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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 46059 ***
+
+THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE
+
+    _by_
+    CARROLL WATSON RANKIN
+
+    _Illustrated by_
+    FLORENCE SCOVEL SHINN
+
+    _Frontispiece and jacket in full
+    color by_ MIRIAM SELSS
+
+
+In this charming girl's book we meet again the four chums of _Dandelion
+Cottage_. Their friendship knit closer than ever by their summer at
+playing house, the girls enlarge their activity by mothering a pretty
+little Indian baby.
+
+"Those who have read _Dandelion Cottage_ will need no urge to follow
+further.... A lovable group of four children, happily not perfect, but
+full of girlish plans and pranks and a delightful sense of humor."
+
+    --_Boston Transcript._
+
+Just the type of book that every girl _from eight to fifteen_ enjoys.
+
+[Illustration: "MY SOUL, WHAT ARE YOU, ANYWAY?"]
+
+
+
+
+Dandelion Series
+
+
+THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE
+
+(_A Sequel to Dandelion Cottage_)
+
+    BY
+
+    CARROLL WATSON RANKIN
+
+    Author of "Dandelion Cottage," "The Girls of
+    Gardenville," etc.
+
+
+    _With Illustrations by_
+    FLORENCE SCOVEL SHINN
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    NEW YORK
+    HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1908,
+    BY
+    HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1936,
+    BY
+    CARROLL WATSON RANKIN
+
+
+    PRINTED IN THE
+    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+
+    EMILY, PHYLLIS, POLLY
+    AND SUZANNE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                          PAGE
+         I. BORROWED BABIES            1
+        II. ROSA MARIE                 9
+       III. MABEL'S DAY               18
+        IV. AN UNUSUAL EVENING        27
+         V. RETURNING ROSA MARIE      34
+        VI. THE DARK SECRET           43
+       VII. DISCOVERY                 52
+      VIII. THE FUGITIVE SOLDIER      64
+        IX. A SURPRISE                73
+         X. BREAKING THE NEWS         83
+        XI. THE ALARM                 91
+       XII. THE FIRE                 101
+      XIII. A HEROINE'S COME-DOWN    111
+       XIV. A BIRTHDAY PARTY         119
+        XV. AN UNEXPECTED TREAT      130
+       XVI. A SCATTERED SCHOOL       140
+      XVII. AN INVITATION            151
+     XVIII. OBEYING INSTRUCTIONS     161
+       XIX. WITH HENRIETTA           173
+        XX. THE CALL RETURNED        183
+       XXI. GETTING EVEN             195
+      XXII. A FULL AFTERNOON         204
+     XXIII. TAKING A WALK            215
+      XXIV. THE STATUE FROM INDIA    226
+       XXV. COMPARING NOTES          237
+      XXVI. CHRISTMAS EVE            248
+     XXVII. A CROWDED DAY            256
+    XXVIII. A BETTIE-LESS PLAN       265
+      XXIX. ANXIOUS DAYS             275
+       XXX. AN APRIL HARVEST         286
+
+
+
+
+THE PERSONS OF THE STORY
+
+
+  BETTIE TUCKER, aged 12:  }
+  JEANIE MAPES,  aged 14:  }  The Cottagers
+  MARJORY VALE,  aged 12:  }
+  MABEL BENNETT, aged 11:  }
+
+  ROSA MARIE: The Unreturnable Baby.
+
+  THE MOTHER OF ROSA MARIE.
+
+  ANNE HALLIDAY:       }
+  THE MARCOTTE TWINS:  }  Borrowed Babies.
+  THE LITTLE TUCKERS:  }
+
+  HENRIETTA BEDFORD: The New Girl.
+
+  MRS. HOWARD SLATER:  }  Of Henrietta's Household.
+  SIMMONS:             }
+
+  THE JANITOR:     An Unappreciated Hero.
+
+  DR. TUCKER:      A Clergyman with More Children than Money.
+
+  DR. BENNETT:     A Physician.
+
+  MR. BLACK:       A Friend to Children.
+
+  MRS. CRANE:      His Sister.
+
+  AUNTY JANE:      Marjory's Sole Visible Relative.
+
+  SOME MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.
