think if I can arrange
+everything for your comfort, I will go and meet him. He is in New York,
+and I shall see for myself if he needs any doctoring or care that he
+could not get here. Then perhaps we will stay at the seaside or in the
+mountains for a week or so. Would you mind being left with the maids for
+that long? Perhaps one of your little acquaintances would like to come
+and play with you once or twice a week."
+
+This was a great privilege in her grandmother's eyes, as Rosanna knew,
+and she said, "Thank you, grandmother," and started to tell her then and
+there about Helen. But Mrs. Horton went right on talking.
+
+"Come to my room with me while I pack," she said, rising.
+
+Rosanna did not get a chance to say one word to her. She listened while
+her grandmother called up an intimate friend who lived near by and
+arranged for her to come in every day to see how Rosanna was getting
+on. She called John in and told him just where he could drive the car
+when Miss Rosanna took her daily ride. "If she wants to take a little
+girl friend with her, she is to do so, as I want her to have a good
+time," Mrs. Horton told him.
+
+When she woke the next morning, Rosanna lay for a long while thinking.
+
+So Uncle Robert had actually come home! And grandmother had gone to meet
+him! She might be away a week or more. Then her thoughts flew to Helen.
+Wasn't it too, _too_ wonderful? Her grandmother had said quite clearly
+that one of her little acquaintances might come and play with her.
+
+Usually Rosanna took forever to dress. She was really not at all nice
+about it. Big girl as she was, Minnie always dressed her, and she would
+scriggle her toes so her stockings wouldn't go on, and would hop up and
+down so the buttons wouldn't button. It was very exasperating and she
+should have been soundly spanked for it: but of course Minnie, who was
+paid generous wages, only said, "Now, Miss Rosanna, don't you bother
+poor Minnie that-a way!"
+
+This morning, however, she was out of bed and into the cold plunge
+without being pushed and she actually _helped_ with her stockings. She
+was ready for breakfast so soon that Minnie said, "Well, well, Miss
+Rosanna, looks like it does you good to have your grandmother go 'way!"
+
+With one thing and another, she did not get a chance to go down to the
+overhanging tree until after luncheon.
+
+She peered eagerly up.
+
+Helen was there, curled up on a big bough, a book in her lap and a gray
+kitten playing around her.
+
+"Here I am!" said Rosanna, smiling.
+
+"And here am I," answered Helen, smiling back.
+
+"Did you expect me sooner?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"No; I was hoping you wouldn't come. I suppose you never have things to
+do, but I am a very busy little girl. I help mother, and practice my
+music, and she is teaching me to sew and cook. Of course we have cooking
+at school but no one can cook like mother, and I want to be just like
+her. I told her about you last night, and she said you could borrow her
+whenever you wanted to."
+
+"I too have things to do," said Rosanna, who felt as though she ought to
+be of some use since Helen was so industrious. "When I get through with
+my bath mornings Minnie dresses me--"
+
+"_Dresses_ you?" exclaimed Helen in astonishment. "Why, Rosanna, can't
+you dress yourself?"
+
+Rosanna felt a queer sort of shame. "I never tried," she confessed, "but
+I am sure I could."
+
+"Of course you could," said Helen briskly. "The buttons and things in
+the back are hard, but my mother makes most of my things slip-on so I
+can manage everything. Why don't you try to dress yourself, Rosanna?
+You wouldn't want folks to know that you couldn't, would you? Of course
+you don't mind my knowing, because I am your friend and I will never
+tell; but you wouldn't want most people to know?"
+
+Rosanna had never thought about it at all, but now it seemed a very
+babyish and helpless thing. She determined to dress herself in future.
+To change the subject she said, "Why don't you come down into the
+garden? I want to show you my playhouse and the pony."
+
+"I'd love to," said Helen, and slid rapidly down the tree and out of
+sight behind the brick wall.
+
+Rosanna heard her light footsteps running up the stairs leading to the
+apartment over the garage. She sat down on the rustic seat and waited as
+patiently as she could. It seemed a long time before Helen appeared at
+the little gate in the wall.
+
+"Mother thinks that you ought to ask your grandmother if she would like
+to have me come and see you," she said, looking very grave.
+
+"Oh, that's all right!" said Rosanna. "Grandmother has gone away, and
+she said the very last thing that I could have somebody come and see me
+whenever I wanted."
+
+"But did she say me?" Helen persisted. "My father drives for your
+grandmother and perhaps she may think we are not rich and grand enough
+for you."
+
+"Why, no, she didn't say _you_. She didn't say _any_body. She said I
+might have anyone I like, and I like you. It is all right. You can ask
+Minnie; she heard her say I could have company. She doesn't know you,
+you see, so she _couldn't_ say that you were the one to come. She told
+me 'some little girl.'"
+
+"That sounds all right," said Helen. "I will go tell mother. She was not
+sure I ought to come." She disappeared once more through the little
+gate, and Rosanna waited. She was not happy. Her grandmother had
+certainly not named any little girl, but Rosanna knew that she did not
+mean or intend that Rosanna should entertain the little girl who lived
+over the garage. Her grandmother thought every one was all right if they
+belonged to an old family. The first thing she ever asked Rosanna about
+any little girl was "What is her family?" or "Who are her people?"
+
+Rosanna, whose conscience was troubling her in a queer way, determined
+to ask Helen about her family, although it seemed that was one of the
+things that were not very nice to do. But perhaps Helen had a family. In
+that case she could settle everything happily.
+
+The children joined hands and went skipping along the path toward the
+playhouse, Helen's bobbed yellow locks shining in the sun and Rosanna's
+long, heavy, dark hair swinging from side to side as she danced along.
+
+She led the way through the little door into the little living-room of
+the playhouse and stood aside as Helen cried out with wonder and
+pleasure.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh, Rosanna!" the little girl exclaimed. "Oh, it is too dear!
+May I please look at everything, just as though it was in a picture
+book?"
+
+Helen moved from one place to another in a sort of daze. She tried the
+little wicker chairs one after another. She sat at the tiny desk and
+touched the pearl penholders and the pencils with Rosanna's name printed
+on them in gold letters. All the letter paper said _Rosanna_ in gold
+letters at the top too; it was beautiful.
+
+The little piano was real. It played delightfully little tinkly notes
+almost like hitting the rim of a glass with a lead pencil. Helen was
+charmed. She could scarcely drag herself away to see the other wonders
+of the playhouse. The little dining-room was built with a bay window,
+which had a window seat, and a hanging basket of ferns. The little round
+table, the sideboard and the chairs were all painted a soft cream color,
+and on each chair back, and the sideboard drawers and doors sprays of
+tinty, tiny flowers were painted.
+
+Helen hurried from these splendors to the kitchen. And it was a real
+kitchen!
+
+"If our domestic science teacher could only see this!" groaned Helen.
+
+The room was larger than either of the others, and there was plenty of
+room for two or three persons, at least for a couple of children and one
+grown person if she was not so very large. There was a little gas stove
+complete in every way, a cabinet, and a porcelain top table, as well as
+a white sink and draining board. The floor was covered with blue and
+white linoleum, and the walls were papered with blue and white tiled
+paper with a border of fat little Dutch ships around the top. Little
+white Dutch curtains hung at the windows.
+
+"Oh my! Oh my!" sighed Helen. "This is the best of all! The other rooms
+you can only sit in and enjoy, but here you can really _do_ things and
+learn to be useful."
+
+She opened a little cupboard door and discovered all sorts of pans and
+kettles made of white enamel with blue edges.
+
+"I never come out here at all," said Rosanna.
+
+"Perhaps they are afraid you will burn yourself," suggested Helen.
+
+"No, the stove is a safe kind, made specially for children's playhouses,
+but I don't know how to cook, so I don't play in the kitchen at all.
+Make-believe dinners are no fun."
+
+Helen gave a happy sigh.
+
+"Well, _I_ can cook," she said, "and I will teach you how."
+
+"Won't that be fun!" said Rosanna. She suddenly threw her arms around
+Helen's neck and kissed her. "Oh, Helen, I am so happy," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+After Helen had looked the wonderful kitchen over to her heart's
+content, the children went back to the pretty living-room, where they
+examined the books in the little bookcase, and then each carrying a
+comfy wicker chair, went out on the wide porch. A big grass rug was
+spread there, and there was a little porch swing and a wicker table.
+
+Rosanna commenced to tell Helen about herself. She told much more than
+she intended, and by the time she had finished, Helen knew more about
+her new friend than Rosanna's own grandmother had ever guessed.
+
+Helen herself was a very happy, busy little girl, with wise and loving
+parents. They were poor, and Mr. Culver had very wisely taken the first
+position that offered as soon as he came home from France and found that
+the firm he had formerly worked for had given his position to some one
+else, a man much less capable than Mr. Culver and who worked willingly
+for wages that Mr. Culver did not feel like accepting. Yes, they were
+poor, but as Mr. Culver said, "Just you wait, folkses; this will be fun
+to remember some day." And Mrs. Culver called it "our school" and told
+Helen that they must both strive to know the best and easiest way of
+doing everything while they had to do all for themselves.
+
+Helen's eyes filled with tears when she heard of the death of Rosanna's
+young father and mother in a railroad accident when she was such a
+little thing that now she could scarcely remember them.
+
+"And then you came to live with your grandmother?" she said, struggling
+not to go to Rosanna and hug her tight. A little girl without mother or
+father! It was too dreadful.
+
+"Yes, she came to the hospital and as soon as I was well--I was just
+scratched up a little--she brought me here."
+
+"Well," said Helen briskly, "it must be fine to have a grandmother. I
+suppose grandmothers are 'most exactly as good as mothers," she went on,
+trying to make light of Rosanna's misfortune. "I expect they cuddle you
+and play with you and hold you 'most exactly like mothers."
+
+"Mine doesn't," said Rosanna sadly. "She kisses me good-night; at least
+she holds her cheek so I can kiss _her_, but she never plays with
+anybody. And she never holds me: she says I am too big to get on
+people's laps. But I guess I must have been a big baby because she never
+did hold me even when I was little. There must be different kinds of
+grandmothers."
+
+"A little girl I know has one, and my grandmother says that it is a
+disgrace the way she spoils that child, and she says she wants me to
+grow up to be an honor to our house. You see I am the only grandchild
+there is.
+
+"Grandmother had a daughter long ago, but she died when she was only
+two, and grandmother was married twice and both her husbands died."
+
+"You seem to have quite a dying family," said Helen politely.
+
+"Yes, we have." Rosanna commenced to feel quite proud of the fact now
+that Helen had mentioned it.
+
+"I have an uncle too, and he 'most died over in France but he is home
+now."
+
+"My father was there too," said Helen proudly. "He had to give up
+everything to go, but mother wouldn't let him say that he had to stay
+home and work for us so he went. Mother went to work typewriting and we
+lived in three rooms, and I went to school and cooked our suppers at
+night. Mother used to come home so tired. After the dishes were washed,
+we used to sit and knit. I learned to knit without looking on, so I
+could knit and study all at the same time. You are the only friend I
+have here in Louisville," concluded Helen, "but of course when school
+begins I will have lots of them."
+
+Rosanna was conscious of a jealous pang. She didn't want this
+bright-eyed little girl who had just come into her life to have other
+friends.
+
+"I don't see why you have to have other friends if you have me," she
+said. "Why can't we play together all the time, and have good times? My
+grandmother said I was to take you riding every day, and we can have
+such fun. If you have a lot of other friends, Helen, you won't come here
+at all."
+
+"Why, yes, I will, Rosanna! You will be my bestest friend of all. But
+mother says we all need a number of people in our lives because if we
+don't we will all get to thinking the same things and talking the same
+way, and it is very bad for us."
+
+"Well, I can't have any," said Rosanna hopelessly. "I told you that
+before. I suppose if she hadn't had to go to New York, I would never
+have had you for a friend. That is the way my grandmother is."
+
+"Oh, well," said Helen, "when she gets back we will explain things to
+her, and I am sure she will get to understand all about things. Why, you
+just _have_ to have friends, Rosanna, and I want you to have me if you
+think you like me enough."
+
+"Oh, I do; indeed I do!" cried Rosanna. "I just can't stand it if she
+doesn't let me have you! We will have such good times, Helen, and I can
+learn to cook, and we can learn to play duets together and it will be
+such fun."
+
+"I should say so!" said Helen happily. "And don't you think it would be
+fun to see what all we can do for ourselves? I mean without asking
+Minnie. I am sure mother would think it would make us sort of helpless.
+Of course she is your maid, and if you would rather have her to do
+things for you--"
+
+"No; let's do everything ourselves," said Rosanna, eager to please, and
+with a feeling that with someone to enjoy it with her the task would be
+a pleasure.
+
+"I tell you what, Helen, until school opens I can be your very best
+friend, and you can play with me 'most all the time, and we will be so
+happy."
+
+Minnie watched them from a side window in the big house but they did not
+see her. Minnie was pleased. She had heard what Mrs. Horton had said
+about some child coming to play with Rosanna. Minnie being wiser than
+Rosanna and grown up, knew very well that Mrs. Horton did not mean Helen
+Culver. But Minnie had had one or two disastrous experiences with the
+children who went to the very select dancing school with Rosanna, and
+the quiet, pretty, well-behaved girl playing there in the garden seemed
+almost too good to be true. She had never seen Rosanna look so well and
+so happy. She was glad to see the chauffeur's child "makin' good" as she
+expressed it. Minnie's young man had also returned from overseas and she
+was sewing every spare moment on things for her own little house and for
+herself. If Rosanna had a chance to play all day every day for a whole
+week, or as long as Mrs. Horton stayed away--and Minnie piously wished
+her a long trip--why, she could be ready for the young man and the
+little house just that much sooner.
+
+As soon as this most splendid thought found its way into Minnie's mind
+she commenced to make plans to help the children, and as the first one
+occurred to her she put her work in her pocket and hurried across to the
+playhouse, where she fairly gasped at the sight of Rosanna awkwardly but
+cheerfully sweeping leaves and stems off the porch while Helen shook the
+rugs.
+
+"Time for you to dress for the evening. Miss Rosanna," she said. "And
+wouldn't you like to invite Miss Helen over to supper, and have it
+served here on your own porch?"
+
+"Oh, wouldn't that be fun?" cried Rosanna "Wouldn't you like that,
+Helen?"
+
+"Indeed I would!" said Helen. She jumped off the porch and looked to see
+if the rug was straight. "I will go right home and ask my mother and if
+I don't come straight back and tell you, you will know that I can come
+to supper." She ran off, returning just at supper time.
+
+Minnie served the meal and it was all as delicious as a party. Even the
+cook was glad to see Rosanna really happy. And after the last bit of the
+dessert, a pink ice-cream, had been slowly eaten, the two little girls
+sat talking in quite a grown-up manner.
+
+Presently Helen's bright eyes spied a lady at the other end of the
+garden.
+
+"Someone is coming!" she exclaimed.
+
+"That is a friend of grandmother's. She is coming over every day to see
+how I am getting along."
+
+"Good-evening, Rosanna," said the lady. "I think this looks as though
+you were having a very nice time indeed."
+
+"We are, Mrs. Hargrave," said Rosanna. "This is my friend, Helen
+Culver."
+
+Helen curtseyed.
+
+"How do you do, Helen," said Mrs. Hargrave. "The Culvers of Lee County,
+I suppose. A fine old family, my dears. As good as yours, Rosanna. Well,
+well, I am glad you are both having a nice time! If you want anything of
+me, Rosanna, telephone me and I will be over every day. You little girls
+must both come and have luncheon with me some day." She bade them
+good-night and walked off, feeling that she had done her whole duty.
+
+"It is time for me to go home," said Helen. "I didn't practice my half
+hour this evening, so I must go and do it now."
+
+"I didn't practice either," said Rosanna. "I want to work hard at my
+music if we are to play duets. I don't want to be the one who always has
+to play secondo. Besides, I have a bee-_u_-ti-ful secret for
+to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+When Rosanna went to bed that night she commenced by sitting down on the
+floor and taking off her own socks and slippers. Then while Minnie stood
+looking at her in pleased surprise, she carefully took off her hair
+ribbon and folded it up!
+
+"Minnie," she said, "have you any little girls in your family?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Rosanna, ever so many."
+
+"As little as me?" pursued Rosanna.
+
+"Some littler, and some just about like you, and some larger."
+
+"Well," said Rosanna, "do they most of them dress and undress
+themselves?"
+
+"Indeed yes!" said Minnie. "They would get good and spanked if they
+tried any funny work with their mothers. Not that it's not all right,
+Miss Rosanna, for you to be cared for, but land, my sisters are all too
+busy to bother! And besides, those children have got to learn to do for
+themselves sooner or later, and the sooner the better. And I will say,
+Miss Rosanna, good wages nor anything will _ever_ make me think it is a
+good thing to have my babying you along as big as you are. I don't see
+why I can't earn my money just as honest and give just as much work for
+it by learnin' you to stand on your own feet, as you might say."
+
+"Well," said Rosanna wisely, "let's make a game of it, Minnie. While
+grandmother is away, play you are working for _me_ and teach me to be
+like your little girls."
+
+"Bless your heart!" said Minnie tenderly. "I have feelings, you will
+find, Miss Rosanna, if I _am_ only a maid, and I certainly do think you
+are a dear child. Whatever gets some of the queer ideas in your head I
+don't know!"
+
+"Why, my little new friend Helen Culver dresses herself and combs her
+own hair and everything. And all your little girls in your family fix
+themselves, and when I told Helen that you dress me she looked sort of
+funny. Then suppose you had to go away for awhile, what would I do? None
+of the other maids know where my things are and, besides, I don't like
+to have anyone but you fix me and button me up. You are real kind and
+soft when you touch me, Minnie. I think you try to be a mother to me."
+
+To Rosanna's horror, Minnie burst into tears.
+
+"Oh, the saints forgive me!" she sobbed. "To think you have thought of
+that and me dressin' you half the time that rough and sudden! Oh, Miss
+Rosanna dear, just you take notice of me after this!"
+
+"Why, I don't need to," said Rosanna. "You _are_ good to me, and if you
+will, just play you work for me and show me where my things are and how
+to do things. Helen is going to teach me to cook if you will come sit in
+the kitchen and I am going to see if Mrs. Culver will show me how to
+sew."
+
+Minnie sniffed. "If she can beat me sewin'," she said scornfully, "she's
+beatin' me at my own game. I learned of the nuns in the convent school
+where your stitches has to be that small you can't find 'em. You just
+let me help with your sewin', dearie."
+
+"That will be fine," said Rosanna, dancing up and down. "Oh, I do wish
+grandmother was going to stay away longer than a week! That's such a
+short time to learn everything in, I don't see how I can do it all."
+
+"Nor I," said Minnie. "And I sure do wish the same for your grandmother,
+that she will treat herself and Mr. Robert to a good long trip. She
+don't stay away enough for her own good, I say. Well, wishing never does
+much good. All we can do is just put in all the time we can, Miss
+Rosanna, and we will do exactly what you say. We will make a play of it
+and I will start this very minute. You will find your clean night dress
+in the left hand end of the second drawer of your dresser."
+
+"Here it is," said Rosanna a moment later. "What a lot of them I have!
+Do I need such a big pile, Minnie?"
+
+"Well, not really, Miss Rosanna. You outgrow them mostly."
+
+"Then we won't get any more for a long, long time," said Rosanna.
+"Minnie, what do you think about my hair?"
+
+"I will have to comb that for you, dearie; it is so very long and
+thick."
+
+"I was thinking," said Rosanna slowly, "about docking it. It is a great
+bother."
+
+"Oh, my sufferin' soul!" cried Minnie, with a face of horror. "Oh me, oh
+my! Don't you think of that ever again, Miss Rosanna! If anything in the
+_world_ happened to your hair, well, I don't want to think what your
+grandmother would do to me. Your hair is her pride and glory. It is the
+only thing I ever heard her brag about. 'You can tell Rosanna in a crowd
+as far as you can see her,' says she, 'by her hair; just that dark color
+full of streaks of gold like, and curls at that.' No, Miss Rosanna, you
+can learn to sew and cook and take care of yourself, and not much harm
+done for her to fret about, but for _mercy's_ sake don't you go touching
+your hair."
+
+"Well, it _is_ a bother," said Rosanna, "but we will let it alone for
+awhile. Now you must come and wake me early, Minnie, and bring your
+sewing so you can sit here and tell me when I don't do the right thing.
+After breakfast, if cook will give us some things, I will get Helen and
+we will do some baking. Won't that be fun? And in the afternoon I am
+going to give Helen and you a surprise."
+
+"Me too? Do you mind if Minnie kisses you good-night, dearie?" she asked
+softly.
+
+Rosanna sleepily held up her arms. "Oh, I wish you would, Minnie! It is
+so nice to have somebody want to kiss me without my asking them to do
+it."
+
+Minnie kissed her tenderly. "Bless you, dearie, old Minnie will kiss you
+good-night every night!"
+
+She turned out the light and snapped on the electric fan.
+
+And at once, it seemed to Rosanna, it was morning. There must have been
+some time between, however, because Minnie went and looked over all her
+things, and rejoiced to think what great progress she could make on her
+wedding things in a week if she didn't have to wait on Rosanna all the
+time, and after she had put everything back in the trunk and locked it
+up as though it was the greatest treasure in the world, she went down to
+see the cook. She told her all about what Rosanna had planned, and the
+cook listened and sniffled and blew her nose hard several times and then
+got up and brought out a big basket. This she set on the kitchen table
+and commenced to fill with any number of things: salt and pepper and
+flour and spices and baking powder and raisins, and all sorts of things.
+The next morning when Rosanna went into the playhouse kitchen for a look
+on her way to call Helen, there was everything any little girl would
+possibly need to cook with, all arranged in rows on the shelves of the
+tiny cupboard. And wonder of wonders, just inside the door was a little
+ice-chest.
+
+"Oh, oh! Where did that come from?" cried Rosanna, clapping her hands
+and running to open it.
+
+"Cook found it in the store room," said Minnie, smiling. "It was the one
+they used in your nursery when you were a baby. She cleaned it all out,
+and I think you will find something in it besides ice."
+
+Sure enough there _was_ something besides ice, but Rosanna took one
+little glance and then ran like the wind for the kitchen, where she
+burst upon the astonished cook, and reaching as far around her as her
+short arms would go, hugged her hard. Then she ran to the brick wall and
+called Helen.
+
+It seemed about a second before the two children were in the playhouse
+kitchen, aprons on, and hard at work.
+
+Minnie was made superintendent and sat sewing in a wicker chair beside
+the table, where she could give advice. Helen was chief cook and Rosanna
+was assistant--the most delighted and thrilled assistant that ever beat
+an egg or stirred a batter. By eleven o'clock the cooking was done and
+every pot and pan washed and put in its place. Helen said that was the
+rule in domestic science school, so although they were both tired with
+their labors and Rosanna wished in her heart that she could tell Minnie
+to clean up as she usually did whenever a mess was made, they stuck to
+their task and it did not take very long to finish the work and make the
+kitchen all spick and span.
+
+Rosanna was conscious of a new feeling, a sort of glow, at her heart.
+Never before in her life had she spent a really useful morning. She had
+learned to cook several things, and had the best time she had ever had
+in her life.
+
+"What shall we have? A party?" asked Helen, sinking down in one of the
+wicker chairs.
+
+Rosanna laughed. "Now I am going to tell my surprise, Minnie," she said.
+"But when I made it up I didn't think we would help with it ourselves.
+No, indeed; I thought you and cook would have to do it all, and we would
+just sit around." She laughed. "I think it would be loads of fun to take
+our cookies and the jello we made, and make some sandwiches of the cold
+meat cook put in our ice-box, and pack the lunch hamper just as though
+we were grown up, and fill the thermos bottles with milk, and go to
+Jacobs Park for supper to-night."
+
+Helen gave a scream of delight. "Oh, splendid!" she cried, "I have not
+been out there yet, and dad says it is perfectly beautiful--just like
+real country."
+
+"Don't you suppose your mother would like to go, Helen?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"Of course she would!" said Helen promptly, "but she has gone to
+Jeffersonville and will not be back until to-morrow morning. It was nice
+of you to think of her, Rosanna."
+
+When the hamper was packed to their satisfaction, they called Minnie
+back to see if they had forgotten anything.
+
+"Why, who's going, Miss Rosanna?" asked Minnie, looking into the basket
+with much surprise.
+
+"You and Mr. Culver and Helen and me," said Rosanna wonderingly.
+
+"Well, dearie, whatever are you going to do with all these things to
+eat?" said Minnie. "This basket holds enough for eight grown people, and
+you have packed it full."
+
+"I think we can eat it by supper time," said Rosanna. "You have no idea
+how good those cookies and things are. Do you think we have forgotten
+anything, Minnie?"
+
+"Where is the corkscrew for your olive bottle?" said Minnie. "And what
+are all those little bundles?"
+
+"Hard boiled eggs," said Helen.
+
+"Have you put in salt and pepper for 'em?"
+
+"I don't believe we have," said Rosanna. She ran to get some.
+
+"What is in that dish?" Minnie went on relentlessly.
+
+"Salad, and the other one has fruit jello."
+
+"They won't ride very well, I am fraid," said Minnie. Then seeing a look
+of disappointment in the children's faces she hastened to add, "Well, I
+say that is a grand supper, and cook never did a bit better for Mr.
+Robert when he was home and used to give motoring parties. Now I have a
+plan myself. Both you children go and take a nap. Please do that for
+Minnie, Miss Rosanna."
+
+Rosanna was sure she could not sleep, but about one minute later she was
+dreaming of dinner parties and kitchens. When she woke up it was three
+o'clock and Minnie was shaking her gently.
+
+Rosanna was off the bed like a shot. She had just reached the porch when
+Helen came running up, dressed plainly and sensibly in a plain dark
+gingham and sandals.
+
+"The car is all ready," she said, "and daddy is driving it around to the
+front door. And oh, he thinks he can't stay with us. He has so much
+studying to do he is going to leave us there with you, Minnie, and come
+for us whenever you say."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Minnie. "Only now that makes three to eat
+all that supper."
+
+Rosanna picked up her cape and a thermos bottle and skipped down the
+broad steps after the house boy, who carried the heavy lunch hamper.
+
+"Never you mind, Minnie," she said. "Wouldn't you be s'prised to see us
+eat every bit of it?"
+
+"No, I wouldn't," said Minnie firmly. "I'd be _scared_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Driving through the winding roads of beautiful Iroquois Park, or Jacobs
+Park as it is better known to the people of Louisville, they found a
+lovely glade where the grass was smooth and where the trees grew close
+all about. They were screened from the passersby, and it looked as
+though the little place had just been waiting for a couple of little
+girls to come there and enjoy a treat.
+
+For a long time they played while Minnie sat comfortably at the foot of
+a tree and sewed on one of her doilies. Suddenly they were interrupted
+by the sound of crying.
+
+Both girls stood motionless in amazement. Minnie put down her work. The
+crying continued. It was no feeble wail, but a good hearty roar with a
+running accompaniment of sobs in another key. Two children were being as
+miserable and unhappy as they knew how. As they came close to the leafy
+screen that protected Rosanna and Helen, the girls were able to see as
+well as hear the sobbing pair.
+
+The most noise was made by a chubby, red-faced little fellow wearing a
+cap. He was dragging an empty box by a string, like a little wagon, and
+his roars did not prevent an air of lively interest in his
+surroundings. His face was tear streaked, and he cried with the air of
+one who never intends to stop. A girl, rather smaller, followed. She
+clutched her brother firmly by the back of the blouse and allowed him to
+drag her forward.
+
+Her eyes were screwed tight shut, her head was thrown back and she
+shuffled along, the very picture of woe. Three other children completed
+the mournful group. A larger girl, who staggered along under the weight
+of the fat baby she was carrying, and another small boy who stalked
+along, scowling unhappily, but with firm steps and squared shoulders as
+though he would not let himself be overcome by misfortune.
+
+"Oh, oh, _oh_!" cried the little girl. "Oh, oh, _oh_!" It seemed all she
+could say.
+
+"L--let l-loose of me!" roared the boy whose blouse she was clutching.
+
+"Please stop your crying," begged the older girl, setting the baby on
+his feet and shifting him to the other arm. "The police will come if you
+don't."
+
+"I don't care! Ow, ow, ow!" yelled the boy.
+
+Rosanna backed up to Minnie and stood there quite overcome. Not so with
+Helen, however. After a good look, she pushed through the leafy screen,
+jumped down the low bank and proceeded to ask questions. At the sound of
+her voice the small girl opened her eyes and her sobs dwindled to a
+steady sniffle. The boy stopped instantly. He looked ashamed. The big
+girl once more put down the baby, setting it on the bank, and the boy
+who had not cried stared off down the road, never giving Helen a glance.
+Presently the girl sat down with the baby and Helen dropped down beside
+her. Rosanna was filled with curiosity.
+
+"I am going down to see what it is all about," she said to Minnie.
+
+"Don't go too close, dearie; you might catch something," said Minnie,
+intent on her cross-stitching and not caring much what the matter was.
+
+Rosanna slipped shyly down the bank and stood beside Helen.
+
+"She is telling me about it," said Helen, turning to Rosanna. "She
+earned the carfare to bring them out here for the afternoon by digging
+weeds on lawns. Go on!"
+
+"Well," said the strange girl, "we took the car, and got out here, and I
+had to carry the baby and help Luella there, so I couldn't carry
+anything else. And Tommy wanted to carry the supper because he said he
+was the biggest, and he wouldn't let Myron even take hold of the basket.
+And when we got off the car Luella fell down and bumped herself, and the
+car went off, and then I asked Tommy where was the lunch, and he had
+left it on the car! He always forgets everything. I oughtn't to have let
+him have it, but, you see, I had the baby and had to help Luella. Tommy
+wanted to run after the car, but it was 'most out of sight. He couldn't
+ever catch it."
+
+"So that's all the trouble. They want their supper, and there isn't any.
+I have a bottle of milk in my bag for the baby, but that is all there is
+except carfare home, and I'm sorry but p'raps next time Tommy will think
+how he leaves good suppers on street cars. We were going to have bread
+and butter and doughnuts and three plums apiece."
+
+At the mention of the lost feast, Tommy burst out with even greater
+noise. Luella's eyes closed and her sniffles changed to a low howl.
+
+"I'm hungry!" roared Tommy. "I didn't go to lose the supper. I gotta
+have sumpin' to eat!"
+
+"No, you haven't either," said the girl. "You haven't got to have
+anything to eat any more than Myron has. Why don't you act like Myron?
+I'd be ashamed of myself, and you a whole year older!"
+
+"That's just it!" said Tommy, stopping long enough to talk. "Myron's
+littler and thinner, and he don't need it so much."
+
+"Well, I bet he does!" said his sister. "Now you come along down to the
+playgrounds, and you can each have a good big drink of water and then
+you won't mind missing your supper."
+
+She stood up wearily and shouldered the baby. She was a sweet looking
+little girl, but careworn as though she had carried the baby most of his
+life. And so she had. The other children started down the road, Tommy
+and Luella silent for the time. It had been a comfort to tell their
+troubles to someone.
+
+"Good-by," said the strange girl, smiling over her shoulder. She kissed
+the baby. "Shake a paddy good-by," she said, and a little dimpled hand
+wagged a farewell at Rosanna and Helen.
+
+"We're very sorry," said Helen. "Good-by!"
+
+"Good-by!" echoed Rosanna.
+
+They scrambled up the bank and stopped, staring. In the middle of the
+grassy lawn that they had chosen for their picnic ground stood the lunch
+hamper. It looked as big as a house!
+
+"Bread and butter and three plums apiece," said Helen under her breath.
+
+"Bread and butter and three plums apiece," echoed Rosanna. "Helen," she
+said solemnly, "this is the reason we packed such a lot of lunch. Come
+on!" She turned and dashed down the bank and along the shady road. For
+the first time in her life Rosanna was doing something that had not been
+suggested to her; something that was out of the regular order of things.
+She did not ask herself if the children belonged to nice families. She
+rather knew they had no family at all in the sense her grandmother
+always used. She did not stop to remember how shocked and horrified her
+grandmother would be if she could see her racing along trying to
+overtake the grubby little group of poor children. With Helen close
+behind, she skimmed around the first curve and spied them ahead.
+
+Rosanna and Helen commenced to call and wave their arms. The girl heard
+and once more set down the baby. Tommy heard and squeezed out a louder
+howl. Luella opened her eyes. Myron glanced at them and again turned
+away and stared down the road. Rosanna and Helen dashed up.
+
+"We want you to come and have supper with us," said Rosanna, with her
+sweet smile. "We have a lovely supper and we cooked most of it
+ourselves, and we brought a whole hamper full."
+
+Tommy shut up suddenly. This was something he could not afford to miss
+hearing. Luella showed that her eyes could open and be very large and
+round indeed.
+
+"I don't feel we had better," said the older girl slowly. She certainly
+looked very tired.
+
+"Oh yes, you must!" said Rosanna. "The basket holds just enough for
+eight people--grown-up people at that; and there are only three of us.
+Minnie thought we were crazy to pack so much, but the things looked so
+nice when they filled the boxes cramful. _Please_ do come!"
+
+"I don't know," she said hesitatingly.
+
+Helen looked at her and made a sign that Rosanna did not see. Then "I
+_thought_ you were a Girl Scout," she said. "Now that makes it all right
+for you to come to us because, as you see, I am a Girl Scout too, and
+you know we must serve each other when in need."
+
+A look of pleasure lighted the girl's face.
+
+"Why, if you are sure there is enough," she said. "I am so tired
+carrying the baby, it would seem good just to sit down and rest awhile.
+But Tommy eats a lot."
+
+"We don't mind that," said Rosanna. "I don't want a single bit of that
+supper left to carry home."
+
+The little procession turned and made its joyful way back to the lunch
+basket.
+
+Rosanna and Helen seated their little guests, and Minnie, her kind heart
+touched by the tired face and drooping shoulders of the little girl who
+had carried the heavy baby so far, took the child and commenced to play
+with it.
+
+The girls spread the paper lunch cloth smoothly on the ground and
+commenced putting the food on the table. Tommy stared with round eyes.
+Myron glanced at the feast and then looked away while, to everyone's
+astonishment, Luella commenced to cry.
+
+"My land of love, what's the matter now?" said Minnie, speaking over the
+head of the baby, who nestled happily in her lap.
+
+Everybody looked at Luella who mumbled something and sobbed right along.
+
+"What does she say?" asked Helen.
+
+The older girl looked dreadfully embarrassed.
+
+"I'm so ashamed of her," she exclaimed in a low tone. "She does think up
+such dreadful things! She is crying because those plums are green, and
+she knows I won't let her eat any."
+
+"Plums?" said Helen and Rosanna together.
+
+"Over there," cried Luella, sniffling and pointing.
+
+Both girls began to laugh, then stopped as they noticed the unhappy look
+on the large girl's face.
+
+"I don't wonder she thinks those are plums," said Helen. "I thought they
+were plums when I was little and always called them plums long after I
+knew they were olives. Here, Luella, you can eat one now if you wish,
+but I don't believe you will like them at all. I didn't when I was
+little."
+
+Luella took the offered dainty and popped it into her mouth. She managed
+to eat it, although she made awful faces. Tommy, watching her, did not
+ask for a serving.
+
+"Can I help?" said the strange girl politely. "I wish you would let me.
+I would feel better to do something when you are going to give us such a
+perfectly lovely supper."
+
+"Please sit still and rest," said Rosanna, smiling. "You want to feel
+real good and hungry when supper is ready, and I am sure you must be
+tired nearly to death. And if you would tell us your name.... We know
+which is Tommy, and Myron, and Luella, but we don't know the baby's
+name, nor yours."
+
+"The baby is little Christopher," said the guest, reaching over to pat
+the little hand, "and my name is Mary. You are Rosanna and you are
+Helen, and I heard them call you Minnie."
+
+"Perfectly right," said Minnie. "Will it hurt the baby to crawl around
+on the grass?"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed," said Mary. "He crawls all over. He gets some dreadful
+tumbles but he never cries. He has fallen out of bed so many times that
+we keep the floor all covered with pillows in front of the bed, and last
+week he fell down the cellar stairs. Tommy forgot and left the door
+open."
+
+"My good land, didn't it kill the poor child?" asked Minnie.
+
+"No, there was a bushel basket partly full of potatoes on the landing,
+and he fell into those and never hurt himself at all. He didn't even cry
+but a minute. He is the best baby we have ever had."
+
+"My land, you poor chicken, you!" said Minnie. "You talk like you was
+the mother of the whole bunch!"
+
+"I help a lot with them," said Mary simply, "and I guess they are 'most
+as much mine as mother's. You see she works and somebody has to take
+care of them. And it isn't such very hard work, especially since I
+joined the Girl Scouts. All the girls are so good, and have such a lot
+of good times, and oh, it makes everything different!"
+
+"What are Girl Scouts?" said Rosanna. Both girls looked at her in
+amazement. "I know what Boy Scouts are," she said hastily, "but I never
+heard of Girl Scouts."
+
+Helen patted her on the arm. "Well, Rosanna, some day I will tell you
+all about them, but now we must hurry and get the rest of the things on
+the table because I don't think Tommy will ever live if he has to wait
+much longer."
+
+"I know Myron is awfully hungry too," said Mary, smiling at her little
+brother. "He never says a word, but I can tell what he thinks. Myron is
+such a help to me. He is just as good at remembering things as Tommy is
+at forgetting them."
+
+"He helped to forget the lunch," said Tommy.
+
+Myron spoke up in self-defence. "No, I didn't! I was helping Mary pick
+up Luella and I thought you had it. You had it the last I saw."
+
+"I put it down after that," said Tommy as though that explained
+everything.
+
+"I think I will lay the baby down beside this tree and let him have his
+bottle," said Mary. "That will keep him quiet all the time we eat."
+
+"Wait a minute until we fix a nice place," said Minnie. She brought a
+couple of auto robes and made a smooth, soft bed under the tree.
+
+"There he is!" she said. Mary, who had been unwrapping wads of
+newspapers, produced a bottle of milk which she gave the baby. He
+settled down to a quiet enjoyment of his meal, and Mary sighed as she
+sat down at the edge of the tablecloth.
+
+"I _do_ hope you won't mind if I look at everything," she said. "I never
+_saw_ so many _lovely_ things in my life even in a delicatessen
+window."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The children, very, very solemn but oh so thrilled, seated themselves on
+the grass and silently accepted the plates of good things that Helen and
+Rosanna dished out for them. It is to be said for the everlasting credit
+of the jello that it did _not_ melt, and the salad _did_ ride well,
+although Minnie had gloomily expected it to be "all over the place" as
+she expressed it.
+
+How those children did eat! Commencing with the ham sandwiches and the
+lettuce and egg sandwiches, and the cold hard-boiled eggs, and crackers
+and olives, and fruit salad, and very, _very_ thin iced tea with lemon
+in it, and jello for dessert!
+
+About half way through the smaller children commenced to thaw out and
+lose their shyness, and talk. _How_ they did talk! Myron said nothing
+(but that was expected of Myron). When at last Rosanna was tipping up
+the second thermos bottle to see if there was a drop of tea left, and
+they were all eating the last cookies very, very slowly, partly to make
+them last and partly because they were so full and comfortable, Rosanna
+happened to notice Myron. She motioned to Helen to look. Myron had not
+eaten everything. He had slyly lifted the tablecloth and had hidden
+under it a ham sandwich rather nibbled as to edge, a small pile of
+cookies (his share) and his plate of jello, which he had slipped off on
+a paper napkin.
+
+"He couldn't eat all his supper, and he is afraid we won't like it,"
+whispered Rosanna.
+
+"I am going to ask him," said Helen. She stepped over to the boy, who
+was sitting close to his little pile of goodies as though trying to hide
+it. "Couldn't you eat all your supper?"
+
+Myron nodded.
+
+Mary glanced quickly at her brother, and said, "Why, Myron, _whatever_
+are you trying to do?"
+
+Tommy piped up. "I guess he's going to take 'em home to eat on the way."
+
+"I am _not_!" said Myron hotly, stung into self-defence as usual by his
+brother. "I am _not_! Going to take it home to mamma and Gwenny. I
+haven't had a speck more'n my share. I counted every time, and everybody
+had four cookies 'cept Tommy. He had six. And I saved my sandwich out,
+and the jell!"
+
+Tears stood in Mary's eyes. "But it isn't polite, Myron, to take
+anything away without asking and, anyway, I know mamma and Gwenny will
+be satisfied to just hear about our good time, and they wouldn't want
+you to do such a thing." She tried to put the cookies back on the table
+but Myron clung to them stubbornly.
+
+"No, no!" he said. "They are _my_ things! I went without 'em, and I want
+to take them home to mamma and Gwenny. Gwenny never had any cookies
+like those. And the jell is so pretty. I put a egg in my pocket too."
+Myron's lip trembled, but he did not cry although Tommy giggled openly.
+
+"Of course you shall take them home to your mother! Who is Gwenny--your
+dog?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"Gwenny is my _sister_!" said Myron furiously.
+
+Rosanna felt that she always said the wrong thing.
+
+"Oh, excuse me, Myron," she said meekly.
+
+A shade of sorrow passed over Mary's bright little face as she said,
+"Gwenny can never go anywhere with us. She is sick, and never goes
+anywhere."
+
+"Sick in bed?" questioned Rosanna.
+
+"No, she has a wheel chair, and when her back doesn't hurt too much, she
+can be wheeled around the house and sometimes out in the yard. But she
+wouldn't want Myron to do anything like this, so rude."
+
+"But Gwenny never _had_ any cookies as good as those, and the jell is so
+pretty!" repeated Myron stubbornly.
+
+"I think it is so nice of you, Myron," said Rosanna. "I wish I had known
+about Gwenny too so I could have saved her some of my cookies. Let me
+help you do them up. You can take them to her just as you meant to, and
+I know she will like them because her little brother went without to
+save some for her. And some day soon, Myron, we will bring her a whole
+picnic for herself, and perhaps she will ask you to help her eat it."
+
+"I'll help her too," said Tommy, puffing up his chest. "I'd just as
+soon!"
+
+Minnie, bending over the hamper, whispered to Rosanna, "I'll bet he'll
+help her! My, my, how I do want to fix that boy! I wish my third sister
+from the oldest, Louisa Cordelia, had him for a while. I reckon one day
+with her would make him feel different on a good many subjects. Little
+pig!" Minnie's eyes snapped.
+
+Rosanna laughed. "I suppose he doesn't know any better, Minnie."
+
+"Know any better? Well, Miss Rosanna, Myron didn't need any help about
+remembering his poor hard-worked mother and his sick sister. I don't
+doubt Mary thought of 'em too, but she was too polite to say a word
+after all you have done for them. But poor little Myron didn't know it
+wasn't polite, so he just goes ahead and keeps part of his treat. If
+there are any cookies in Master Tommy's pockets, they will never get as
+far as his house."
+
+"Well, I think he _is_ selfish," said Rosanna regretfully. "But, Minnie,
+we must take some good things to that Gwenny. I think grandmother would
+want me to."
+
+After the supper things were all packed away in the hamper, everybody
+sat around and wondered what to do next. Then Rosanna had a fine idea.
+
+She seated herself next the shy little Myron and suggested that
+everybody should tell a story. Tommy and Myron looked rather wild.
+Rosanna saw the look, and said that she thought they ought to commence
+with Helen, because she looked as though she knew lots of stories.
+
+Helen said she didn't know so very many, but she was willing to try.