+
+  MRS. MALONY:     The Light-hearted Egg-woman.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  MY SOUL, WHAT ARE YOU, ANYWAY                      _Frontispiece_
+                                                              PAGE
+  ROSA MARIE AND THE SIDEWALK WERE ONE                          16
+  THE STURDY FELLOW CARRIED HER OUT OF THE ROOM                112
+  THE DECIDEDLY DEPRESSED FOUR STARTED DOWN THE STREET         164
+  "ANOTHER 'EATHEN GOD FROM HINDIA"                            234
+
+
+
+
+THE ADOPTING OF ROSA MARIE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Borrowed Babies
+
+
+THE oldest inhabitant said that Lakeville was experiencing an unusual
+fall. He would probably have said the same thing if the high-perched
+town had accidentally tumbled off the bluff into the blue lake; but in
+this instance, he referred merely to the weather, which was certainly
+unusually mild for autumn.
+
+It was not, however, the oldest, but four of the youngest citizens that
+rejoiced most in this unusual prolonging of summer; for the continued
+warm weather made it possible for those devoted friends, Jean Mapes,
+Marjory Vale, Mabel Bennett and little Bettie Tucker, to spend many
+a delightful hour in their precious Dandelion Cottage, the real,
+tumble-down house that was now, after so many narrow escapes, safely
+their very own. Some day, to be sure, it would be torn down to make
+room for a habitable dwelling, but that unhappy day was still too
+remote to cause any uneasiness.
+
+Of course, when very cold weather should come, it would be necessary
+to close the beloved Cottage, for there was no heating plant, there
+were many large cracks over and under the doors and around the windows;
+and by lying very flat on the dining-room floor and peering under
+the baseboards, one could easily see what was happening in the next
+yard. These, and other defects, would surely make the little house
+uninhabitable in winter; but while the unexpectedly extended summer
+lasted, the Cottagers were rejoicing over every pleasant moment of
+weather and praying hard for other pleasant moments.
+
+Of all the games played in Dandelion Cottage, the one called "Mother"
+was the most popular. To play it, it was necessary, first of all, to
+divide the house into four equal parts. As there were five rooms, this
+division might seem to offer no light task; but, by first subtracting
+the kitchen, it was possible to solve this difficult mathematical
+problem to the Cottagers' entire satisfaction.
+
+But of course one can't play "Mother" without possessing a family.
+The Cottagers solved this problem also. Bettie's home could always be
+counted on to furnish at least two decidedly genuine babies and Jean
+could always borrow a perfectly delightful little cousin named Anne
+Halliday; but Marjory and Mabel, to their sorrow, were absolutely
+destitute of infantile relatives. Mabel was the chief sufferer. Sedate
+Marjory, plausible of tongue, convincing in manner, could easily
+accumulate a most attractive family at very short notice by the simple
+expedient of borrowing babies from the next block; but nowhere within
+reasonable reach was there a mother willing to intrust her precious
+offspring a second time to heedless Mabel.
+
+"Now, Mabel," Mrs. Mercer would say, when Mabel pleaded to have young
+Percival for her very own for just one brief hour, "I'd really like to
+oblige you, but it's getting late in the season, you are not careful
+enough about doors and windows and the last time you borrowed Percival
+you brought him home with a stiff neck that lasted three days."
+
+"But I did remember to return him," pleaded Mabel.
+
+"Do you sometimes forget?" queried Mrs. Mercer, with interest.
+
+"I did twice," confessed always honest Mabel; "but truly I don't see
+how _I_ can help it when babies sleep and sleep and sleep the way those
+two did. You see, I made a bed for Gerald Price on the lowest-down
+closet shelf, and he was so perfectly comfortable that he thought he
+was asleep for all night."
+
+"What about the other time?"
+
+"That was Mollie Dixon. But then, I had five children that day and only
+one bed. Mollie slipped down in the crack at the back--she's awfully
+thin--and I never missed her until her mother came after her. That was
+rather a bad time [Mabel sighed at the recollection] for Mrs. Dixon
+found the Cottage locked up for the night and poor little Mollie crying
+under the bed."
+
+"Mabel! And you want to borrow my precious Percival!"
+
+"But it couldn't happen _again_," protested Mabel, earnestly. "Bettie
+says that I'm just like lightning; I never strike twice in the same
+place. That's the reason I get into so many different kinds of scrapes.