+
+"This is a really truly story about a little, little boy. He did not
+have any brothers or sisters, and he was very lonely and unhappy
+although he had nice clothes and plenty to eat. So he thought if he just
+had a little kitten or a dog to play with and live with he would be a
+good deal happier, and perhaps he would even get to be as happy as he
+could be. But his mother did not like to have dogs or cats around
+because they tracked up things, so she wouldn't let him have them. And
+somebody wanted to give him a canary but his mother thought it would be
+a lot of trouble to feed. And once he 'most got a pair of white rats
+with his Fourth of July money, but they simply wouldn't let him. So
+there he was; and he grew lonelier and lonelier and he used to sit on
+the top step and stare down the street and wish he might whistle at the
+dogs he saw, but he wouldn't for fear one of them might be looking for a
+home and then it would be so disappointed after he had patted it and
+been kind to it, if it had to go on again.
+
+"Well, one day there was a picnic down the river. The people went by
+boat and then landed at the picnic grove, and spent the afternoon. The
+little boy, whose name was Peter, went with his mother and aunt, and
+when they got to the grove his mother said to his aunt, 'I don't see any
+reason why Peter shouldn't walk around and amuse himself and play with
+some of those children.' And his aunt said, 'Yes, if he doesn't fall
+into the river,' and his mother said, 'Peter, you see to it that you
+don't go near the bank.'
+
+"Peter said 'yes, ma'am,' and really meant to mind. He walked off and
+pretty soon--oh, yes, I forgot to say that his mother gave him ten cents
+to spend for popcorn or on the merry-go-round. So pretty soon Peter saw
+a dog walking around with his tail sort of down as though he didn't know
+anybody and was not having a very nice time. Peter didn't call him, but
+he wished he knew the dog, he was such a pretty collie with beautiful
+long hair and such a nice face. Pretty soon the dog saw Peter, and quick
+as a wink he knew that Peter was lonely too, so he came up to him. They
+got to be friends in a minute and went walking off together, and Peter
+spent his ten cents for popcorn and shared it with the dog.
+
+"So they went around liking each other more and more, and when it came
+time for supper the dog lay right under Peter's chair, and Peter's
+mother said, 'Well, if you haven't picked up a dog! I declare that child
+beats all!'
+
+"After supper Peter and the dog walked around some more, and Peter knew
+that soon the boat would start and he would have to leave the dog and he
+felt worse and worse about it until he almost couldn't bear it at all.
+
+"And he was thinking so hard that he forgot what his mother had told
+him, and walked along the top of the bank by the river. It was a high
+bank and crumbly; and all of a sudden a piece broke off and Peter
+slipped and slid down, down into the river, and under he went. The next
+thing he knew he was on the bank, and his mother was crying, and there
+was a lot of people, and the dog was there wet as sop, and he was trying
+to lick Peter's face, and Peter's mother was letting him do it. And a
+man said, 'Madame, if it hadn't been for that dog, your son would have
+been drowned. I saw it all.'
+
+"Then Peter's mother kissed him, and patted the dog, and she said,
+'Peter, if that dog has no home we will take him for your dog, and if he
+has, we will try to buy him.' But it turned out that the dog did not
+belong to anyone, and so Peter took him home, and had him for his dog
+always."
+
+"Why, that's a perfectly beautiful story!" exclaimed Rosanna, and all
+the children thought so too.
+
+"You ought to see _my_ dog," said Tommy. "He's a fighter, he is!"
+
+"How can you say that?" said Mary. "He is only three months old and can
+scarcely walk straight."
+
+"Well, I bet he will fight when he gets bigger."
+
+"He's not your dog anyhow," said Myron. "He's Gwenny's."
+
+"Yes, and Myron bought him for her at the Pet Shop with money he earned
+himself. It is a toy poodle, so he won't ever be big."
+
+"Now who tells the next story?" asked Rosanna. "I think it is Tommy's
+turn."
+
+"Don't know none," said Tommy.
+
+"Don't know _any_," his sister corrected him. "Go on and try, Tommy."
+
+Tommy breathed hard, then said rapidly:
+
+"Well, once over on the parkway two kids was playin', and a man came
+along drivin' a race horse, and it had got scared at a nautomobile, and
+was runnin' away, and the rein had broke, and the man he yelled, 'I'll
+give anybuddy a million dollars to stop this horse,' and one of the kids
+'bout my size give a leap and grabbed the horse by the nose and stopped
+him. And the man jumped right out and give the kid a million dollars."
+
+"The saints forgive him!" said Minnie. She did not say who.
+
+"Mercy me!" said Rosanna.
+
+"What did he do with the money?" asked Helen.
+
+"Spent it," said Tommy promptly. "Went right down town and spent it."
+
+"What could he spend such a lot for?" asked Helen.
+
+"Spent it for candy and ice-cream cones and sody and cake, and he went
+to the circus and all the side shows, and Fontaine Ferry and bought a
+nautomobile and sling shot and everything."
+
+"My sister Louisa Cordelia ought to know you," said Minnie.
+
+"Don't want to know any girls," said Tommy rudely.
+
+Rosanna felt that it was time to change the conversation. "Now who
+next?" she asked pleasantly. "What story can Luella tell?"
+
+"I don't believe she can tell any story," said Mary, "but she knows some
+little verses she learned in school. They have such a sweet young lady
+for a teacher; mamma says she never saw anybody take such pains with the
+children as she does." She turned to Luella who was wriggling in
+embarrassment and biting her finger. "Speak something Miss Marie taught
+you, Luella honey."
+
+"Miss Marie?" said Minnie. "Miss Marie? What is her other name?"
+
+"Corrigan," said Mary.
+
+"Well, then, that's my younger sister," said Minnie proudly. "She's a
+teacher, and I _will_ say she is a good one. Nothing would do but she
+must go through normal school and teach. Seems like she was just made
+for it, so patient and loving." She cast a glance at Tommy. "Not much
+like my sister Louisa Cordelia, she isn't."
+
+"The children just love her to death," said Mary. "Go on, honey, and say
+the little piece about the little bird."
+
+Luella arose, breathed hard, curtseyed, and very sweetly recited,
+
+
+A little bird sat on a tree,
+  And waved his little wing at me.
+He said, "This seems a pleasant day,
+  I think perhaps I'll fly away."
+He bent his pretty little head,
+  "I don't see any worms," he said.
+He shook his pretty feathers out.
+  "It's growing cold without a doubt.
+When all the leaves have fallen down
+  And all the trees are bare and brown,
+When snow is deep on dell and hill,
+  And wintry winds are cold and chill,
+This would not be the place for me,"
+  He said, and teetered on his tree.
+"I know a land far, far away,
+  Where winter is as warm as May."
+He waved a wing and winked an eye,
+  And off he flew, "Good-bye, good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+All the children except Tommy clapped their hands when Luella finished.
+It did indeed sound sweet and she spoke it very prettily, waving her
+hand and winking her own eye at the end.
+
+Rosanna and Myron felt that their time had come. They looked at each
+other, but Minnie settled the question.
+
+"Now it is Miss Rosanna's turn," she said, "and then Myron's. Ladies
+first. Give us a real nice story, Miss Rosanna."
+
+"About robbers," said Tommy, chewing on a grass stem.
+
+"I don't know any about robbers," said Rosanna pleasantly, "but I do
+know one about a cat, or a kitten rather, and it really happened. Helen
+told one about a dog, and this is about a cat.
+
+"Once there were two little boys, Walter and Harold, and they were going
+a long, long way to their new home in the West where they were going to
+live. And they had a pet kitten that they wanted to take along so badly
+that fin'ly their mother and father said they might take it if they
+would carry it in its basket all the way and never ask anyone else to
+take care of it. So they said they would, and by-and-by they had
+everything packed up and ready, and when the time came, they started
+off and got on the train, kitten and all.
+
+"They had things for it to eat and milk for it to drink, and when the
+conductor was not in the car they used to take it out of its basket and
+pet it and play with it. And the kitten didn't mind it a bit.
+
+"Well, when they had been on the train a couple of days they let the
+kitten out, and Harold had it on his lap sound asleep.
+
+"But just when they were at a station and the train was standing still,
+something awfully exciting happened outside the window, and both boys
+forgot the kitten. She jumped down from Harold's lap and went along
+under the seats toward the end of the car. She thought she was going to
+have a nice little walk, but just then the brakeman came into the car
+and there was a kitten under one of the seats. He thought of course it
+had hopped on the car there at the station, so he took it up and put the
+poor little thing off the train, and then that _very_ minute the whistle
+blew and off they went.
+
+"It was a vestibule train, and when Walter and Harold found out that
+their kitten was gone they hunted every inch of the car over, and then
+hunted through the next car, thinking that she might have gone across
+the vestibule and into the other car. But she was not there. Just then
+along came the brakeman again and when the boys asked him if he had seen
+a kitten, he said, 'Why, sure! Was that _your_ cat? I thought she had
+hopped on the train back there at the last station, and I took her and
+put her off.'
+
+"Well, the boys felt so badly they didn't know what to _do_, and the
+brakeman said they would not stop at any station for sixty miles. Walter
+said he was going back to see if he could find her, but the brakeman
+said she was most likely gone by this time or somebody had picked her
+up. He was awfully sorry about it.
+
+"When they had gone the sixty miles the car stopped, but the boys didn't
+care to look out or anything. They just sat and thought about their
+little kittie, and Harold said, 'Seems as though I can hear her cry,'
+and Walter said, 'Don't say that again,' and then he looked funny,
+because he thought he could hear her himself!
+
+"Harold said, 'I suppose she is dead, and that is her ghost.' Walter
+said, 'No, it's not; even kitten ghosts don't make a noise. There it is
+again.'
+
+"And then they looked around very slowly, the way you do when you think
+something is going to happen and you don't know just what it will be,
+and there in the seat back of them was the brakeman and he was holding
+that kitten!
+
+"When he opened the car door he found her squeezed up in a corner of the
+top step, where she had ridden all that long way. When the brakeman
+tossed her off she knew that the boys were on the train, so she climbed
+right back, but she didn't get on quick enough to get into the
+vestibule before the door was shut, so she had to hang on and ride
+outside. She was scared nearly to death and jumped at every sound and
+trembled for days, but the boys petted her and comforted her, and
+by-and-by she felt all right. And there were lots of mice in the house
+they went to live in, and that took her mind off herself. And that's all
+of that," said Rosanna, smiling.
+
+"That's a nice story," said Minnie. "Now let's hear what Myron has to
+tell."
+
+Myron shook his head. "Oh, go on, Myron," said Helen. "Tell us a story,
+please, even if it _is_ short!"
+
+"Once there was a little boy," said Myron, without waiting to be teased.
+"Once there was a little boy and he had a mamma and two brothers and
+three sisters, and he grew up and made lots of money, and bought lots of
+nice things for his mamma, and his two brothers and his three sisters
+and that's all."
+
+"The dear lamb!" said Minnie. "That's the best story of the lot."
+
+"Mine was better," said Tommy. "Mine was a real feller."
+
+"Oh," murmured Minnie, "Louisa Cordelia has just _got_ to get hold of
+you, young man!"
+
+"I suppose it is my turn now," said Mary, "as long as you want to save
+Minnie for the last. Could you let me say you a little poetry, or was
+Luella's enough? I think some poetry sort of mixes things up a little."
+
+"I think poetry is _lovely_," said Rosanna sweetly. "We loved Luella's
+verses."
+
+"Well, then I will say some instead of a story." Mary cleared her throat
+and, rising, made a little bow.
+
+UNAFRAID
+
+The day I die, I'll quickly go
+  Past all the angels, row on row,
+Straight up to God; I'll know His face
+  Even up there in that new place.
+
+In Sunday School, the way they teach,
+  God is almost too great to reach.
+They act a little bit afraid;
+  Because the world and all He made.
+
+But if He made the heavens blue,
+  He made the sweet wild violets too;
+And Oh, what careful work it took
+  To plan the small trout in the brook.
+
+I know He's just the very size
+  Of father; with most loving eyes.
+Just big enough so one like me
+  Can safely lean against His knee.
+
+"Those were lovely verses," said Minnie when Mary had finished. "I
+wonder who wrote them."
+
+"My teacher wrote them," said Mary. "I think they are real nice."
+
+"I do think it is a waste of time for me to tell a story," said Minnie.
+"First you know the machine will be here and then we will have to hurry
+home."
+
+"I would like to hear you tell a story ever so much," said Mary. "I know
+it would be a nice one, but I must be starting along pretty soon. It is
+a long way from here to the car track, and I have to stop so often on
+account of the baby being so heavy. It is so funny about babies, they
+seem to get so heavy toward night."
+
+"Indeed they do after you have lugged them about all day," said Minnie.
+"I say I know all about it, dearie."
+
+"We are not going to let you walk at all," said Rosanna. "We are going
+to take you wherever you live right in the car."
+
+"Nautomobile ride! Nautomobile ride!" chanted Tommy, tossing his cap.
+
+"I think you are just too good," said Mary. "Will your automobile hold
+such a lot?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, and more too!" said Rosanna, glad for once that she
+had a big Pierce-Arrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+"I hear the car coming," said Minnie. Everybody listened, and sure
+enough the big car rounded the bend and drew up at the bank with a
+mighty blast of the horn. Tommy yelled in reply and bolted for it, the
+others following, loaded down with the empty hamper and rugs, and by no
+means least, the baby, awake now and very happy after his sleep.
+
+Minnie marshalled them into their places, putting the two boys on the
+front seat with Mr. Culver, and off they rolled. When they reached the
+little house where the children lived, Mary thanked Rosanna and Helen
+and Minnie and Mr. Culver again and she would have liked to thank the
+car too, and the hamper. Even Tommy managed to say, "Much obliged!"
+before he rushed to the house so he could have the fun of telling all
+about it before Mary could get there.
+
+But Mary did not mind. This was something that would have to be told
+over and over a dozen or twenty times. She stood with Luella and Myron,
+the baby looped over her arm, and watched the car disappear with a
+feeling of happiness and gratitude that filled her thin little frame to
+overflowing.
+
+When the car reached the great white steps of Rosanna's house, the two
+little girls said good-night.
+
+"I never had such a nice, lovely, beautiful day in all my life,
+Rosanna," she said. "And all because you were so good and kind."
+
+"You would have thought of it just the same," said Rosanna, blushing.
+"But oh, Helen and Minnie, _wasn't_ it lucky that we took such a lot of
+lunch?"
+
+"Well, it did turn out so," said Minnie.
+
+The car rolled away, and Rosanna and Minnie went into the big, cool
+hall.
+
+On the table was a letter addressed to Rosanna in her grandmother's
+stiff, precise handwriting. Rosanna took it up with a sort of groan.
+
+"That's to tell when she is coming home, of course," she said. "I won't
+read it until I am all undressed. Everything is going so beautifully and
+I am learning such a lot and having such a lovely time that it doesn't
+seem as though I could bear to have it come to an end."
+
+"I think you ought to read your letter, Rosanna," Minnie said. "I don't
+believe in leaving things. You expect bad news in that letter and you
+are having a horrid time all the time you are getting ready for bed. You
+couldn't feel any worse if you opened it. And suppose there was good
+news in it? Then you would wish you had found it out before, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Rosanna listlessly.
+
+She sighed and, taking the letter, tore off the end of the envelope and
+commenced to read. The second sentence caused her to cry out. She turned
+to Minnie, hugged her, and cried, "Oh, Minnie, you are so wise! Just
+listen to this!" The letter read:
+
+
+"My dear Granddaughter Rosanna:
+
+"What news I have had from home leads me to believe that you are well
+and being nicely cared for.
+
+"Since this is the case, I feel that it will be possible for me to
+remain here in the East for a few weeks with your Uncle Robert. He is
+not ill, you understand, but is run down and nervous from the effects of
+his wound and many trying experiences abroad. He is fussing because he
+has lost track of a soldier friend of his, the man who saved his life.
+He is doing all he can to trace him, as he feels--and of course so do
+I--that we could never do enough to repay the debt we owe him.
+
+"About yourself, I hope you will have a good time. Do not forget to
+practice. Mrs. Hargrave spoke of seeing a very interesting child at our
+house. I am very glad you have found among your acquaintances one whom
+you would like to make your friend. I can trust you, Rosanna, to choose
+wisely. And I am glad to see that Mrs. Hargrave says that this Helen
+somebody comes of an old Lee County family. I cannot read the name. Mrs.
+Hargrave is a very careless penman. Always write distinctly, Rosanna.
+It is one of the many marks of good breeding.
+
+"Your Uncle Robert sends his love. He is anxious to see you.
+
+"Your loving grandmother,
+
+"VIRGINIA LEE HORTON."
+
+
+Rosanna read the letter twice.
+
+Then she turned and looked at Minnie. "It's good and bad too, isn't it,
+Minnie? You know Helen is _not_ one of the Culvers of Lee County, but
+she is just as good and sweet as though she belonged to all the Lee
+County Culvers in the world. Minnie, what shall I do?"
+
+"You must do what you think right, dearie," said Minnie, her kind, wise
+eyes searching the girl's face. "I can't tell you what to do. You must
+decide for yourself. It's one of the biggest things in the world to
+learn; that is, to decide what is right and wrong without someone
+telling us."
+
+She kissed Rosanna good-night and left the room. A moment later she
+returned. "Mrs. Hargrave just telephoned, dearie, that she wants you and
+Helen to take luncheon with her to-morrow." Once more she bade the
+little girl good-night, and Rosanna, tired out, fell asleep before the
+door was closed.
+
+She did not see Helen the next day until time for luncheon, but when she
+waked up she found a book lying beside her bed. Helen had sent it over
+to her. It was all about the Girl Scouts, and their rules and duties
+and pleasures, and Rosanna found it hard work not to sit down and read
+instead of taking her cold bath and dressing herself. Then after
+breakfast came the history lesson and the music and dressing again, and
+when Helen, very crisp and dainty, came in ready to go to Mrs.
+Hargrave's, she found that Rosanna had not had time to read a single
+line.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave lived three houses away, and the children felt very
+important and fine, especially Helen, who had never been asked to
+luncheon with a grown-up lady before. Her eyes grew round when they
+entered the house. It was so dim and cool and "old timey" as Helen put
+it.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave always dressed in the latest fashion for old ladies, yet
+somehow she always looked as though she belonged to another day and
+time. When she drove about the city she scorned the modern automobile.
+She went in the spickest and spannest little carriage drawn by an old,
+sleek and still frisky roan horse with a gold mounted harness and her
+driver was a colored man as haughty and aristocratic looking as Mrs.
+Hargrave herself; perhaps a little more so.
+
+She advanced to meet the two little girls with a charming manner that
+made them curtsey their very prettiest and caused them to feel more
+important and grown up than ever.
+
+During luncheon Mrs. Hargrave said:
+
+"Will your brother return to college now that the war is over, Helen?"
+
+Helen looked up in surprise. "I think you have me mixed up with some
+other little girl, Mrs. Hargrave," she said. "I have no brother."
+
+Mrs. Hargrave stared at her guest. "Are you not Lucius Culver's youngest
+child?" she questioned. "The Lee County Culvers?"
+
+"No, Mrs. Hargrave," said Helen. "I am John Culver's daughter."
+
+"Another family," said Mrs. Hargrave and changed the subject politely by
+asking Rosanna what she had heard from her grandmother.
+
+Helen sat thinking. She was a straightforward, honest little girl, and
+somehow she felt as though she was sailing under false colors as far as
+Mrs. Hargrave went. She felt sure of Rosanna; Rosanna did not care
+whether she was poor or rich, and it made no difference at all to her
+that Helen's father worked for Mrs. Horton. But some people were
+different, Helen reflected. Twice Mrs. Hargrave had spoken of Helen
+being one of the Culvers of Lee County, and Helen wondered if it would
+make any difference to the fine old lady sitting there in her soft,
+shimmery silks, with the long string of real pearls about her neck if
+she thought the little girl sitting there as her guest was living over a
+garage back of Mrs. Horton's elegant home. It puzzled Helen and troubled
+her. But try as she might, not once did the talk turn so she could
+bring in what she felt she wanted Mrs. Hargrave to know. It just
+_wouldn't_ come about.
+
+After luncheon was over Mrs. Hargrave took the children and showed them
+some of the strange and curious things about the house.
+
+Then she had a delightful suggestion to make. She herself was obliged to
+go down town to see her lawyer and she thought it would be very nice for
+the girls to come for a little ride. To Rosanna, used only to
+automobiles, and Helen who rode most of the time in street cars, the
+idea of riding along after the proud gold-harnessed, frisky old horse in
+the spick-and-span carriage was a treat and an adventure. Making
+themselves politely small and quiet, sitting on either side of Mrs.
+Hargrave, they went trotting down Third Street, turned by the big white
+library building, and continued down Fourth Street where they eyed the
+crowds, read the giddy signs in front of the movie houses and looked at
+the window displays.
+
+While Mrs. Hargrave talked to her lawyer, the girls sat in the carriage
+and pretended that they were grown-up ladies.
+
+When Mrs. Hargrave came out, they started up Fourth Street.
+
+"Do you know," said Mrs. Hargrave, "this is the first time in all my
+life that any little girls have visited me without their mothers? And I
+have had the _nicest_ time I think I ever had. I want to remember it
+always." She gave the signal to stop, and asked the children to get out.
+
+"There is something I want to get here," she said, and led the way into
+a big jeweler's shop. The two girls stopped to look at the rings in the
+case near the door, but Mrs. Hargrave called them. "I need a notebook
+and pencil and I thought you would like to help me select it. I am a
+rather fussy and very forgetful old lady."
+
+She did seem fussy over that notebook, but finally chose a dainty gold
+one with a square in the center for initials. Attached by a tiny gold
+chain was a slender pencil with a blue stone in the top.
+
+Then, to their amazement, the clerk laid two others exactly like it on
+the counter. Three just alike!
+
+"I think it would be nice for us all to remember our pleasant day, don't
+you?" asked Mrs. Hargrave, smiling. "I want to give you each one just
+like this one that I am getting for myself. Then we will think of each
+other whenever we use them."
+
+Helen lifted Mrs. Hargrave's delicate old hand and laid it against her
+cheek.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Hargrave," she cried, "I will _never_ forget you. I don't need
+the notebook, but it is too lovely, and I will keep it as long as I
+live."
+
+Mrs. Hargrave's eyes filled with tears. "Bless your heart!" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The very next day Mrs. Hargrave was called into the country to see a
+sick cousin. She telephoned Minnie before she left and told her that she
+felt that things were going along as well as anyone could possibly
+expect, and that she was delighted with Rosanna and her little friend.
+This message distressed Minnie for she was just about to go to see Mrs.
+Hargrave.
+
+Minnie was not happy. Silly and foolish as it was, she well knew that
+the proud old Mrs. Horton would not be willing to accept as poor and
+simple a child as Helen for Rosanna's closest friend, no matter how
+sweet and well mannered she might be. Minnie, who knew real worth when
+she saw it, despised Mrs. Horton for her overbearing ideas, but what to
+do she didn't know. She feared a storm if she let things go until Mrs.
+Horton's return, yet she dreaded a separation for the children, when
+they might enjoy each other for two or three weeks longer.
+
+Rosanna was improving daily. Minnie was pleased and proud to see how she
+continued to do for herself and learn in every way to be independent.
+Her sewing was wonderful. She was working eagerly on a little dark blue
+dress like Helen's for herself, and with Minnie's help was even putting
+a little simple cross-stitching on the cuffs and yoke. Rosanna was
+prouder of that dress than of anything she had ever had in her
+beautiful, crowded wardrobe.
+
+Minnie felt that she wanted to consult with someone, and the most
+sensible person she knew was Mrs. Hargrave. But with Mrs. Hargrave away,
+all Minnie could see to do was to let things go along, and "trust to
+luck" as she put it. Minnie didn't like "trusting to luck" at all; and
+every time she saw the two children playing together so happily and
+busily she shook her head and sighed.
+
+Rosanna, too, in a dim way was feeling troubled, because she too knew
+her grandmother, and remembered other times when she had been severely
+scolded for trying to make friends with children whose parents did not
+measure up to the standard set by Mrs. Horton.
+
+In fact, for all the seeming happiness, no one was wholly happy but
+Helen!
+
+Helen had been taught by her wise young mother that the most important
+things in life are not to be measured as anything that money can buy.
+According to Mrs. Culver, a little girl must be obedient and truthful
+and well behaved and kind. She must have a low and pleasant voice and be
+able to sit in the presence of her elders without trying to enter the
+conversation unless asked to do so. These things she had taught Helen,
+and her little girl had been a ready pupil. Mrs. Culver was justly proud
+of her.
+
+Rosanna was just a bit afraid. And the fear caused her to go in a line
+that was not _perfectly_ straightforward. She was sorry enough for it
+afterward--sorrier than she thought she could ever be. But that did not
+mend things in the least.
+
+Because she did not know just how to turn around and explain everything
+to her grandmother and still be sure of her happy time, to say nothing
+of protecting her dear Helen from distress, when she answered her
+grandmother's letter she wrote as follows:
+
+
+Dear Grandmother:
+
+"I was glad to get your letter, and I am glad Uncle Robert is home
+again. Give my love to him, please. I am glad you are having a good
+time, and I hope you will stay away as long as you like. I am having a
+very good time. Oh, grandmother, I am having a lovely time. What do you
+think? Mrs. Hargrave had Helen and me to luncheon with her, and she
+likes Helen as much as I do, only she doesn't belong to the Lee family,
+and after luncheon Mrs. Hargrave took us down town with her, and before
+we came home she bought each of us a gold notebook with a gold pencil on
+a gold chain fastened to it. She bought herself one too so we each have
+one just like a secret society.
+
+"I am learning to cook and to sew. I am making myself a dress. It is
+very pretty. I shall make a good many of my dresses after this. It saves
+a good deal of money, Minnie says, and I can help the poor with it.
+
+"We went out to Jacobs Park for a picnic, and five poor little children
+had lost their basket of supper. So I thought what you would do if you
+saw five little children who had lost their supper, and I asked them to
+have supper with us. There was enough, on account of our taking Uncle
+Robert's hamper, and Uncle Robert always liking to be generous.
+
+"We have planned a great many things. If they don't all get done before
+you come home, grandmother, perhaps you will enjoy doing them too.
+
+"I am learning a great deal about the Girl Scouts. I want to be one.
+
+"Did you know our cook has a little lame boy at home? I was glad to find
+it out. It is one more person to be kind to. I have sent him all my set
+of puzzle pictures.
+
+"Minnie is planning to get married. She has a trunk of things. When you
+come home won't it be nice because we can go down town and buy something
+for her. She will like something you have given her.
+
+"She likes you very much, I am sure, because she always says, 'Well, all
+I can say is there's not many like your grandmother in this world.'
+
+"I think it is so nice to be liked. I want to grow up to be liked. I
+think being a Girl Scout will help. Helen says all sorts of girls
+belong, rich as well as poor, and that it broadens you.
+
+"This is a long letter, grandmother, but I had a good deal to tell you.
+So please have a good time, grandmother, and I am your loving little
+girl
+
+"ROSANNA."
+
+
+Minnie sent a letter too. It read:
+
+
+"Mrs. Horton:
+
+"I wish to report that everything seems to be going smoothly. Mrs.
+Hargrave has taken a great liking to Miss Rosanna, and her new friend
+Miss Helen, and likes to have them with her. Miss Rosanna practices and
+studies faithfully, and her music teacher says she never had such a
+bright pupil. I have her take a rest in the middle of each day. The day
+you left she broke her bottle of tonic, and I could not get more, as you
+have the prescription. But I do not think she needs it. She has gained
+two pounds since you left us. I give her hair a hundred strokes each
+night. I think she wants to bob her hair, it is so very long and heavy,
+but I tell her not for worlds, as you are so proud of it.
+
+"We are keeping to the routine you ordered except when Mrs. Hargrave
+has made some slight change, but of course I know that is all right, as
+you told me she might wish to do so.
+
+"Respectfully,
+
+"MINNIE."
+
+
+And Mrs. Hargrave wrote from the country a letter full of praise for
+both little girls and for Minnie.
+
+Mrs. Horton received all three letters the same day. She slipped them
+away in her portfolio, thinking as she did so, with a smile, of Cousin
+Hendy's trunks full of letters.
+
+One thing troubled her a little. It seemed as though she could see in
+all the letters evidences that little Rosanna was undergoing some slight
+changes in her way of thinking and acting. And Mrs. Horton did not care
+to have Rosanna change in the least. She was perfectly satisfied the way
+she was. It had not occurred to Mrs. Horton to wonder if poor little
+motherless Rosanna was satisfied with her pampered, lonely life.
+
+Mrs. Horton had Rosanna's life all mapped out. However, she remembered
+the high stone wall and reflected that the child could see very little
+of the outside world if she was kept behind that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+How the time did fly! The days were not long enough for all the two
+girls crowded into them.
+
+In a few weeks Helen would be going away to a Scout camp where dozens of
+girls would live in tents and row and swim and fish and cook and listen
+to wise and sympathetic talks from their leaders. Helen knew all about
+it from past trips, and she spent hours while they sat working on their
+presents for Mrs. Hargrave, whose birthday was rapidly approaching,
+telling Rosanna all about their good times. Rosanna felt that she never
+could bear it if she couldn't be a Girl Scout. Helen, not knowing Mrs.
+Horton, did not see how any grown person could refuse such a request and
+she told Rosanna so.
+
+They had made a great many plans for Mrs. Hargrave's birthday. She was
+coming to take dinner with them.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave never looked more beautiful nor more imposing than when
+she arrived. The two girls were overcome with pride as they saw their
+guest descend from her little carriage and, laying her hand on the arm
+of the old colored man who attended her, walk slowly up the steps.
+
+When dinner was served, it was perfectly splendid to hear Mrs. Hargrave
+exclaim over the flowers and the favors and everything.
+
+During the meal the children told Mrs. Hargrave what they hoped to be.
+
+Rosanna wanted to be an artist. Helen said she intended to grow up and
+marry and be the mother of a family.
+
+"Bless my soul!" said Mrs. Hargrave, staring at her. "What put that in
+your head?"
+
+"Something mother learned in college," said Helen simply. "She believes
+it, and of course so do I. There was a teacher in college who was very
+wise, mother says, and he warned them and warned them against what he
+called popular complaints. He said they must always be careful before
+they joined anything and promised to uphold it to understand _exactly_
+what it was and how far it would lead them. He said it didn't matter
+whether they were thinking of going into a nunnery or joining the
+Salvation Army or the Suffragets or what else, they wanted to ask
+themselves could they lift themselves and help humanity by doing that
+thing. And he said in this day and age when there were so many
+dissatisfied people everywhere, he thought the most important thing in
+the world was to teach everyone, and especially children, the love of
+country."
+
+"Wise man," said Mrs. Hargrave, nodding. "What else?"
+
+"He told them that love of country was not boasting about where you came
+from, and telling everybody how high the corn grows in New York, or how
+blue the grass is in Kentucky or things about places like that. He says
+that is nothing but bragging. But he said what people needed was to love
+all their country, east and west and south and north, to try to
+understand one another and to pull together for the United States.
+
+"And he said that if every one of those girls who married and had
+children would teach them this as hard as ever they could, some day the
+states would really be united, and wiser laws would be made, and all the
+young Americans would love their country and be willing to live for her.
+He said it is harder to live faithfully for anything than to die for it
+because it takes so much longer."
+
+"Bless my soul!" said Mrs. Hargrave again. "Go on!"
+
+"That's all," said Helen. "I don't see what else I can do except teach
+some children of my own about it, do you, Mrs. Hargrave?"
+
+"I think that would be the finest thing you could do," said the
+childless old lady. "Quite the finest! Are you going to college?"
+
+"I want to," said Helen, "if we can afford it. We are saving up for it
+all the time."
+
+"How do you save?" asked Mrs. Hargrave. She was certainly a curious old
+lady.
+
+"Well," said Helen, "I wear my hair docked, and that saves a lot in
+hair ribbons, only this fall mother says I must let it grow. When mother
+takes me to buy a coat, we look at _two_ good ones that will last two
+winters, but perhaps one has pretty braid or something on it, that makes
+it cost more. Then if one of us looks as though we wanted it the other
+one whispers, 'Rah rah rah, college ah,' which is our own college yell,
+and we take the _plain_ one.
+
+"Lots of ways it looks to be harder on mother than it is on me. I know
+she goes without so many things she would love--lectures and concerts
+and all that. I just _hate_ that part!"
+
+"I am glad you do," said Mrs. Hargrave.
+
+"Helen and I are hoping that we can go to college together," said
+Rosanna.
+
+"Rosanna is so dear," said Helen. "She wants to help me save, but of
+course that won't do."
+
+"I don't see why not," said Rosanna. They had talked this over many
+times. "Do you see, Mrs. Hargrave? I never spend my allowance."
+
+"No," said Mrs. Hargrave, "it wouldn't do at all. In the first place
+Helen is earning her education in a lovely way, and your allowance is
+given you. It is no effort for you to get it, so it does not benefit
+you, my little dear. Helen must go on herself. Her help could only come
+from a fairy godmother."
+
+"There are no fairy godmothers," said Rosanna bitterly.
+
+"I was beginning to think there might be," said Mrs. Hargrave.
+
+"No," said Rosanna. "If there was a fairy godmother, just one in all the
+world, she would come and make my grandmother let me go out of the
+garden and know lots of little girls and go to school and be a Girl
+Scout."
+
+Mrs. Hargrave sat thinking as she tasted her ice. Then she asked, "What
+are these Girl Scouts?"
+
+"I have all the books," said Helen eagerly. "May I bring them around to
+show you? Then you can see just why Rosanna wants to be one. I am sure
+Rosanna could not be hurt by knowing a lot of little girls and learning
+all the things that are required of the Girl Scouts."
+
+"Why should she be hurt?" said Mrs. Hargrave.
+
+"Why, grandmother thinks I should not go out of my class."
+
+"Class is all right," said Mrs. Hargrave. "It is very necessary, but
+what you want to look for, Rosanna, is _worth_. Suppose Helen here was
+not in your own class. Suppose her father was a laboring man of some
+sort, and she lived away from this part of town, that wouldn't change
+Helen."
+
+Helen looked up in amazement. "But my father is--"
+
+Mrs. Hargrave interrupted. "I will tell you what I will do, Rosanna, I
+will talk to your grandmother myself if she makes any objections to your
+going to school and all the rest." She rose as she spoke, and they
+wandered out to the rose garden where coffee was served for Mrs.
+Hargrave and where the children offered their gifts.
+
+When she went home at last, she put an arm around each child. "This is
+the happiest birthday I have had. Good-night, and thank you! I will help
+you all I can, Rosanna, and I feel very sure, Helen, that your savings
+or the fairy godmother will take you to college with Rosanna. Two little
+girls as nice and sweet and well-bred as you ought to be friends all
+your lives."
+
+She kissed them both and, carrying her presents, went down the steps
+leaning on the arm of her servant.
+
+"I feel full of a happy sadness," Rosanna sighed. "I don't see why, do
+you?"
+
+"No," said Helen, "only that she is so perfectly lovely. She is just as
+though there was two parts to her. The outside pretty, but old and
+wrinkled and kind of high and grand, while there is somebody just too
+sweet, and real young and dancy and loving on the inside. And the inside
+one can never grow old at all, but will go right on understanding how
+you feel, and when the outside gets too old to last any longer, why, she
+will just go and be a young, young angel."
+
+"I guess that's it," said Rosanna. "But what a fuss there is about class
+and position and where you were born, isn't there?"
+
+"Yes," said Helen. "When she was talking about workingmen I tried to
+tell her about my father working for your grandmother."
+
+"Yes, she interrupted you," said Rosanna. "I don't see as it makes any
+difference what he does. No matter what _any_body thinks, Helen, we are
+going to be friends? You promised me that."
+
+"Of course," said Helen.
+
+"Well, it was a nice party, wasn't it, Helen? I think Mrs. Hargrave did
+truly have a good time."
+
+When Helen went home that night she was very quiet. Her mother thought
+she was tired, but Helen was thinking. She loved Mrs. Hargrave dearly,
+and she wanted her to know some things that she evidently was all mixed
+up about.
+
+The following morning she did not go over to see Rosanna. Instead she
+dressed with even greater care than usual and went slowly around to Mrs.
+Hargrave's, where she found her in a bright little morning room, sitting
+before a large desk.
+
+"I wanted to tell you something," said Helen, "and I am going to get it
+all mixed up. I sort of have the feeling that _everything_ is mixed up
+and that I am doing something that is not quite right. So I came over to
+you. I didn't even tell mother because I was afraid it would worry her.
+You see _she_ doesn't understand either."
+
+"Dear me, how mysterious!" said Mrs. Hargrave.
+
+"It is like this," said Helen, plunging into the middle. "You have been
+so good to me that I want to tell you that I am not one of the Culvers
+of Lee County or any other county. I am just the plainest sort of a
+little girl. I have the nicest father and mother in the whole world, but
+they are poor, and my father does work. He works for Mrs. Horton; he is
+her chauffeur, and we live in the apartment over the garage.
+
+"What will she say, Mrs. Hargrave, when she knows what a plain little
+girl I am? I thought I would come and tell you about it. I don't see
+what difference being poor makes if one tries to be nice inside, do
+you?"
+
+"No," cried Mrs. Hargrave. "It makes no difference at all. Don't let
+anyone make you think that. And your coming to tell me this shows me
+just what sort of a child you are," and she kissed Helen.
+
+"Now, let's get this thing all straight as far as you understand it, my
+dear, and then I will tell you what I think about it."
+
+So for a long time they sat together, Helen's hand in Mrs. Hargrave's
+while Helen told all about herself and her friendship with Rosanna, and
+Mrs. Hargrave chuckled when she thought of her letters to Mrs. Horton
+and how she had innocently misled her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Rosanna had just finished her luncheon that very same day, when she
+heard Minnie talking to someone over the telephone. Minnie, seeing
+Rosanna behind her, merely said yes and no and hung up as soon as she
+could.
+
+"What are you planning to do, Miss Rosanna?" she asked.
+
+"This afternoon?" said Rosanna. "Well, Helen is coming over with her
+mother and we are going to sit on the porch of the playhouse and sew.
+Helen and I are going to make a couple of rompers for Baby Christopher.
+Helen and her mother went over to see Gwenny the other day, and Mrs.
+Culver says that baby actually has nothing to put on. And there is no
+money to buy anything with because Gwenny has had to have a new brace
+that cost thirty dollars. Oh, Minnie, will I be rich when I grow up?"
+
+"Yes, you will," said Minnie.
+
+"How much; millions?" wistfully.
+
+"A good lot anyhow," said Minnie.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad!" said Rosanna. "I am going to make so many people
+happy with it. There is such a lot of things you can do with money,
+Minnie, to help people. I was so sorry when I heard about that brace. I
+am going to save more of my allowance after this and keep listening so I
+will hear when somebody wants something like that. Only there are some
+things that you can't buy with money. I couldn't buy Helen, could I? And
+I couldn't buy Mrs. Hargrave."
+
+Minnie started.
+
+"No, dearie, you couldn't," she said. "And I have got to trot along now
+because I have to go out this afternoon, and if Mrs. Culver and Helen
+are coming over, I know you will be all right."
+
+Rosanna found her little workbasket and, taking a book to read until her
+guests came, went over to the playhouse and commenced rocking in one of
+the little wicker chairs.
+
+Minnie dressed carefully but plainly and went out. Rosanna would have
+been much surprised if she had seen her hurry down the street and turn
+into Mrs. Hargrave's big house.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave was waiting for her and after a kindly greeting she said:
+"Minnie, I want you to tell me all about this Culver family, and how
+Rosanna found Helen, and how they happen to be such good friends, and
+how it is that you allowed it when you know just how Mrs. Horton feels
+about family and all that."
+
+Minnie did not flinch.
+
+"I have been wanting to come and tell you all about it," she said, "but
+I thought that you would find out things from the children. Mrs. Horton
+just won't let Rosanna know _any_ children at all. But I don't feel like
+saying all I would like to say, seeing how I work for Mrs. Horton."
+
+"You would free your mind, I reckon, if you were at your own home,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I would!" said Minnie.
+
+"Well, then," said Mrs. Hargrave, "suppose you and I talk as though we
+were just a couple of human beings who want to do a kind turn for two
+little girls. That Helen child was over here this morning, to tell me
+that she was afraid I thought she belonged to some fine family like the
+Culvers of Lee County. Lee County indeed! Those Culvers are scalawags,
+every man of them! She is lucky she doesn't own one of them for a
+father.
+
+"And the honest little angel was afraid I would be disappointed when I
+found out who she really is. Well, Minnie, I was never so pleased with a
+child in my life! I am going to do something for her some day.
+
+"Now I want to hear from you just how this friendship started. It seems
+a letter that I wrote to Mrs. Horton put the seal on it and I want to
+know where we all stand."
+
+"Whatever we do there is going to be an awful fuss," said Minnie,
+sighing. She sat on the edge of the chair facing Mrs. Hargrave and told
+that lady more of Rosanna's lonely, friendless little life than Mrs.
+Hargrave had ever guessed. She told her of the difference in Rosanna
+since Helen had come, and her fears for the child if Mrs. Horton should
+come back and forbid their friendship.
+
+"I shall just leave!" concluded Minnie.
+
+"Don't be an idiot!" said Mrs. Hargrave, frowning. "That would be a nice
+thing to do with Rosanna heartbroken. Now, Minnie, all there is to this
+is that Mrs. Horton years and years ago had a younger sister who eloped
+with a no-account man whom she met when she visited his sister. They
+were really very common people, and Mrs. Horton's little sister died of
+a broken heart.
+
+"When Mrs. Horton married, her children were boys, as you know, and she
+carried her bitterness in her heart until her son's little orphan girl
+came to live with her. She is making a great mistake with Rosanna and
+she must somehow be made to see it before it is too late. But that is
+the reason for her foolishness.
+
+"She adored her little sister, and she adores Rosanna. I am sorry the
+affair is so mixed up, but you just leave it to me. In the meantime do
+just as you are doing and give the girls all the chance you can to have
+a good time. I will stand back of little Helen if I have to adopt her. I
+suppose her parents are healthy?"
+
+Minnie giggled. "Yes, ma'am; healthy and real young."
+
+"Well, well, there must be some other way then," said Mrs. Hargrave,
+smiling. "To start, I will write Mrs. Horton a letter just before she
+returns, and I think a heart-to-heart talk will arrange things nicely."
+
+In the meantime, Mrs. Culver had helped the girls cut out two sets of
+dark, comfortable rompers, and Rosanna had sewed them up on her little
+machine.
+
+Mrs. Culver was also making a romper for Baby Christopher. Hers was a
+cunning one for Sunday, a little pink check with bands of plain pink,
+and buttons nearly as big as tea saucers sewed on wherever a button
+would go.
+
+Mrs. Culver was a wise woman, and she knew that Baby Christopher, small
+as he was, would have a good effect on his many brothers and sisters if
+he could be made beautiful and dressy on the one day in the week when
+the busy family had time to enjoy his cunning ways. So Christopher was
+to have three rompers--good, new, beautiful rompers of his own.
+
+While Mrs. Culver sat thinking the two girls talked about the opening
+of the Girl Scout troop in the school Helen was to enter in the fall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+One morning Mrs. Hargrave was called to the telephone to speak with Mrs.
+Culver. Mrs. Culver wanted to know if Mrs. Hargrave thought it would be
+all right to take the two girls to Fontaine Ferry for the afternoon, eat
+their supper there, and return when the children had had a chance to see
+the electrical display.