+I'll be ever so careful, though, if you'll let me borrow Percival just
+this one time."
+
+Mrs. Mercer, however, refused to part with Percival. Other mothers,
+approached by pleading Mabel, refused likewise to intrust their babies
+to her enthusiastic but heedless keeping. They knew her too well.
+
+"The thing for you to do," suggested Marjory, ostentatiously washing
+the perfectly clean faces of the four delightful small persons that she
+had been able, without any trouble at all, to borrow in Blaker Street,
+"is to find a mother that really _wants_ to get rid of her children."
+
+"Yes," said Bob Tucker, who had dropped in to deliver the basket of
+apples that Mrs. Crane had sent to her former neighbors, "you ought to
+advertise for the kind of mother that feeds her babies to crocodiles.
+Perhaps some of them have emigrated to this country and sort of miss
+the Ganges River."
+
+"You might try the orphan asylum," offered Jean, as balm for this
+wound. "It's only four blocks from here."
+
+"I have," returned Mabel, dejectedly. "I went there early this morning."
+
+"What happened?" demanded Bettie, who had just arrived with a little
+Tucker under each arm.
+
+"They said they'd let them go 'permanently to responsible parties.' I
+didn't know just exactly what that meant, so I said: 'Does that mean
+that you'll lend me a few for two hours?'"
+
+"And would they?"
+
+"Well, they didn't. They said I'd better borrow a Teddy bear."
+
+"How mean," said sympathetic Bettie. "Nevermind, I'll lend you Peter,
+this time."
+
+"Say," queried Mabel, after she had accepted Bettie's proffered
+brother, "what does 'permanently' mean?"
+
+"For keeps," explained Jean.
+
+"What are 'responsible parties'?"
+
+"Jean and Bettie and I," twinkled Marjory, "but not you."
+
+"That's good," laughed Bob, who, like Marjory, loved to tease. "But
+never mind, Mabel. After you've practised a year or two on Peter,
+who's a nuisance if there ever was one, you'll find yourself growing
+respons---- Whoop! What was that?"
+
+"That" was a sudden crash that resounded through the house. Everybody
+rushed to the kitchen. The big dish-pan that Mabel had left on the
+edge of the kitchen table was upside down on the floor. At least
+half of little Peter Tucker was under it. But the half that remained
+outside was so unmistakably alive that nobody felt very seriously
+alarmed--except Peter.
+
+"Thank goodness!" said Mabel, removing the pan, "this is just a little
+Tucker and not any Percival Mercer! Cheer up, Peter. You're not as wet
+as you think you are. There wasn't more than a quart of water in that
+pan and it was almost perfectly clean."
+
+And Peter, soothed by Mabel's reassuring tone, immediately cheered up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Rosa Marie
+
+
+NOT long after Mabel's ineffectual attempt to borrow an orphan Mrs.
+Bennett dispatched her small daughter to Lake Street to find out, if
+possible, why Mrs. Malony, the poultry woman, had failed to send the
+week's supply of fresh eggs.
+
+Now, the way to Mrs. Malony's was most interesting, particularly to a
+young person of observing habits. There were houses on only one side
+of the street and most of those were tumbling down under the weight of
+the sand that each rain carried down the hillside. But the opposite
+side of the road was even more attractive, for there one had a grassy,
+shrubby bank where one could pick all sorts of things off bushes and
+get burrs in one's stockings; a narrow stretch of pebbled beach where
+one could sometimes find an agate, and a wide basin of very shallow
+water where one could almost--but not quite--step from stone to stone
+without wetting one's feet. It was certainly an enjoyable spot. The
+distance from Mabel's home to Mrs. Malony's was very short--a matter of
+perhaps five blocks. But if a body went the longest way round, stopped
+to scour the green bank for belated blackberries, prickly hazelnuts,
+dazzling golden-rod or rare four-leaved clovers; or loitered to gather
+a dress-skirtful of stony treasures from the glittering beach, going to
+Mrs. Malony's meant a great deal more than a five blocks' journey.