+
+"It is the sort of a place one always wants to see once, like Coney
+Island," she said, "and I think the girls are about the right age to
+have a good time there for a few hours without being disillusioned."
+
+Mrs. Hargrave agreed with her.
+
+"It will be a wild adventure for Rosanna," she said. "I have faith in
+Helen keeping her head, but you must watch Rosanna. If she looks too
+feverish, bring her home, please."
+
+"I will indeed," promised Mrs. Culver.
+
+"Of course you will; I am not afraid," said Mrs. Hargrave. "Send the
+children around here before you start."
+
+Once more Uncle Robert's hamper was dragged out and stocked with good
+things. They were to start at three o'clock. When they were ready they
+went skipping down the street to Mrs. Hargrave's house.
+
+"Well, Rosanna," she said, "I wonder what your grandmother will say to
+me when she finds out that I have given you permission to go to Fontaine
+Ferry? I know you will have a splendid time. I have never been there
+myself, and I am sorry that I can't go today. I am obliged to take the
+six o'clock train for the country. Cousin Hendy has sent for me post
+haste. She says she is at the point of death. I suppose this time it is
+cucumbers. They are about ripe now.
+
+"I want you both to remember everything you do, so you can tell me about
+it. If I stay in the country for a few days, Rosanna, I will write a
+letter to your grandmother telling her just what I think about a great
+many things, and urging her to let you join the Girl Scouts.
+
+"And as long as I can't go and have a good time spending my money, I
+want you children to take it and spend it for me. This is not for your
+education, Helen. I want you to promise to spend it, every bit."
+
+They kissed her good-by and calling their thanks went dancing away.
+
+The car was waiting, and off they went on the pleasant ride through the
+city and out Broadway. As there was plenty of time, they drove through
+Shawnee Park and along the bluff overlooking the Ohio River creeping
+sluggishly past. Then they turned, and went a short mile to the entrance
+to the Ferry.
+
+Parking the car, they went in, Mr. Culver bringing the hamper of supper.
+The Ferry is a very large place and every foot of it is covered with
+tan-bark, smooth and brown and springy. Rosanna felt as though she was
+walking in a riding academy. Everything was exquisitely clean.
+
+As the children walked along, they commenced to hear music everywhere
+and to see the merry-go-rounds whirling, the Ferris wheel spinning high
+in the air, the squeals from the shute-the-shutes, and hundreds of other
+fascinating noises. They found a place where they could check the hamper
+and coats, and sat down on a bench for a little to look around.
+
+Presently Helen's father said, "Well, we will have to start if we want
+to see everything. Shall we have a ride on the merry-go-round to start
+with?"
+
+Rosanna drew out her envelope.
+
+"We must spend our dollar," she said and tore it open. Helen did the
+same. Each envelope held a clean new ten dollar bill. The children
+looked at them in amazement.
+
+"And I can't use it for college!" Helen wailed. "She made me promise to
+spend it."
+
+When they reached the merry-go-round, they chose the wildest looking
+horses and mounted them in fear and trembling. When they had finished
+the wonderful five minutes, they tried the chariots. Then there was a
+certain camel that looked safe and steady, and Helen rode a lion.
+
+They wanted to ride all day, but Helen's father warned them that there
+were other things to see. They walked along looking everywhere at once
+when Rosanna gave a scream. She found herself looking into a mirror,
+clear and bright; but what had it done to Rosanna? She was really a thin
+little girl who had often had to take cod liver oil. In the mirror she
+gazed at a fat chunk with Rosanna's features and hair and about ten
+times Rosanna's breadth. It was quite terrifying. Then she heard an awed
+gasp from Helen followed by a shriek of laughter, and ran over to see
+what was left of Helen in a mirror that had drawn her out to the
+thickness of a needle. Together the girls looked and laughed.
+
+After they had torn themselves away from this amusement, they came to a
+booth where dozens of rings like embroidery hoops could be thrown over
+pegs in the wall. Each peg had a prize hanging above it: gold watches,
+diamond rings, wrist watches, gold and silver bracelets, and dozens of
+other things. But most of the pegs had little bright tin tags or medals
+and you had to get ten of those before you could exchange them for a
+near-gold breast-pin.
+
+Helen and Rosanna were very much excited over this, and could have been
+quite covered with medals. They would not throw the rings on any peg
+that was worth while. Finally they moved on in disgust, after paying the
+man about a dollar apiece.
+
+On a corner were a group of little burros, the tiny Mexican donkeys and
+children could ride along to the corner and back for ten cents. Nothing
+in the whole world could make those donkeys go off a slow walk. They
+knew perfectly well that it didn't pay to frisk up their heels and bolt,
+so they simply wagged an ear or flirted a tail if the children slapped
+them.
+
+"I suppose they have traveled to that corner fifty million times," said
+Helen, watching the solemn procession take its way with the donkey boys
+following close on the donkeys' heels and shouting to them to "Giddap!"
+
+"Poor dears!" said Rosanna. "How tired of it all they must be!"
+
+It took a lot of argument before they decided to try the Ferris wheel,
+but Rosanna wisely said that it would probably be the last chance _she_
+would ever have to try it, and Helen said that she wouldn't want to come
+unless Rosanna could, so the children seated themselves and were
+strapped in the basket, and presently when all the little basket seats
+were full, off they went. It was perfectly frightful when you have just
+been a simple human being all your life and suddenly try sailing up and
+around all at the same time! At the top there was a drop, a sort of
+launching out right into space, and the girls clung to each other and
+shut their eyes.
+
+After they had rested awhile they went along, threading their way
+through the crowds until they came to the roller coaster.
+
+Here they sat in a little car which held four people, but Mrs. Culver
+still refused to leave the ground. They embarked from a little platform,
+and were in one car of a little train of four. On the other side of the
+platform four other cars were filling up. When all the seats were taken,
+someone gave a signal and off went the little trains down such a steep
+grade that their rush carried them far up another incline. This was
+repeated over and over until they had reached a great height. Here there
+was a sheer drop as straight as it could be made without taking the cars
+off the rails, and down they went, turning and twisting. All at once
+they were plunged into a pitch black tunnel.
+
+"Oh, oh, _oh_!" cried Rosanna. It was the first time she had screamed,
+but she did not hear herself because everyone else was screaming too.
+
+Then as suddenly as they had plunged into the dark, they came out into
+the light again, gave a few more turns and drops for good measure, and
+stopped at the very identical place where they started.
+
+They got out of their car, and staggered, rather than walked, over to
+Mrs. Culver, who was laughing at them. Rosanna's long curls were blown
+every which way around her small, dark face, and Helen's bobbed hair was
+sticking straight up.
+
+"There is a Trip to the Moon right over here," said Mr. Culver. "Don't
+you want to go?"
+
+"No, thank you," said Rosanna feebly, and Helen said, "Why, daddy, I
+couldn't bear another thing today! Let's go back and ride those nice
+steady wooden horses."
+
+They walked back to the merry-go-round, and spent a happy half hour
+riding the menagerie. After that it was time to get supper. It always
+takes a long time to eat a picnic supper, and dusk was close when at
+last they finished. One by one the stars came out and then as though
+touched by a great spring, Fontaine Ferry burst into a dazzling blaze of
+electric lights.
+
+Blazing, twinkling, winking, the lights hung or turned or whirled.
+White, colored groups, and single stars, among the trees, down the wide
+drive-ways, the Ferry had turned into fairyland.
+
+"This is the best of all," said Rosanna softly.
+
+"Isn't it?" answered Helen, her eyes wide. "How I wish Mrs. Hargrave
+could see it! That _young_ Mrs. Hargrave that is inside the old shell of
+a Mrs. Hargrave would have all sorts of pretty thoughts about it. Don't
+you know she would?"
+
+"Tomorrow you must come over real early," said Rosanna as they rode
+home, squeezing Helen's hand. "And I owe grandmother a letter. It will
+be easy to make a nice letter out of all we have seen. I wish Mrs.
+Hargrave would come home to-morrow."
+
+The car drove up before the big house, and Rosanna, tired out, but so
+very, very happy, thanked Mr. and Mrs. Culver and ran up the steps. The
+car waited, purring at the curb, to see that the door was promptly
+opened. Rosanna heard the lock shoot back and the knob turn.
+
+"It's all right," she said, looking down at the car. With a wave and a
+smile Mr. Culver drove off, and happy little Rosanna turned slowly,
+speaking as she did so.
+
+"Oh, Minnie dear, I have had the bestest sort of a time!" she said. "I
+only wish you--" She looked up. Her grandmother stood before her.
+
+"Why, grandmother, when did you get home?" said Rosanna with a smile,
+lifting her face to be kissed.
+
+Her grandmother did not bend down. Instead she stood very stiff and
+straight, looking at Rosanna with hard, cold, angry eyes that cut her
+like swords.
+
+"Go to your room!" said Mrs. Horton in a dreadful voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Rosanna turned pale, but she looked steadily into her grandmother's cold
+eyes.
+
+"I have done nothing wrong, grandmother," she said. "I--"
+
+"Go to your room!" repeated Mrs. Horton, pointing to the stairs. "I will
+attend to you later."
+
+Rosanna slowly climbed the broad staircase, clinging to the handrail and
+dragging her feet like a very tired old woman instead of a dear little
+happy girl. She felt herself trembling. Over and over she thought of
+what she had just said to Helen of her grandmother: "I am sure she means
+to be kind." Yet here, without a word of explanation, she was ordered to
+her room without a single greeting, as though she had indeed done
+something _very_ naughty. Reaching her room, she sat down on the side of
+her bed and tried to think it out. What had she done? Where was Minnie?
+
+Minnie: where was she? _Minnie_ could tell her what had come to pass to
+make her grandmother so angry. She walked unsteadily over to the table
+and pressed the electric button by which she always summoned Minnie when
+she needed her.
+
+Almost at once the door opened; but it was not Minnie. Mrs. Horton came
+in and closed the door.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked harshly.
+
+"I rang for Minnie," said Rosanna in a low voice.
+
+"You can get to bed as best you can," said Mrs. Horton. "Minnie will not
+be allowed to see you. Minnie has been discharged. She is untrustworthy,
+and I would have sent her packing to-night, but she insisted on her
+right to stay under this roof until morning. So she is in her room where
+I have ordered her to remain."
+
+"Can't I see her again ever, grandmother?" asked Rosanna, with trembling
+lips.
+
+"Certainly not!" said Mrs. Horton. "You are a bad, ungrateful child. Get
+to bed as best you can! I cannot trust myself to talk to you to-night.
+Tomorrow I will tell you what I think of the way you have acted in my
+absence."
+
+"I have not been naughty," said Rosanna. "I did just as you told me I
+could do. I saved your letter so I could show you if you said anything
+about it. Oh, grandmother, please, I have not been naughty! I have been
+so happy."
+
+"_Happy!_" sneered Mrs. Horton. "_Happy!_ There is a low streak in you.
+To think of the way you have been acting--I will see you to-morrow after
+I have seen Mrs. Hargrave, and when I can control myself."
+
+She swept from the room without saying good-night, and Rosanna remained
+seated on the bed, her head whirling, her mouth dry and quivering.
+
+Rosanna did not try to undress. Warm as it was, she was chilled to the
+bone. What would happen to Helen? And of course Mr. Culver would have to
+go. An hour went by, and another. She heard her grandmother coming up
+the stairs. Quick as thought she pressed the button and the room was
+pitch dark. Her grandmother approached her door, opened it a crack and
+listened. Hearing nothing, seeing nothing, she closed it and went on to
+her own room.
+
+Rosanna breathed freely again, and turned on the light. An overpowering
+desire to see Minnie swept over her. She _must_ see Minnie, must comfort
+her and be comforted. She felt that she would go mad if she had to spend
+the night alone. She looked at the little gold clock on her table. It
+was eleven o'clock.
+
+She slipped off her shoes, and noticed for the first time that she was
+still wearing her coat and hat. She tossed them aside, once more put out
+the light, and tiptoed toward the door. She was going to Minnie.
+
+With the greatest care she turned the knob and opened the door a crack.
+She opened the door wide and stepped into the blackness of the hall.
+
+Something soft and warm and human collided with her. Hands clutched her,
+and a well-known voice whispered, "Dearie!"
+
+After the first moment of fright, Rosanna felt herself go limp. She
+clung fast.
+
+"Oh, Minnie, Minnie!" she choked.
+
+"Hush!" whispered Minnie. She drew Rosanna into her own room, closed the
+door, and switched on the light.
+
+"Oh, my precious lamb!" she said. "What did she do to you? Oh, why
+didn't I come sooner? You look fit to die. Come, dearie, and let your
+Minnie do for you to-night."
+
+She took Rosanna on her lap and tenderly undressed her. Then she folded
+a warm kimono around the shivering, nervous child and, sitting down in a
+deep chair, took her on her lap and held her tight.
+
+Rosanna stiffened and sat up. "Suppose she comes in?" she said.
+
+"No danger!" said Minnie. "I turned the key." She laughed. "If she wants
+to see you again she will have to wait until to-morrow, no matter what.
+I don't intend to see that look on your pretty dear face much longer.
+Now tell your Minnie just what happened."
+
+"I don't seem to be able to remember much about it," said the tired and
+frightened child; "only when I came home,--and oh, Minnie, we _did_ have
+such a good time!--there was grandmother at the door instead of you. And
+she seems to think that I have done something that has disgraced her,
+and she won't tell me anything at all until to-morrow, only she told me
+to come to my room and go to bed if I could get to bed without you and
+she said you were untrustworthy--and--and that she had sent you to your
+room to stay until to-morrow, and then she is going to make you go, and
+oh, Minnie, Minnie, what _shall_ I ever do without you?"
+
+"There, there! Minnie will find some way of staying near you if she has
+to wear a wig and make believe she is somebody else entirely."
+
+"What _have_ I done?" asked Rosanna. "Was it all because we went to
+Fontaine Ferry? Mrs. Hargrave said I might go."
+
+"A little of it is that," said Minnie, "but the worst of her madness is
+because you have been playing with a little girl clean out of your own
+class, as she puts it, and she blames everybody. Everybody that she can
+discharge has got to go--and I guess that will be about everybody but
+you."
+
+"Then I might as well die," said Rosanna. "I can't go back and live the
+way I used to live. You know I can't do it, Minnie. I can't; I just
+_can't_! Oh, Minnie, it seems as though I had only been happy for three
+weeks in all my life, and what shall I do? I do love Helen, and she is
+just as nice as I am, and so are her mother and father. Oh, don't you
+suppose Uncle Robert can fix it?"
+
+"He didn't come home with her," said Minnie. "When he does the mischief
+will be done. It is just her sinful pride, if I do say it about your
+grandmother, and sure as sure there will come a day and that soon, when
+her pride will have a fall. I only wish I could run away with you,
+dearie. But you will have to be brave, and I will see you as soon as
+ever I can. You know my telephone number, and if she ever goes out you
+just call me up."
+
+"I don't feel brave," whispered Rosanna, hiding her face on Minnie's
+shoulder. "I don't see how I will ever bear to stay alone all night."
+
+"That you needn't if you would like your Minnie," said she. "Just you
+get into your bed and be quiet, and I will be back in a minute." She
+tucked Rosanna between the sheets, and hurried away as silent as a
+shadow.
+
+In a few minutes she returned, ready for the night. She drew a big couch
+close beside Rosanna's little bed and lay down.
+
+"There we are!" she said, taking Rosanna's hand. "Now look here,
+Rosanna. In the morning when your grandmother talks to you, don't try to
+talk back, and whatever you do, _don't be afraid_. Just let her talk,
+and tell her to see Mrs. Hargrave. She has seen me all she ever wants
+to, I guess, but Mrs. Hargrave is not afraid of anybody. I wish she was
+here. Now you will remember what I say, won't you, dear? Don't be
+afraid."
+
+"What will she do to Helen?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"Do to Helen?" said Minnie, sitting up. "Do to Helen? Well, she won't
+get within shouting distance of Helen. I guess I have not been shut up
+in my room all evening so as anyone would notice it. The Culvers are all
+prepared, and Helen won't know anything about it until long after it is
+all over."
+
+"That is good," sighed Rosanna. "I can't bear to have Helen unhappy as I
+am. It does seem as though I have to be unhappy such a lot, don't you
+think so, Minnie?"
+
+Minnie leaned over and kissed her.
+
+"Poor child!" she said softly. "Never you mind! I have a feeling that
+there is something good coming out of this. I don't know what, but you
+must bear whatever your grandmother says to you with that thought in
+mind, and remember what I say."
+
+"I will try," promised Rosanna, and then because she was exhausted with
+the shock of the evening after the tiresome but glorious day Rosanna,
+clasping Minnie's hand tight, went to sleep immediately.
+
+When she awoke next day it was very late, and the sun was shining
+through the flowered chintz curtains. She felt something queer and
+crackly in the bed by her foot, and threw back the covers. There was a
+letter tied to her ankle by a piece of ribbon. Rosanna could not help
+laughing, it was such a funny place to put a letter.
+
+"Dearie," it read, "we slept like tops both of us, and now I must get
+out of here before your grandmother wakes up. I am going to tie this to
+your ankle because that is the only place she would never think to look
+if she should come in while you are still asleep, and go to looking
+through things, though the saints know there is nothing she is not
+welcome to see as we have every button on, and not a rip anywhere.
+
+"I take this pencil in hand to tell you that I stayed all night and held
+your hand. At any rate you were holding mine when I woke up not long
+ago.
+
+"Now I am going to leave right off, as I do not care to eat again under
+this roof, things being as they are. I don't know about your going down
+to breakfast. If you wake late enough, she will be over at Mrs.
+Hargrave's and you could have your breakfast up here. Just ring the bell
+three times. I will fix it with Hannah to bring you a tray as soon as
+ever you call.
+
+"Don't forget what I told you last night about being afraid. There is
+nothing for you to be afraid of, and you can do for yourself now just as
+nicely as though you were a grown-up young lady. And don't forget that
+just as soon as your Minnie is married you can come to see me just as
+often as you please, and I don't think it will hurt you to come and see
+your own nursemaid in her own little house which is already being paid
+for in instalments, and you can cook candy in my kitchen which is to be
+blue and white in honor of the playhouse, and we will feel honored to
+have you, and no one to object whatever you do.
+
+"I must go now. Oh, dear, I'll worry every second: but don't you fret
+one mite, Rosanna dear, as there is nothing at all to worry about.
+
+"Your Minnie."
+
+Her kind, good Minnie! There was one who loved her anyway. And she knew
+Helen loved her.
+
+She determined to be brave. When she thought everything over, she could
+not feel that she had done anything wrong in the least. But when her
+grandmother talked to her, she always felt guilty of everything that her
+grandmother wanted her to feel guilty about. She dreaded seeing Mrs.
+Horton. There was a knock on the door and there was her breakfast, the
+best that cook could send up.
+
+Rosanna was very hungry, and there was nothing left but plates and cups
+and saucers when she finished and pressed the bell button. Hannah
+hurried up and took the tray.
+
+"We think you had better not say anything about this until you see what
+your grandmother is going to do," said Hannah and hurried off while
+Rosanna settled herself to wait.
+
+Presently the door opened. Mrs. Horton, more pale and angry than ever,
+came in. She was carrying a plate. There was a glass of water and a
+slice of bread on it. She set it down hard on the table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+"There is your breakfast," said Mrs. Horton, looking at Rosanna with her
+steely eyes. "Bread and water will be part of your punishment."
+
+"I am not hungry," said Rosanna in a low tone.
+
+"Then you may leave it there until you are," said her grandmother.
+"Bread and water will be your fare until you have apologized to me and
+have proved that you regret your disgraceful conduct while I was away."
+
+"I don't think that I did anything that was disgraceful, grandmother,"
+said Rosanna gently.
+
+"You will when I get through with you," said her grandmother grimly. "I
+hope I may be able to bring you to your senses. I am only sorry you are
+too big a girl to punish as I would like to punish you."
+
+"Have you seen Mrs. Hargrave?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"She is away. I suppose that is one reason that you went wild."
+
+"I did nothing without asking her if it would be all right," said
+Rosanna.
+
+"That seems impossible," said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"It is true," asserted Rosanna.
+
+"Rosanna, be careful what you say!" exclaimed her grandmother angrily.
+
+Remembering what Minnie had advised, Rosanna said nothing.
+
+Her grandmother continued, "I have thought this all over and you know as
+well as I do what you have done, and how you have offended me, and I see
+no use in talking about it at all. You will stay here on a diet of bread
+and water until you are in a different frame of mind. I don't need to
+have you tell me how you feel, or what you think. A look at your face is
+quite sufficient. You are stubborn and unrepentant. Perhaps after a week
+or two spent thinking, you will see things in a different light. You
+will not be allowed any privileges at all. You will not even have your
+lessons. When your Uncle Robert comes home, you will not see him unless
+you have repented enough to be allowed to come down to your meals. Do
+you understand?"
+
+Something queer and hard and grown-up came into Rosanna's soul. She
+looked her angry grandmother straight in the eye.
+
+"Grandmother," she said very gently, "I hope you will not say anything
+that you will be sorry for."
+
+"Don't be impertinent!" said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"I don't mean to be," said Rosanna.
+
+"You are!" said Mrs. Horton.
+
+Rosanna turned around. "Oh, grandmother!" she commenced, then stopped.
+
+"Oh, grandmother what?" asked Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Nothing. Excuse me," said Rosanna.
+
+"Then that's all," said Mrs. Horton. "You understand me?"
+
+"I think I do," said Rosanna. She did not look up, and Mrs. Horton,
+unable to catch her eye, left the room.
+
+Lunch time came, and with it her grandmother with a fresh glass of water
+and another slice of bread. Immediately after, Hannah appeared with a
+tray of luncheon.
+
+Rosanna was really not hungry, but she was wise enough to know that it
+was a very bad thing to go without eating, especially when one has
+decided on a very serious and terrifying step. The afternoon dragged
+away.
+
+At five her grandmother came in and offered her still another glass of
+water and slice of bread. Rosanna thanked her.
+
+"Have you anything to say to me?" asked Mrs. Horton.
+
+"No, grandmother," replied Rosanna, "only that I am very sorry that you
+are angry with me, and I hope some day you will be sorry too that you
+did not love me when I was here to love."
+
+"Do you think of leaving?" said Mrs. Horton sneeringly. "You had better
+tell me where you are going so I can send your clothes. I believe that
+is the way they do with the sort of people you have been making friends
+with."
+
+Rosanna did not reply:
+
+"Let me catch you leaving this room!" said Mrs. Horton. She went out and
+closed the door. Rosanna nodded her head. Her mind was made up. She
+crossed to the dainty dresser, and switching on the lights did something
+she had never done in her life. Rosanna was not vain in the least, but
+if you could have seen her then, turning this way and that, lifting her
+long, heavy curls, wadding them on top of her head, or trying them in a
+long braid, you would have said that she seemed to be a very vain little
+girl indeed.
+
+She appeared satisfied at last with what she saw in the glass, and
+noticed that it was growing quite dark.
+
+She went over to her little bed, and knelt.
+
+"Please, dear Lord," she whispered, "I don't want to do anything wrong.
+Please help me because I am so afraid. And now that Minnie is gone and
+Helen, please give me somebody to love me. Amen."
+
+She felt better after that, and sat down by the window. It was almost
+dark....
+
+When Mrs. Horton left Rosanna, she went down to the big, dim library
+and, seating herself at her desk, commenced to write letters. She found
+it difficult to collect her thoughts and there was a bad feeling in her
+heart, as though she was wrong, as though she was doing something
+unwise, unkind, and perhaps really wicked. But she thrust it out of her
+thoughts because she didn't think that she ever _could_ do anything
+really wrong.
+
+Something pressed hard on her heart, and she grew very restless. Some
+impulse led her to go to the telephone and call Mrs. Hargrave on the
+long distance line.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave, who was very much bored by Cousin Hendy, was delighted to
+hear her old friend's voice. She did not let Mrs. Horton get a word in
+edgewise for the first two minutes. She seemed to think Mrs. Horton
+didn't care how much that telephone call was going to cost. She asked
+how she was, and how Robert was, and had he found his lost friend, and
+she certainly hoped he had, and when had they returned, and oh, wasn't
+it too bad Robert had been unable to come with his mother?
+
+Then like a person who saves the best to the last, she asked with a note
+of triumph in her voice:
+
+"Well, how do you think your darling Rosanna looks? I suppose you know
+she has gained five pounds while you were away. I think she is vastly
+improved. And so happy! My dear, of course, it is hard for us to realize
+it, but I think once in awhile it is a good thing to get right out and
+let the home people do for themselves and learn to depend on themselves
+a little. Don't you?"
+
+Mrs. Horton smiled grimly. "It has certainly not worked out here to any
+great advantage, during my absence," she said.
+
+"What?" asked Mrs. Hargrave. "I don't believe I hear you."
+
+Mrs. Horton spoke into the telephone with careful distinctness. "If you
+do not know what has happened during my absence," she said, "I will tell
+you the state of affairs existing here in my home now, and you may be
+able to guess that something serious has occurred. In the first place
+Rosanna is in her room on a diet of bread and water. My chauffeur, with
+his pushing wife and ordinary child, has been discharged, and told to
+vacate to-morrow. Rosanna's maid, Minnie, had been discharged and is
+gone. All the servants have had severe scoldings."
+
+There was a long silence, then Mrs. Hargrave said, "Are you crazy?"
+
+"Not at all!" said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"I will be home to-morrow morning," said Mrs. Hargrave. "I'll have to
+get there as soon as I can to keep you from making more of your dreadful
+mistakes. In the meantime, I am ashamed of you. Don't you go near
+Rosanna with your cutting speeches until I see you. Oh, I can't talk to
+you! Good-night!"
+
+She rang off and Mrs. Horton slowly replaced the receiver. No, she did
+not intend to go near Rosanna. Rosanna was settled for the night so far
+as she was concerned. On her way up to bed, she opened the door of
+Rosanna's room, and listened. The child was sleeping so calmly that her
+grandmother could not even hear her breathe. She could see the little
+mound that Rosanna's body made on the bed, but she did not go into the
+room. She went on to her own room and sat down to think. The light was
+dim; just one small night light burning, and Mrs. Horton sat down in her
+favorite lounging chair and gave herself up to her unhappy thoughts. She
+was conscious of a feeling of wrongdoing yet she did not recognize it as
+such. Instead, she was sure that she had been very deeply wronged. After
+all her teaching, after all the years she had spent guarding Rosanna, on
+the first chance the child had slipped away from all she had been told.
+She shuddered when she thought of it, remembering her own young sister
+and her unhappy fate. She did not realize that she was judging all
+humanity by the commonplace young scamp her sister had unfortunately
+married. It did not occur to her to ask herself if all the fine young
+men and women her son knew were also of that type.
+
+The next thing she knew, the cold woke her. It was dawn, and she had
+slept in her chair all night. She was chilled to the bone. She slowly
+undressed, and feeling sore and stiff, took a hot bath and wrapped up in
+a warm kimono. She was about to lie down and finish the night when she
+thought of Rosanna.
+
+Mrs. Horton stepped into a pair of slippers and crossed the room. As
+she passed her desk, she looked up full at the picture of her dead son
+and his wife, Rosanna's father and mother. She stopped. Somehow those
+faces would not let her pass. They held her with sad, questioning eyes.
+
+"What are you doing with our little child?" they seemed to say. "Have
+you loved her, mother? Have you been tender with her? Have you tried to
+understand her? Have you remembered that she is just a baby?"
+
+Mrs. Horton thought of Rosanna in her beautiful, lonely room way down
+the corridor. She commenced to have a very guilty feeling.
+
+"Have you loved her?" asked the two sad faces. "Have you been tender
+with her, mother?"
+
+"I have done my duty by the child," answered Mrs. Horton. She went down
+the corridor to Rosanna's room, her head held high. The cold, pallid
+light of the hour just before day filled the house.
+
+Mrs. Horton opened Rosanna's door and went in. She looked long at the
+little bed as though she could not believe her eyes. Then crossing, she
+opened the bathroom door, and then the clothespress, calling Rosanna's
+name sharply. There was no reply. The little dog followed her into the
+room and went sniffing and whining about. Mrs. Horton rushed back to the
+bed and saw that the little mound she had thought in the dark the night
+before was Rosanna was only a neat pile of little dresses.
+
+Rosanna was gone!
+
+Mrs. Horton remembered that the child was very fond of a wide seat in
+the library. She hurried down the broad stairs, expecting to find that
+the lonely child had crept down there to sit awhile and, like herself,
+had dropped to sleep, but the big room was empty. Mrs. Horton's heart
+commenced to hammer in a very strange way. Of course Rosanna must be in
+the house somewhere, and although she felt it was a very undignified
+thing to do, she went from room to room making a close and careful
+search of every nook where a child could hide. There was not a single
+sign of the little girl. Mrs. Horton had hoped to find Rosanna without
+calling the servants, but as she looked and looked, and the knowledge
+came to her that perhaps Rosanna was not in the house at all, she was
+filled with terror. She commenced to press the electric buttons
+frantically and, wide-eyed and half dressed, the household commenced to
+gather from the servants' wing.
+
+She managed somehow to let them know that Rosanna had disappeared, and
+everyone commenced a search that stretched to the playhouse, the pony
+stable and the garden.
+
+She staggered up to her room and with shaking hands commenced to dress
+herself. The two sad faces on the wall stared at her.
+
+"Oh, mother, mother, where is our baby?" they asked.
+
+"Gone--gone--" said Mrs. Horton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Rosanna was gone.
+When or where or how no one could tell. By eight o'clock on that
+dreadful morning the neighborhood had been scoured, the alleys searched
+and the police were talking darkly of kidnapers and of dragging the
+river.
+
+Mrs. Horton knew that no one could have entered the house, but she was
+at a loss to see how Rosanna could have been taken out or have gone out
+without being seen, even if she had not gone before dark. The
+neighborhood was full of children, and no one, young or old, had seen
+Rosanna, who was well known by sight by everyone on the block.
+
+At quarter past eight, to Mrs. Horton's surprise, Mrs. Hargrave walked
+in. It was evident by her distressed look and trembling hands that she
+had learned what had happened.
+
+"Well, Virginia, you have done it this time!" she said. "I have been
+telling you for the last forty years that your unholy pride would get
+you into trouble, and it has. If anything happens to hurt Rosanna--well,
+I just won't tell you what I think; I reckon you know without my saying
+it. Now begin at the beginning and tell me in as few words as possible
+just what you did to her. I don't want to know now what you thought
+_she_ had done or what you thought about it yourself. I want to know
+_what you did to Rosanna_."
+
+Mrs. Hargrave seated herself on the edge of a chair as though she might
+fly off at any moment. She listened intently while Mrs. Horton, still
+thinking of the accusing eyes in the two pictures, told how she had
+punished Rosanna.
+
+When she had finished, Mrs. Hargrave spoke. "I don't see how you will
+ever forgive yourself."
+
+"I couldn't bear to have her grow up rough and coarse like so many of
+these modern children. I wanted to keep her away from all lowering
+influences."
+
+"Fiddle-dee-_dee_!" said Mrs. Hargrave, beating a tiny hand on the arm
+of her chair. "Fiddle-dee-dee and fiddle_sticks_ with your 'lowering
+influences'! What did you do but leave her to her own thoughts and no
+one to talk to but a stiff old woman and a houseful of servants? Well,
+you have done it! What are you doing to find her?"
+
+"I have put it in the hands of the police, and they have an extra shift
+of detectives searching the city." Mrs. Horton trembled so she could
+scarcely speak.
+
+"Detectives, yes!" said Mrs. Hargrave. "Walking around the alley, two
+and two, looking for all the little girls with long, black curls. That's
+about all _that_ will do for you. Have you called Minnie?"
+
+"I don't know where she lives," parried Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Well, I _do_!" said Mrs. Hargrave.
+
+She hurried to the telephone, and after a moment returned. "She will be
+right over," she said.
+
+"That does not seem necessary," said Mrs. Horton. She dreaded to see
+Minnie.
+
+"It does to me," said Mrs. Hargrave. She softened a little. "Now, my
+dear," she said, "you are not able to carry this thing through alone. A
+frightful thing has happened, and it is likely that we may never see our
+little Rosanna again." She choked back the tears. "Have you spoken to
+Mr. Culver?"
+
+"Who is he?" asked Mrs. Horton. "The name sounds familiar."
+
+"It ought to!" said Mrs. Hargrave. "A splendid fellow--your chauffeur."
+
+"I thought his name was Carver," said Mrs. Horton. "You all write so
+badly. No, I have not seen him; he is the cause, or part of the cause of
+this dreadful affair."
+
+"Not so much as I am if you are going to look at it like that," said
+Mrs. Hargrave. "Next to Rosanna, his daughter is the nicest little girl
+I ever saw. I am going to do something for her some day, and I will
+thank you, my dear, not to abuse her. Now I want you to send for John.
+_I_ want to see him if you don't."
+
+"I think the police captain saw him," said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Shall I ring that bell or will you?" demanded her friend.
+
+Mrs. Horton rose.
+
+"Send for the chauffeur," she ordered the house boy.
+
+"I think they's gone, ma'am," he said.
+
+"Well, you run as fast as ever you can and tell them not to go," said
+Mrs. Hargrave. "Mrs. Horton wants to see both Mr. and Mrs. Culver."
+
+The house boy bolted.
+
+The Culvers came gravely in. Both looked pale and distressed. Mrs.
+Horton studied Mrs. Culver with surprise. Well dressed, beautiful and
+refined, she was not the woman Mrs. Horton had expected to see.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave took charge.
+
+"Good-morning, my dears," she said. "There is just one thing for us all
+to do now, and that is to put aside all personal feelings, just as you
+would want your friends to do if something dreadful had happened to our
+dear Helen, and all work together to see if we cannot save our little
+Rosanna from whatever fate has overtaken her. I wondered if you have
+ever heard her say anything that would lead you to think that if she did
+leave this house of her own accord, she would go to any one person?"
+
+"Only Minnie," said Mrs. Culver in a voice as cultivated and low as Mrs.
+Hargrave's own.
+
+"I have sent for Minnie," said Mrs. Hargrave. "I talked to her over the
+telephone and she knows nothing at all about Rosanna, but she is coming
+over at once. I want you to tell us, Mrs. Culver, if you ever heard
+Rosanna say anything that would lead you to think that she would run
+away."
+
+Mrs. Culver hesitated, then with a flush said:
+
+"I think it is only my duty to say that Rosanna was the loneliest child
+I have ever seen. If she is found, I hope that something can be done to
+place her among people who will give her not only care, but love."
+
+"How dare you say that I did not love her?" cried Mrs. Horton.
+
+"I say it because I love Rosanna," said Mrs. Culver, "and I cannot help
+thinking that if my child should be left motherless, I would rather wish
+her dead than brought up as you are trying to bring her up, Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Oh, why, _why_ did you not let her have her friends? If you object to
+us because we are simple people and poor, why did you not see to it that
+she had friends in her 'own set' as you call it? And as for the
+friendship between my child and Rosanna, we had your own letter for our
+permission."
+
+"We certainly did," said Mrs. Hargrave.
+
+"I cannot talk about this now," said Mrs. Horton. "Please leave me."
+
+"Don't you go a step farther than your own house, John," said Mrs.
+Hargrave briskly. "I am going to give orders for awhile. Mrs. Horton, as
+you see, is overcome. We need you. Take one of the cars and ride about
+and see what you can see, John, and you, my dear, stand ready to do
+anything that you can, like the fine girl that you are." She smiled and
+the two left the room, tears streaming down the face of Mrs. Culver. As
+they went slowly through the garden, Minnie burst through the gate, and
+rushed toward the house. She did not even see them. She hurried to the
+library, and hesitating for a second to pull herself together, knocked
+on the door and entered as Mrs. Horton called, "Come!"
+
+Minnie bowed, and Mrs. Hargrave at once said: "Minnie, can you imagine
+where Rosanna would go if she left home, when she was as unhappy as she
+was last night?"
+
+"Only to my house," said Minnie. "If anybody abused her as I will say
+they _did_, yet mentioning no names, and if anybody made a prisoner of
+her, and spent most of their time year in and out making her unhappy,
+and with you away, Mrs. Hargrave, I know if my darling Miss Rosanna was
+let to go anywhere of her own free will, she would come to her Minnie
+who loves her. That child needed to be cuddled and loved, Mrs. Hargrave,
+ma'am, and I was the only person about here who ever held her on a lap,
+and I know she would start for me. But you'll not find her for one long
+while. How she got out of the house I don't know. But why she went I
+can pretty well guess, and what if a gang of robbers should meet Miss
+Rosanna going along all alone and her so beautiful with her long curls
+and pretty dresses? What would they do but pick her up right off, and
+carry her away and hold her for some people who didn't appreciate her
+when they had her, to pay them a fortune to get her back?" Here Minnie
+commenced to cry.
+
+"Don't do that!" said Mrs. Horton sharply. "I can't stand it!"
+
+Minnie turned to her.
+
+"Mrs. Horton, now that the dear child is stolen and by this time
+probably murdered and buried, and no one the wiser, I think it is only
+right to tell you that it is all your fault. While I was working here
+and felt that I could do for Miss Rosanna, I was careful to say nothing
+at all, and it can never be laid to me that I said one word against you
+to your granddaughter. No, ma'am, Mrs. Horton, I was true to the wages I
+earned. I never said one word even to my young man about the way you
+froze all the happiness out of that dear departed child. And what I
+could do I did. I tucked her in at night and always kissed her, and when
+I found out how she wanted to be held tight, I held her and told her
+fairy stories. And I found out all I could about her father and mother
+from the other servants, and from cook who has been here for forty
+years or so, and I told her all the funny things her father did when he
+was a little boy, and she said it made her feel real acquainted with
+'em.
+
+"And she heard or read about putting candles and flowers in front of the
+statues and paintings of the saints, and she wanted to do it with her
+mother and father, but she knew she would be told not, so she used to
+put little bunches of flowers back of the pictures between them and the
+wall, and mercy knows if they have stained the wall paper. And when they
+was faded I used to take them out, and oh dear, she was so sweet!"
+
+Minnie choked, Mrs. Hargrave cried quite openly, and Mrs. Horton, deadly
+pale and dry-eyed, sat shaking like a leaf, her eyes fixed on the
+painting of her son on the opposite wall.
+
+"And I think it was a _shame_ and a SIN and a CRIME," said Minnie hotly,
+"that nobody but me did these things for her, Mrs. Hargrave, ma'am!
+
+"And now she's gone, and I'll say she's somewhere dead of a broken heart
+just because she wasn't let to have a single friend and that Helen, the
+nicest child I ever did see except Miss Rosanna, and what if she _was_
+poor? And I don't know what good blood is if it don't show in nice
+manners and pretty speech and pleasant thoughts and Helen Culver had
+nothing else.
+
+"Oh, I just feel we will never see Miss Rosanna again, and what did she
+wear off?"
+
+"I don't know," said Mrs. Horton, speaking for the first time.
+
+"You better find out!" said Minnie tartly.
+
+"The detectives know," said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Horton I sound hard on you, but it's all true, and I can't
+take it back, and I'm not working here or I wouldn't have said it: but I
+wish there was something I could do. What _can_ I do? I'd like to pick
+up her room if I might, please."
+
+"The detectives do not want it touched," said Mrs. Horton. "There is
+nothing you can do."
+
+Minnie, wiping her eyes, vanished in the direction of the kitchen to see
+the cook, and Mrs. Horton turned to Mrs. Hargrave.
+
+"Does it seem to you that these people have any right to attack me like
+this?" she asked with dry lips. "I was not hard with Rosanna. I loaded
+her with toys and pleasures, and I think they are all very hard on me."
+
+"What do you think about yourself?" asked Mrs. Hargrave gently. "Did you
+ever hold her and laugh with her, and tell her stories?"
+
+"No; it was not my way," said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"But it was the way of a child," said Mrs. Hargrave. "The way of a
+tender little motherless child! I do not want to be hard on you, but I
+have told you for forty years that your pride would be your undoing."
+
+"The telephone!" said Mrs. Horton. She rushed to the instrument and
+talked for a little with a member of the police force, then she came
+dragging back to the library.
+
+"They have finished searching the hospitals, and nowhere is there a
+child answering to the description of Rosanna. I was actually hoping to
+find her in one of the hospitals."
+
+Suddenly she buried her proud head in her hands and broke into hard
+sobs. Mrs. Hargrave went over and put an arm around the bowed shoulders.
+Presently Mrs. Horton said: "If we only get her back! I never meant to
+be hard, but I did try so hard to bring her up so she would never have
+to live and die as unhappily as my little sister, and I felt that if she
+could be made unbending and proud she would never choose unworthy
+friends."
+
+"But you were wrong, my dear," said Mrs. Hargrave. "Don't you see it
+now? There is nothing to be gained in this life by remaining narrow. We
+must know life and our fellowmen in order to be able to choose wisely
+and well. How can we tell the worthy from the unworthy unless we have
+known enough of people to be able to recognize both the good and bad?
+Oh, Virginia! I feel that Rosanna will come back to you, to us, and we
+must remember that we are old women, and she is a child, and like calls
+to like. We must remember that God expects us to love and guide her but
+she must have friends and outside interests."
+
+"Oh, if she only, only comes back!" cried Mrs. Horton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The dreadful day dragged to a close, while the detectives and the entire
+police force scoured the city and the surrounding country.
+
+For the one day they had succeeded in keeping the disappearance out of
+the papers, hoping that if Rosanna was actually in the hands of
+kidnapers they would not be frightened into taking her away or harming
+her to insure their own safety.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave went restlessly back and forth between her own house and
+Mrs. Horton's, while Mrs. Horton walked endlessly up and down near the
+telephone, listening and praying for news and imagining horrible things.
+
+Throwing her pride to the winds, Minnie settled herself at Mrs.
+Horton's, determined to be on hand if her darling Miss Rosanna needed
+her. Minnie, for all her dismal predictions, did not give up hope but
+the thought of what might be happening to Rosanna almost drove her wild.
+She could not keep out of Rosanna's room, yet she could not bear to
+touch a thing that the delicate little hands had handled. She wouldn't
+dust. Rosanna's brush and comb lay on the dresser, and Minnie looked at
+them tenderly, thinking of the long curls and wondering where and how
+that lovely head was resting.
+
+Mr. Culver went down town to a friend of his and borrowed a small car.
+In this he scoured the city, and penetrated the most disreputable
+portions with carefully worded questions concerning a child that had
+strayed away. At lunch time Helen asked him if he would take her over to
+see Mary and Gwenny. Helen had been spending her money for Gwenny, and
+wanted to get her purchases where she could not see them and have them
+remind her of Rosanna. Poor Helen had cried herself almost sick. With
+all her broken, loving little heart she had prayed that she might be of
+some help in finding Rosanna, for she too was sure that she would be
+restored.
+
+Mr. Culver was glad to take Helen over to Gwenny's, so Helen did the
+things up in a neat parcel and they started.
+
+"Don't you suppose if everyone knew that Rosanna was lost that they
+would all help to look for her?" asked Helen.
+
+"It will all come out in to-morrow morning's paper," answered Mr.
+Culver. "They were afraid of scaring the people who are holding her, if
+someone is holding her. The police hoped to find her before the
+kidnapers were scared into carrying her a long ways off, or hiding her
+perhaps in some of the caves around here. You see, Helen, with a family
+as rich as the Hortons are, a child is sometimes held for what they call
+ransom; that is, an immense sum of money which the parents are glad to
+pay rather than have the child killed."
+
+Mary and Gwenny were greatly shocked at the news, and wanted to hear all
+about it over and over. Mr. Culver went on an errand and Helen waited
+there with the two girls.
+
+"Are they sure she wasn't hurt when she was trying to go somewhere?"
+asked Mary.
+
+"Mary saw a little girl run over by an automobile last night," said
+Gwenny.
+
+"She wasn't really run over," corrected Mary, "but pretty near."
+
+"You don't think it was Rosanna?" cried Helen eagerly.
+
+"Oh, no, it wasn't Rosanna," said Mary. "Rosanna never had on a dress
+like that; it was just the kind of a dress I would wear and, besides,
+her hair was cut short. And she wasn't pretty like Rosanna."
+
+"Did you see her close up?" asked Helen curiously.
+
+"Not very," confessed Mary. "She was all covered with dust where the
+automobile had rolled her into the gutter, and her head was cut, and she
+was unconscious: but she didn't look like Rosanna any more than I do. I
+was just wondering if they had been to the hospitals."
+
+"Yes, they went through them all," said Helen. "There were lots of
+children that had been hurt one way and another, and there was one
+little girl who had been hurt on the head, and couldn't tell who she
+was, but she was not Rosanna. The detectives took a picture of Rosanna
+along so they could be sure."
+
+"That must have been the little girl I saw hurt," said Mary. "It was
+right on Third Street, and they took her down to the Morton Memorial
+Hospital right away. But it wasn't Rosanna."
+
+"No, of course not," sighed Helen.
+
+"Of course not!" echoed Mary.
+
+"I wish it _was_ Rosanna," said Helen with a sob. "I wish it was!"
+
+Leaving these thoughts to worry Mary and Gwenny, Helen went off with her
+father, and in the course of time reached home.
+
+There was a message from Mrs. Horton asking Helen to come to her as soon
+as she could.
+
+"I wish you would go with me," said Helen wistfully to her mother.
+
+"I do not think I had better," said Mrs. Culver. "She asked particularly
+for you. Don't get excited whatever is said. I trust you to act as
+though I was at your side. You know, darling, that I always trust you."
+
+Helen burst into tears. "Oh, mother, dear, dear mother, think of poor,
+poor Rosanna who has no mother at all to go to for advice!"
+
+Mrs. Culver hugged her little girl tight, wondering if little Rosanna
+had perhaps gone to the young mother she had lost so long ago.
+
+When Helen entered the library, she found that old Mrs. Horton had
+collapsed, and was lying on the sofa covered with a blanket. There was a
+chill in the large, dark room. Mrs. Hargrave, very sober and haggard
+looking, drew Helen to her and kissed her. Then to Helen's amazement
+Mrs. Horton kissed her too.
+
+"My dear little girl," she said feebly, "I want to tell you that I find
+I have made a great mistake, and I am sorry for everything. When Rosanna
+comes back, I want you two little girls to be the best of friends. And I
+want you to ask your father to stay with me. Perhaps he will do it if
+you ask him. Mrs. Hargrave says that he is working on an invention of
+some sort. He will certainly have as much spare time to give to his
+studies here as he could in any business I know of. I want you to tell
+him all this from me."
+
+"Thank you so much," said Helen in her soft little voice. Then there
+being nothing that she could think of to say, she stood waiting for Mrs.
+Horton to speak. But Mrs. Horton wearily turned her gray face to the
+wall and sighed.
+
+"Would you mind if I go up and speak to Minnie?" Helen asked timidly.
+
+"Not at all," answered Mrs. Horton. "It comforts me to know that there
+is a child in the house. I think you will find Minnie in Rosanna's room.
+You know the way."
+
+Again she turned to the wall as though she had parted with hope, and
+Helen ran quietly up the broad stairs and down the corridor to Rosanna's
+room. Minnie was there sitting in her little sewing chair, mending a
+dress of Rosanna's. Her tears fell on it as she worked.
+
+"Don't do that, Minnie!" she said, throwing her arm around her. "I know
+we will find Rosanna, and then everything will come out right."
+
+She sat down on Minnie's lap, and told her everything that her father
+had said, and all that Mrs. Horton had said, and then all about her
+visit with Mary and Gwenny.
+
+"As far as I go," said Minnie crossly, "the sooner they get all this in
+the paper the better I will like it. Why, if there is one thing on earth
+more than another that will stir folks up it is a lost child. All the
+people, and the Boy Scouts and everybody will be hunting around
+everywhere."
+
+"And where do the Girl Scouts come in?" asked Helen hotly. "They will do
+just as good work as the Boy Scouts will." She got up and commenced to
+walk around the room. Minnie, having finished her sewing, arose too and
+after a moment's thought produced from somewhere a silk duster, and
+began wiping off the chairs and other furniture.
+
+Helen watched her idly as she moved about the room, then the two large
+portraits caught her attention.
+
+"Wasn't Rosanna's mother beautiful?" she said, staring. "Her eyes seem
+to look right at you as if she was trying to tell you something."
+
+"I don't doubt she is, the dear saint!" said Minnie. "You can't begin to
+know what a heap Rosanna thinks of those pictures. She used to want to
+keep flowers in front of each one the way they do in churches in front
+of the saints; but she didn't dare because she knew her grandmother
+wouldn't let her. So she used to pick posies and tie little bunches and
+slip them down behind the picture next the wall. She asked me if I
+didn't think it would mean just as much. And I know it did, the lamb,
+the dear, dear lamb! I told her grandmother about it too, every word.
+
+"Why, the day you went to Fontaine Ferry--gracious, it seems a year
+ago!--she fixed a little bit of a wreath of sweet peas and tucked it
+behind the picture. It must be there yet all withered."
+
+Minnie went over to the picture, and taking the heavy frame in both
+hands held the picture away from the wall a little.
+
+Something fell to the floor, but it was not the withered flowers.
+
+When Minnie looked down, she stared and stared and, still staring,
+crumpled down on her knees, wild, round eyes on the object. Helen ran to
+her.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh," moaned Minnie, "have I gone mad?"
+
+On the floor tied by a ribbon, was Rosanna's beautiful hair!
+
+For a space Minnie and Helen stood as though they had been frozen.
+Minnie touched the long, soft locks and again moaned but all at once
+Helen commenced to dance up and down.
+
+"Now we have her, now we have her!" she cried. "Come down and tell Mrs.
+Horton, Minnie! We have found Rosanna! Come, come!"
+
+She tried to drag Minnie to the door, but Minnie pulled back.
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded.
+
+"Why, don't you see?" cried Helen. "She cut it off because she didn't
+want anybody to know who she was, and everyone always looked at her
+lovely hair. She gave it to her mother. Oh, _don't_ you see, Minnie? And
+then she started for your house, and the automobile hit her, and I just
+_know_ that is our Rosanna in the hospital! Of course Mary was sure it
+was not Rosanna on account of her hair. Oh, come, let's tell her
+grandmother. She does truly and truly love Rosanna, Minnie. Come, let's
+tell her!"
+
+"Yes, and then find out that it isn't Rosanna at all and break her heart
+for sure," said the practical Minnie. "You go down and tell Mrs.
+Hargrave will she please come up here a minute, and you see that she
+comes. She will know what's best to do."
+
+Minnie bent over the long locks so carefully brushed and tied, and again
+her tears flowed while Helen sped down the stairs on her errand.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave, who had plenty of common sense, followed at once, and her
+shock and surprise when she saw the curls of dark hair equalled theirs.
+
+"Minnie is quite right," she said, nodding her head. "Mrs. Horton is in
+a very bad condition. I feel as though the little girl in the hospital
+may be Rosanna, but if we should find ourselves mistaken I don't know
+what the effect on Mrs. Horton would be. Say good-by to Mrs. Horton,
+Helen, and go tell your mother what we have found. Then ask your father
+to bring you around to my house in the car. You, Minnie, slip out the
+back door and meet me outside. Don't say one word until we see who this
+child is. I don't see why they have not reported her if it is Rosanna.
+She must have been asked to tell her name, and Rosanna is not grown up
+enough to think of making up a name for the occasion. Besides she would
+be glad to come home. If it is Rosanna--let me hurry!"
+
+One by one they carefully left the house. It was late, and Mrs. Horton
+seemed to be dozing. Telling the cook to put off getting dinner until
+Mrs. Horton had rested, Minnie slipped out, and reached Mrs. Hargrave's
+house just as the car drove up. Mrs. Hargrave came briskly trotting
+along the walk a moment later and was helped in.
+
+"It is a good thing that I am a trustee and director over at that
+hospital," she remarked, "so they won't try to fuss about our seeing the
+child, whoever she is. If it is only Rosanna--"
+
+It was a swift ride. Every heart was beating quickly. If it was only
+Rosanna!
+
+Entering the hospital, Mrs. Hargrave went to the superintendent's
+office, where a firm, stern looking woman met them.
+
+"A child was hurt by an automobile last night and brought here," she
+said briefly.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave interrupted her. "I want to see her," she said.
+
+"It is not the Horton child, if that is what you mean," said the
+superintendent. "This was a short-haired child in a very ordinary dress.
+She was struck on the head and was unconscious for hours. We are
+surprised that no inquiry has been made."
+
+"I am making one now," said Mrs. Hargrave crisply. "I said I wanted to
+_see_ this child."
+
+"You know it is against the rules, Mrs. Hargrave," the superintendent
+objected.
+
+"Fiddle-dee-dee!" said Mrs. Hargrave. "What ward is she in?"
+
+The superintendent gave up. She had known that she would. Mrs. Hargrave
+always had her own way. She led them down to the elevator, where they
+waited and waited with what patience they could gather until the car
+came slowly down and took them up to the general wards.
+
+They tiptoed in. The little girl was bandaged and pale and sleeping
+heavily; but oh, joy of joys, it _was_ Rosanna!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+"And it was just like a fairy story," said Helen, telling her mother
+about it afterwards, "because even while the nurse was telling how the
+little girl had not spoken a word, or even looked at anybody, Rosanna
+just opened those big eyes of hers, and said, 'Hello, Helen!' And I
+simply didn't know what to say, so I just said 'Hello,' too."
+
+It was indeed Rosanna, and Rosanna was herself again, aside from a very
+badly bumped head that had come near being a very seriously hurt head.
+She was too weak and ill to seem to wonder why she was in a hospital
+room with a couple of trained nurses feeling of her pulse, and dear Mrs.
+Hargrave with the tears rolling down her faintly pink old cheeks.
+
+All Mrs. Hargrave said was, "We will be back in a minute, Rosanna," and
+shooed everybody out into the hall, even the stern superintendent.
+
+"Now then," said Mrs. Hargrave with one peek back to see that the nurse
+that had stayed was doing her full duty, "now the thing is, how are we
+going to get her home?"
+
+"Oh, she can't go home," said the superintendent in a shocked voice.
+"She ought to stay here for three or four days anyway."
+
+"Fiddle-dee-_dee_!" said Mrs. Hargrave. "Home is the place for her, and
+besides I have reasons for wanting her to be under the care of her
+grandmother right away."
+
+"I can't take the responsibility," said the superintendent stubbornly.
+"You will have to see the house doctor, Mrs. Hargrave."
+
+"Very well," said Mrs. Hargrave. She turned to a nurse passing. "Go get
+Doctor Smith, my dear; tell him Mrs. Hargrave wants him at once."
+
+Doctor Smith came sooner than the superintendent hoped he would.
+
+"Well," he said, "if it is possible to get her home without jarring her,
+I think it would be a good thing. Her head is not injured, but her
+nerves are shaken, and if she can be at home in her own room she will
+regain her strength very quickly. I want you to take a trained nurse
+with you, however."
+
+"Of course!" said Mrs. Hargrave briskly, "Now how shall we take her? In
+an ambulance, or can we manage in the car? It is very large."
+
+"Could one of you hold her?" said the doctor.
+
+"I can and will," said Minnie decidedly. "I know just how she likes to
+be held, the lamb!"
+
+"Then she can go now if you like," said the doctor, and the
+superintendent pursed up her mouth and stalked downstairs, scorning the
+elevator.
+
+How smoothly Mr. Culver drove that car! Not a jounce or bump disturbed
+the pale little patient, and he "drove the car at a walk" as Mrs.
+Hargrave had asked him.
+
+When they reached home, Mrs. Hargrave asked Rosanna if she could be
+comfortable there for a couple of minutes, and seeing her nod feebly,
+she went briskly into the house. She looked into the library. Mrs.
+Horton, exhausted by her regrets and sorrow, had fallen into a heavy
+sleep.
+
+Quickly Mrs. Hargrave went back and beckoned. Mr. Culver gathered
+Rosanna up in his arms, and with Minnie leading the way, carried her to
+her pretty room. She gave a sigh of happiness when she felt herself
+tucked into her own soft, pleasant bed, and a tear squeezed itself from
+under her closed lids, but it was a tear of joy.
+
+Mrs. Hargrave returned to the library and sat down. It was a half hour
+before Mrs. Horton awoke.
+
+"No news?" she asked with a groan.
+
+"The best in the world!" said Mrs. Hargrave, patting her friend's hand.
+"The best in the world, Virginia, and you must take it bravely."
+
+"Tell me quickly," begged Mrs. Horton. "They have found her? Where is my
+child?"
+
+"Yes, we have found her," said Mrs. Hargrave, "and she is in her own
+little bed upstairs."
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried Mrs. Horton, covering her eyes.
+
+"She was nearly run over on Third Street, and has a pretty bad bump and
+a cut on her head. We found her in the hospital. No one knew who she was
+because she had cut off her curls, and she had on a dress I never saw
+before. Helen thinks it is one she bought to give that Mary child I
+told you about. Now don't mind her hair, Virginia; it will grow, and
+_do_ be gentle with her."
+
+"Mind her hair--be gentle with her!" repeated Mrs. Horton indignantly.
+"I will tell you what I am going to do from this time on, and just you
+try to interfere if you dare! I am going to _spoil_ Rosanna. I thought I
+was doing the right thing, and you don't know how I wanted to pet her
+and love her and play with her, but I was such a goose that I thought if
+I didn't keep her at a distance she wouldn't respect me. Why, she cares
+a thousand times more for you than she does for me this very minute! So
+you just watch me. I am going to make her love me best! I am going to
+begin now." She rose and started for the door.
+
+"Don't you want to fix your hair first?" asked Mrs. Hargrave in
+amazement. "It is all tousled up, and your nose is red and shiny."
+
+"It can stay so!" said the elegant Mrs. Horton. "I don't mind at all
+letting her see that I was breaking my heart for her. Perhaps it will
+help her to believe that I have one."
+
+Followed by Mrs. Hargrave, Mrs. Horton mounted the stairs as lightly as
+a girl. Minnie was just coming down.
+
+"Miss Rosanna keeps asking for you, Mrs. Horton," she said, "and the
+nurse thought if you would mind coming in to see her she would drop off
+to sleep."
+
+"I _am_ coming!" said Mrs. Horton. She entered the room, and Mrs.
+Hargrave again felt a keen pride in her friend. She approached the bed
+and, smiling down brightly, bent and kissed the little girl softly on
+the cheek.
+
+"Well, darling," she said, "how are you feeling now?"
+
+Rosanna lifted her arms. "Oh, grandmother, I am so sorry I ran away and
+made you so unhappy! I can see it in your face. Please forgive me! I
+will be such a good little girl when I get well!"
+
+"You have always been a good little girl, my precious," said her
+grandmother, kneeling by the bed and laying her arm over Rosanna. "Only
+we didn't just understand each other, and now everything is going to be
+different. I want you to go to sleep now, and we can talk about
+everything when you are well again. And you must sleep all you can,
+because the very first meal you can sit up for, Helen is coming over to
+have with you. A party, you know, right up here. And Helen is very
+lonesome. Now go to sleep. Minnie, your good Minnie, will stay right
+with you, and I will come back soon." Once more she kissed Rosanna and
+silently left the room. Outside the door she turned to Mrs. Hargrave and
+for a moment cried soft and happy tears on her shoulder. Then the two
+old ladies kissed each other tenderly.
+
+"It is going to be all right, Amanda," said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Indeed it is, Virginia," said Mrs. Hargrave. "I am more thankful than I
+can say. And now I wonder when we are going to have anything to eat. I
+am not sure when I had a meal last. Down at Cousin Hendy's, I believe,
+and as she was just coming out of one of her attacks, that was mostly
+prepared breakfast foods. I don't mind saying that I am starved. Do you
+suppose you will have enough to eat here to-night to be any inducement
+for me to accept your invitation for dinner when I get it?"
+
+Half an hour later just as they sat down to the table, in walked Mrs.
+Horton's son Robert. Mrs. Hargrave shook her head when after the first
+greetings he asked for Rosanna.
+
+"In bed," said Mrs. Horton. "I will have something to tell you about her
+later, Robert, but now tell us what has happened since I left you."
+
+"The kiddie isn't in disgrace for anything, is she?" insisted Robert.
+
+"Not at all!" said Mrs. Hargrave. "Did you find your friend?"
+
+"I certainly did!" said the young man, smiling, "and it's a good thing
+too. He was hurt worse than I was, and it is going to be a long time
+before he will be able to do much of anything. He has a wife and a child
+or two, so I thought the best thing to do was to get them all down on
+the stock farm. That's what kept me. I went down to Lexington with them
+instead of coming straight home. He took one of the kiddies with him,
+and the others will follow. That is a great little girl of his, mother.
+She told me some of the greatest yarns about what she did in an
+organization called the Girl Scouts. It certainly is interesting and a
+wonderful thing for girls. Teaches them all sorts of things, you know.
+Why, that child was more self-reliant than lots of the grown girls I
+know. You must be sure to have Rosanna join it, mother. She needs it, I
+feel sure. I scarcely know Rosanna, but her letters always had about as
+much originality as a sheet of blank paper."
+
+"I don't think that was Rosanna's fault," said Mrs. Horton. "I think you
+will find her changed greatly."
+
+"Well, however that may be, you let her join the Girl Scouts anyway.
+Why, the fun they get out of it is worth everything. And in summer they
+camp and put up jams and things, at least the group this youngster
+belonged to did, and she is certainly great. Such a polite little
+thing."
+
+"Rosanna can invite her up here to see her," said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"I guess you would think she was not in Rosanna's class," he said,
+staring at his mother.
+
+"Class?" said Mrs. Horton. "Class has nearly wrecked my life twice; now
+we are going to pay some attention to worth and brains."
+
+They were sitting in the library a little later, when John Culver
+entered. He did not see Robert lounging on a divan in a dim corner of
+the big room as he said, "Mrs. Horton, this check that you have given me
+to date is made out to John Carver and of course I could not cash it."
+
+"Isn't that the way you spell your name?" asked Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Culver: John Winston Culver," said Culver. "J. W. Culver will do, of
+course."
+
+"John Winston Culver!" cried Robert, leaping from the divan in a manner
+you wouldn't expect from a wounded soldier. "Not Culver, the inventor?"
+
+"A little that way," laughed Culver, "but scarcely enough to be called
+_the_ inventor. I wish I was!"
+
+Robert was shaking him by the hand.
+
+"Well, you are all right!" he said. "Why, our people in the foundry have
+been looking for you all over the East. What are you doing here?"
+
+"It is too long a story to tell you now," said Mr. Culver, "but I will
+be more than glad to get in touch with the office if there is anything
+in it."
+
+"There is a fortune in it," said Robert, "just as soon as you get the
+machine perfected! We must have it, and we will give you fine terms for
+a right to its exclusive use. What are you doing here?"
+
+"I am your mother's chauffeur," said Mr. Culver. "I wanted something to
+do that would give me a good deal of leisure to work on the engine and
+after I came back from France we were visiting my wife's people here
+and I saw your mother's advertisement and took the place."
+
+"It is almost too good to be true!" said Robert. "If you agree, we'll
+work the thing out together."
+
+Mr. Culver looked at Mrs. Horton, then at Mrs. Hargrave. "Stay; please
+stay!" was the message he read in both pairs of eyes.
+
+"That will be fine," he said to Robert. "I need some help, and you are
+just the one to put me in the way of getting it. See you to-morrow," he
+added and went out, forgetting the check.
+
+"Well, I believe in fairies now," said Robert. "Half a dozen of the
+biggest concerns in the country are after that young man. If I dared, I
+would lock him up for safe keeping. To think that he is here right on
+the place! Talk of luck! Why, he is worth a million dollars to us right
+now, with his improved engine."
+
+"Luck; luck!" said Mrs. Hargrave. "Pretty poor luck, I call it for me!"
+
+"Why?" asked Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing!" sighed Mrs. Hargrave. "Only I had it all planned
+to do something nice for Helen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Two days went by, during which Rosanna slept most of the time or tossed
+about her pretty bed, unable to rest on account of the pain in her head.
+
+Rosanna learned then, for the first time, the lesson that it is never
+right to run away from the duty that faces us. It came to her slowly but
+surely in the hours of her recovery that no good ever comes to those who
+shirk. If Rosanna had waited, she would have saved herself and many
+others a great deal of unhappiness.
+
+Rosanna was a very little girl, yet she might have stood firm because
+she knew in her heart that she was not to blame and that should have
+given her courage. As she lay there and day by day learned from one and
+another the terrible suffering her running away had brought on every
+one, Rosanna was filled with shame and despair. How could any one, how
+could her grandmother ever forgive her?
+
+And the worst of her punishment was that they would not let her talk.
+She wanted to beg every one who came caring for her so tenderly to
+forgive her, but the nurse simply would not let her say a word. No one
+was allowed to stay with her for more than five minutes and then _they_
+did all the talking.
+
+This did not go on long, of course. Came a day when the nurse smilingly
+helped her into a big lounging chair and stood by looking on while a
+hairdresser straightened and trimmed the haggled locks into a perfectly
+docked hair cut. A bang almost covered the plasters on her temple and
+when the task was completed, Rosanna felt very dressed up indeed.
+
+That afternoon she saw Uncle Robert--a jolly, affectionate Uncle Robert
+who came to tell her a great piece of news. He had adopted a French
+orphan, a lovely little girl belonging to a family that had been wiped
+out in the war.
+
+"She made me remember that I had a little niece over here," said Uncle
+Robert. "I used to tell her about you, and I know you will enjoy knowing
+her."
+
+"Isn't she coming here to live?" asked Rosanna hopefully.
+
+"I don't know yet," said Uncle Robert, frowning. "You see I have not
+told a soul yet excepting yourself. I don't know how that would strike
+mother. It seems to me that it would give her a good deal of care. Two
+girls to bring up, you know. Your Uncle Robert tackled a big problem
+when he adopted an orphan, don't you think so, Rosanna?"
+
+"I don't think so," said Rosanna, smiling. "Orphans are real easy to
+keep, Uncle Robert. You see there are not many bad ones like me."
+
+"I won't have you say that!" said Uncle Robert, giving the hand he was
+holding a little shake. "I think you are a real easy orphan: easy to get
+along with and easy to look at and easy to keep. I hope mine will be
+half so good, and I hope I will love her a quarter as well as I do my
+niece Rosanna."
+
+"Oh, thank you, Uncle Robert!" sighed Rosanna. "I am so glad you are
+home. I had forgotten how nice you are."
+
+Uncle Robert rose. "We have said so many nice things to each other that
+I feel all good and happy inside," he laughed. "And before something
+happens to make me feel otherwise, here goes your little Uncle Bobby
+downstairs to talk the thing over with mother. She is in the library
+with Mrs. Hargrave. The fact is, Rosanna, I was so glad to be at home
+again and so busy with one thing and another, that I forgot all about
+Elise. That's her name; Elise. This morning I had a letter from the Red
+Cross people, and they expect to come over in a couple of weeks. So I
+must get busy. But honestly, Rosanna, I do think it would be pretty hard
+for mother to take her in. I could enter her in some good
+boarding-school in the city."
+
+"But they wouldn't _love_ her!" cried Rosanna. "Little girls want to be
+_loved_."
+
+Uncle Robert cleared his throat. "We will have to see to that part
+somehow, won't we, Rosanna? Well, I will talk to mother, and as soon as
+we decide I will come and tell you about it. At least I will if you will
+promise to take a nap."
+
+"I will if you will promise to wake me up."
+
+"It's a go!" agreed Uncle Robert, and went off whistling.
+
+Mrs. Horton heard the whistle.
+
+"Robert has something on his mind," she said to Mrs. Hargrave. "He has
+whistled just like that ever since he was a tiny boy whenever he was
+fussed or worried or in mischief. He will come in here and tell me
+something; just you see if he doesn't. Well, Robert," as the young man
+entered, "did you find Rosanna looking pretty well?"
+
+"Perfectly fine! That child is going to be a beauty some day, mother. I
+never realized how pretty she is."
+
+"You have been gone three years, and that makes all the difference in
+the world in a child her age," said Mrs. Horton.
+
+"That may be so," conceded Robert. Then he tumbled headlong into his
+story, and Mrs. Horton looked at Mrs. Hargrave with an amused smile.
+
+"Well, mother, I want to 'fess up to something. I hope you will not pass
+judgment until I have told you the whole story. Do you both care to
+listen?"
+
+Both ladies assured him that they would be delighted.
+
+"For a couple of months I was billeted in a little French village near
+the border. I was fortunate to find my quarters in a house which must
+have been very fine at one time. It was very nearly a ruin when I
+arrived but the owner, an old noblewoman, was still living in one corner
+and welcomed me as though she was still a woman of leisure and fortune
+greeting an expected and distinguished guest. She was certainly a dear
+old lady and we were regular pals in no time.
+
+"She did all the work; of course there was no one to help her, except
+her little niece, an orphan girl about the age of Rosanna. It must have
+been Rosanna that made me notice her, and she was certainly a dainty
+little thing. The aunt was miserably ill. I got one of our doctors after
+her case, but he said there was no hope. She was simply burned out with
+the terrors and hardships she had been through. And her heart was all to
+the bad.
+
+"She knew it, the plucky old dear. She was a gallant soldier, I can tell
+you! One night she woke me groaning. I hurried in to her and told her
+she must let me take care of her all I could. I told her I had a mother
+at home and all that sort of thing, you know, to make her easy about
+having me wait on her, and she was no end grateful--more than I
+deserved. But she worried. She knew that she didn't have the strength to
+go through many attacks like that, and how she did mourn over that
+niece. I didn't blame her, seeing the way things are over there.
+
+"It went along two weeks more, and one night I heard a gentle tapping on
+the door of my room. It was Elise, the little girl. Her aunt was having
+another attack. I hurried in, and as soon as I saw her I knew the poor
+old lady was going where she would not have to slave and starve any
+more, and going soon. She took my hand.
+
+"'Elise; oh, Elise!' she managed to gasp. Mother, honestly I just could
+_not_ help it! I said, 'Don't worry, madame! I have told you of my
+mother and my home. I would esteem it so great a favor, such an honor,
+if you would give Elise to me.'"
+
+Mrs. Horton's lip trembled. Mrs. Hargrave let two large tears slip
+unnoticed down her pretty, faded pink cheeks.
+
+"Well, she died perfectly happy," continued Robert. "And there I was
+with a little girl on my hands! I turned her over to some women I knew
+in the Red Cross, and she has been well taken care of ever since. I saw
+her when I stopped over in Paris on my way home. Food and a little care
+had made her look like a different child.
+
+"Then I sailed, and she sort of slipped my mind until this morning. I
+have a letter here telling me that the Red Cross friends are about to
+sail for home and they are bringing Elise, of course. That was the first
+time I really realized what I had let myself in for. I might have put
+her in a convent over there if I had not promised the old lady that I
+would personally look after her. But I did promise!
+
+"Now what I want is some advice. Remember, I am not asking you to have
+Elise here. You have Rosanna and I think that is enough. But you both
+must know of some nice place where she can be placed and where it would
+be homelike. I told Rosanna about it when I was up there just now, and
+she didn't want me to put her in a school. She said little girls wanted
+to be loved."
+
+Mrs. Horton winced.
+
+"Did she suggest a place for her?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, she did," said Robert.
+
+"Didn't she ask you to bring her here?" continued Mrs. Horton.
+
+"Oh, Virginia, wait; _please_ wait!" cried Mrs. Hargrave suddenly. "Oh,
+Virginia, you have Rosanna, and now Robert is home. You don't know how
+lonely I am. Virginia, Robert dear, you have known me all your life but
+I am not nearly, nearly as old as I look, and I can love. Give me your
+little girl, Robert! She can be your ward just the same, but let me have
+her for my little daughter. I am so lonely, and I will be so good to
+her!"
+
+Mrs. Hargrave buried her face in her tiny handkerchief and sobbed.
+Robert glanced at his mother. She nodded. Robert went over to Mrs.
+Hargrave and folded his strong arms round the little old lady.
+
+"Dear old friend, how can I ever thank you?" he said. "Of course I know
+you will be good to the child! Elise is yours!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+An hour later Robert went up the stairs, wounds, shell shock and all,
+three steps at a time! He wakened Rosanna by tickling her on the nose.
+
+"Well, Rosanna, me dear," said her uncle in a very small-boy and
+frivolous manner, "there's news a plenty for you."
+
+"Well, honey, what's the good word?" he asked her when he had finished.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Robert," said Rosanna, "I just never _would_ believe that
+anything so perfectly lovely could happen out of a book. Just to think
+of it! What will Helen say? Of course you know, Uncle Robert, that I
+would have loved to have Elise here, but I just know that Mrs. Hargrave
+will be so happy. Her house is so big, and there are no noises in it. It
+always seems as though the rooms are whispering to each other."
+
+"I know what you mean," said Robert, nodding. "I like 'em to shout;
+don't you?"
+
+"Well," said Rosanna wisely, "perhaps not quite shout, but it is nice
+when they talk anyway. Mrs. Hargrave is always wanting to be a fairy
+godmother to someone, and now she can be just plain really-truly mother,
+and that is much nicer. I know she will love Elise, and she is so dear
+to lean up against. She is always so soft and silky feeling."
+
+"I never hoped for such luck!" said Uncle Robert. "We want to make a
+real little American of Elise. We will do great things for her, even if
+she is going to be Mrs. Hargrave's daughter. I want her to ride and
+swim, and do all the things you do."
+
+"I don't swim, Uncle Robert," said Rosanna. "I wish I could! I will need
+to know how if she decides to let me join the Girl Scouts."
+
+"I am no Girl Scout myself," said Uncle Robert, "but I have a medal or
+two for long distance swimming, and we are going to turn you into a
+little fish as soon and as painlessly as we can. So that's all of that!
+Riding, too. I know you can ride that speck of a pony out there, but you
+must have a horse now, a real _horse_. I meant to get each of you one
+but I suppose Mrs. Hargrave will think that it is her privilege to get
+one for Elise."
+
+"Did you feel as though you wanted to spend as much money as two saddle
+horses would cost?"
+
+"I certainly did," said Uncle Robert. "Why?"
+
+"Well, if you do feel like that, wouldn't it be nice if Helen could have
+that other one?"
+
+"Rosanna, you have got a brain," said Uncle Robert, patting her hand.
+"The very thing! One more thing settled. Now about this Girl Scout
+business. What is it, anyway?"
+
+"I can't tell you all about it myself," said Rosanna, "but the daughter
+of a friend of grandmother's who is at the head of the troop we hope to
+join is coming over soon to tell me all about it."
+
+"Another little girl?" asked Uncle Robert.
+
+"No," said Rosanna, "she is a real grown-up young lady; quite old. About
+twenty, I think, but Helen has met her, and she says she is just as nice
+as she can be. And grandmother says so too; so it must be so."
+
+"It is if mother says so," said Uncle Robert, smiling. "She is hard to
+please in the matter of 'quite old young ladies.' Well, go on."
+
+"There is a book on that table that tells you all about it," said
+Rosanna. "Why, they learn to do _every_thing, Uncle Robert! And they
+camp out, and have meetings!"
+
+"And passwords and secret signs and all that, I suppose," said Uncle
+Robert, laughing.
+
+"You get to know lots and lots of other girls, too," said Rosanna.
+
+"I suppose you do, you poor starved little thing!" said Uncle Robert.
+"Well, you are going to be one anyhow, for better or for worse, and we
+will run Elise in. She will have a bad time at first getting used to
+American children and their ways, but I want to knock off about ninety
+years from her score. She is too old for any use. It's awful to see a
+kiddie so settled and grown up."
+
+"Mrs. Hargrave is just the one to have her then," said Rosanna, "because
+Mrs. Hargrave isn't any age at all, really. She looks old on the
+outside, but she is just as young as Helen and me. She actually makes up
+things to play! And she can dress paper dolls bea-_u_-ti-fully. Elise
+will love her right off. Mrs. Hargrave said she wanted to be a Girl
+Scout herself, but she thought she wouldn't try for it because she could
+have more fun just visiting them at their meetings and driving out to
+camp with hampers of goodies. I don't think I can ever tell you, Uncle
+Robert, how I have wanted to join. Even now I can't feel that it will
+really come true. Suppose grandmother should change her mind?"
+
+"She isn't a changeable person," said Uncle Robert, "and besides she
+loves you so that she would give you anything in the world that you want
+except perhaps an airplane."
+
+"There is the most beautiful young lady downstairs to see you, dearie,"
+Minnie said, as she came in and straightened Rosanna's coverlet. "She is
+something in the Girl Scouts, and her name is Miss Marjorie Hooker."
+
+"That's the one!" said Rosanna, nodding to Uncle Robert. "Does
+grandmother say for her to come up here?"
+
+"Just for a little while."
+
+"Please don't go, Uncle Robert," said Rosanna as he rose. "_Please_
+don't go! I wouldn't know what to say to her."
+
+"Neither would I," remarked Uncle Robert.
+
+"But I feel scared!" pleaded Rosanna.
+
+"So do I!" said Uncle Robert. "How do you expect me to talk to ferocious
+young women Scouts? Does she look very strong, Minnie? Perhaps you
+noticed if she was carrying a rope?"
+
+"_Rope?_" repeated Rosanna.
+
+"Yes," said her uncle. "I believe it is a great stunt of the Boy Scouts
+to learn to tie awfully hard knots and swing a lariat and all that.
+Perhaps the Girl Scouts do these things too. She might want to show you
+how it is done. I would just hate to have her tie _me_ up!"
+
+"I won't let her," promised Rosanna stoutly. "I will take care of you,
+Uncle Robert, no matter how big and strong she is. Bring her up,
+Minnie."
+
+"You don't want to be too awful scared, Mr. Robert and Miss Rosanna
+dear," Minnie giggled. "For one of her size, she looks and acts real
+mild."
+
+"My!" said Rosanna. "I think I know just who Miss Marjorie Hooker is.
+She lives round the corner on Fourth Street. She is a dark lady, and
+tall; taller than you. She plays golf all the time. I see her starting
+out with her clubs every day."
+
+"Getting her strength up," said Uncle Robert with a mock groan.
+"Rosanna, I am a brave man to stay with you. What are the Girl Scouts,
+I'd like to know, that I should stay here and be roped?"
+
+"Hush!" warned Rosanna. "Here they come!"
+
+Minnie opened the door and stood aside. Uncle Robert quickly rose, and
+squared his shoulders.
+
+"Miss Hooker to see you, Miss Rosanna," said Minnie with her queer
+smile.
+
+High heels clicked on the hardwood floor, and Miss Marjorie Hooker came
+in. Uncle Robert suddenly grasped the back of a chair as though he was
+afraid of falling down. Rosanna sat straight up in bed and stared with
+round eyes. Miss Marjorie Hooker clicked across the big room and almost
+shyly took Rosanna's hand.
+
+"How do you do?" she said in a silvery, small voice that fitted her tiny
+self to perfection. "It is so good of you to see me!"
+
+"W-w-won't you sit down?" asked Rosanna feebly.
+
+Miss Hooker looked at Uncle Robert.
+
+"This is my Uncle Robert Horton," said Rosanna prettily.
+
+Miss Hooker bowed and smiled, showing two fairy dimples. "I thought
+perhaps you were the doctor," she tinkled. She sat down in the nearest
+chair. It was ten times too big for her, but by sitting well toward the
+edge, her little feet nearly touched the floor. Rosanna kept staring.
+Uncle Robert seemed to grow very brave. He commenced to talk to the mite
+and managed to treat her like a really grown-up person. Rosanna was
+proud of him. But was it possible that this little lady, the smallest
+grown person she had ever known, was really the Captain of the Girl
+Scouts?
+
+"So you are going to be a Girl Scout?" said Miss Hooker, turning her
+dimples on Rosanna.
+
+"I _want_ to be," said Rosanna. "Do you think they will accept me?"
+
+"I know they will be delighted to take you in; but you know that you
+have certain things to learn and certain preparations to make before you
+become a regular member."
+
+"Yes," said Rosanna. "I have the manual here."
+
+"The best thing is for you to read it and then I will explain anything
+to you that you do not understand. We _do_ have such good times!"
+
+She smiled delightfully at Rosanna and at Uncle Robert, who looked
+really cheered up and happy and showed no signs at all of leaving the
+room. Rosanna wouldn't have minded if he had. She wanted a chance to
+talk alone with this fairy-like creature in those ridiculously grown-up
+clothes.
+
+Miss Marjorie Hooker made it quite clear that she had not come to call
+on Uncle Robert. She had come to see Rosanna. She made it so clear that
+presently Uncle Robert, who did not want to go at all, spoke of a
+forgotten engagement and said good-by. When he bent to kiss Rosanna, he
+whispered, "I don't mind being roped at all, Rosanna!" but Rosanna did
+not understand.
+
+After he had gone, the fairy in the big chair seemed to grow less timid.
+
+"I just think it is fine that you are going to be one of us," she said,
+dimpling delightfully. "We do have the _best_ times! Last summer we went
+camping on our farm out toward Anchorage. We were in a grove back of the
+house, and if you didn't have to go down to the house for the newspapers
+and milk and things, you could imagine that we were miles from everyone.
+Can you swim?"
+
+"No," answered Rosanna, "but I mean to learn."
+
+"Oh, you must!" said Miss Hooker. "Everyone should know how."
+
+"Of course," agreed Rosanna. "And a great many people do know how, so I
+suppose I will be able to learn. It seems very hard."
+
+"Not a bit of it!" trilled Miss Hooker. "I have several medals for long
+distance swimming myself, and I taught myself when I was just a little
+girl."
+
+"You are not so very large now, are you?" ventured Rosanna.
+
+"No, I am _not_," said Miss Hooker in what was for her quite a cross
+tone. "Oh, Rosanna, how I would love to be tall! There is a girl round
+the corner on Fourth Street, and she is about six feet tall, and I just
+_envy_ her so! Why, what are you laughing at?"
+
+"Oh, you please must excuse me!" begged Rosanna, "but when Minnie told
+us the young lady was coming to see me about the Girl Scouts, Uncle
+Robert and I both made up our mind that you were that tall young lady.
+And Uncle Robert said he was sure to be fearfully afraid of you. And
+instead of that, you are _you_, just as sweet and little! Uncle Robert
+needn't be afraid a bit, need he?"
+
+"I am not at all sure," said Miss Marjorie Hooker. "Perhaps he will have
+to be terribly afraid of me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+It was bedtime one night, and after Rosanna had been tucked in her
+grandmother came up. She had been doing this ever since Rosanna came
+home and the little girl had learned to long for the little talks they
+had together. But this night Mrs. Horton sat down in the big chair, and
+told Rosanna to come into her arms. Cuddled there on her grandmother's
+lap, Rosanna rested while they had a talk that neither of them ever
+forgot. For the first time Rosanna learned all about the little sister,
+and Mrs. Horton in her turn came to know something of the thoughts and
+loneliness and longings that go on in a little girl's mind. Rosanna told
+her grandmother all about it, and if Mrs. Horton hugged her so tight
+that it almost hurt and cried over her short hair, Rosanna felt all the
+happier for it.
+
+And Mrs. Horton forgot that she was a proud and haughty lady (indeed she
+was really never that again) and told Rosanna how sorry she was that she
+had been unloving because she had really never meant her cold manner.
+She made Rosanna understand that she had always loved her but never,
+never so deeply or so tenderly as now. And Rosanna begged her
+forgiveness for running away, and for cutting off her hair. So by-and-by
+they commenced to talk of happier things, feeling very near and dear to
+each other the while.
+
+It was such a wonderful talk that Rosanna felt that never again would
+she be unhappy.
+
+Before her grandmother left, she told Rosanna that Helen was coming over
+the following day to take luncheon with her. Minnie had a table set in
+the broad bay window, and there the luncheon was spread. They scarcely
+ate at first, they were so glad to see each other. Almost the first
+thing that Rosanna asked was news of Gwenny. Helen had seen her often
+and her mother thought that she was slowly growing worse. Helen had been
+to a meeting at the Girl Scouts and had told them about Gwenny. Perhaps
+something would be done a little later. Tommy was just as selfish as
+ever. Helen said it was awfully hard not to dislike him.
+
+"I don't even _try_ to like him," said Rosanna. "I don't see how you can
+be as good and kind as you are, Helen."
+
+"Why, I don't like the feeling it gives me when I dislike people," said
+Helen.
+
+"How do you feel?" asked Rosanna. "I never thought about how it makes
+_me_ feel."
+
+"I don't know as I can tell exactly," said Helen, thinking hard. "Sort
+of as though you were walking over rough cobblestones. I just don't like
+it. And I feel as though it does something to my color. Just as though I
+was all lovely pink or blue, and hating or disliking someone made me
+turn the most horrid sort of plum color."
+
+"How funny you are, Helen! When are you going away on your Girl Scout
+camping trip? Isn't it almost time?"
+
+Helen looked embarrassed. "I am not going," she said.
+
+"Not _going_?" echoed Rosanna. "Oh, Helen, how _awful_! And you have
+been planning so long for that. Why are you going to give it up?"
+
+"I just changed my mind," she said.
+
+"You don't change it away from such a lovely trip if you can help it,"
+Rosanna persisted. "Helen, I believe--Helen, I want you to tell me the
+truth now. I declare I believe you have given it up on account of _me_!"
+
+"Well, then I have," said Helen. "Indeed, Rosanna, I would not have a
+good time at all off on that trip knowing that you were here just
+getting well and perhaps missing me. I couldn't do it!"
+
+Rosanna could hardly speak.
+
+"I just think you are a real true friend, Helen!" she said finally. "I
+don't think you ought to give up your good times and I can't thank you
+enough."
+
+"I wouldn't enjoy it without you," persisted Helen. "Aren't you thrilled
+about your uncle's little orphan? And did you ever see anyone so happy
+as Mrs. Hargrave?"
+
+"Never!" said Rosanna. "She has been telling me all about the room she
+is having decorated. It must be _too_ beautiful!"
+
+"It is," said Helen. "I went over there the other day and saw it. You
+never saw anything so cunning in your life. All the furniture is
+enameled cream color, with lovely little wreaths of flowers on it. Even
+her brush and comb and those things are painted ivory. And the walls! In
+each corner is a little cottage, right on the wall paper you know,
+Rosanna, and between just woods that look as though you were seeing them
+through a mist--sort of delicate and far away. And the rugs are a soft
+delicate green like the grass in spring. I hope she is lovely enough for
+all the love Mrs. Hargrave is going to give her."
+
+"Uncle Robert says she is as sweet as she can possibly be," Rosanna
+assured her. "Well, you are just too good to stay at home with me,
+Helen. It won't be long before we are both Girl Scouts. And I think you
+are just as good and sweet as you can be. I can't think what I would
+have done without you. But here you are actually giving up your camping
+for me."
+
+Rosanna leaned over and impulsively kissed her guest.
+
+"Dear Helen, I am _so_ happy," she said, "because now I know that I am
+really your _best_ friend."
+
+
+
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