+
+Just a little beyond the poultry woman's house, on the lake side of
+the straggling street, a small, but decidedly attractive point of land
+jutted waterward for perhaps two hundred feet. On this projecting point
+stood a small shanty or shack, built, as Mabel described it later,
+mostly of knot-holes. She meant, without knowing how to say it, that
+the lumber in the hut was of the poorest possible quality.
+
+On this long-to-be-remembered day, a small object moving in the
+clearing that surrounded the shack attracted Mabel's attention.
+Curiosity led her closer to investigate.
+
+"It's just as I thought!" exclaimed Mabel, peering rapturously through
+the bushes. "It's a real baby!"
+
+Sure enough! It _was_ a baby.
+
+Mabel edged closer, moving cautiously for fear of frightening her
+unexpected find. She saw a small toddler, aged somewhere between two
+and three years, roving aimlessly about the chip-strewn clearing. The
+child's round cheeks, chubby wrists, bare feet and sturdy legs were
+richly brown. A straggling fringe of jet-black hair overhung the stout
+baby's black, beadlike eyes.
+
+Near the doorway of the rickety shack a man, half French, half Indian,
+stood talking earnestly and with many gesticulations to a dark-skinned
+woman, framed by the doorway. The woman had large black eyes, shaded
+by very long black lashes. She wore her rather coarse black hair in
+two long, thick braids that hung in front of her straight shoulders.
+In spite of her dark color, her worn shoes, her ragged, untidy gown,
+she seemed to Mabel an exceedingly pretty woman. The man, too, was
+handsome, after a bold, picturesque fashion; but the woman was the more
+pleasing.
+
+Mabel approached timidly. She felt that she was intruding.
+
+"Good-morning," said she, ingratiatingly. "Is this your little boy?"
+
+"Him girl," returned the woman, with a sudden flash of white teeth
+between parted crimson lips. "Name Rosa Marie. Yes, him _ma petite_
+daughtaire. You like the looks on him, hey?"
+
+"Oh, so much," cried Mabel, impulsively. "Oh, _would_ you do me a
+favor?"
+
+"A favaire," repeated the woman, with a puzzled glance. "W'at ees a
+favaire?"
+
+"Oh, _would_ you lend your baby to me? Would you let me have her to
+play with for---- Oh, for all day?"
+
+"Here?" queried the mother, doubtfully.
+
+"No, not here. In my own home--up there, on the hill. _Could_ I keep
+her until six o'clock? I just adore babies, and she's so fat and
+cunning! Oh, please, _please_! I'd be just awfully obliged."
+
+A look of understanding flashed suddenly between the man and the woman;
+but Mabel, stooping to make friends with little Rosa Marie, did not
+observe it.
+
+"Your fodder 'ave nice house, plainty food, plainty money?" queried the
+woman, running a speculative eye over Mabel's plain but substantial
+wardrobe.
+
+"Oh yes," returned Mabel, thoughtlessly. "And besides I have a
+playhouse. That is, it isn't exactly mine, but I just about live in it
+with three other girls, and that's where I want to take Rosa Marie.
+I'll be awfully careful of her if you'll only let me take her. Oh,
+_do_ you think she'll come with me? Couldn't you _tell_ her to?"
+
+The woman, bending to look into Rosa Marie's black eyes, talked loudly
+and rapidly in some foreign tongue. The mother's voice was harsh,
+but her eyes, Mabel noticed, seemed soft and tender, and much more
+beautiful than Rosa Marie's.
+
+"Now," said the woman, turning to Mabel and speaking in broken English,
+"eef you want her, you must go at once. Go now, I tell you. Go queek,
+queek! Pull hard eef she ees drag behind. But go, I tell you, _go_!"
+
+The voice rose to an unpleasant, almost too stirring pitch that jarred
+suddenly on Mabel's nerves; but, obeying these hasty instructions, the
+little girl drew Rosa Marie out of the inclosure, led her across the
+street and lifted her to the sidewalk. Looking back from the slight
+elevation, Mabel noticed that the man was again talking earnestly and
+gesticulating excitedly; while the woman, once more framed by the
+doorway, followed, with her big black eyes, the chubby figure of Rosa
+Marie.
+
+"I'll bring her back all safe and sound," shouted Mabel, over her
+shoulder. "Don't be afraid. Good-by, until six o'clock!"
+
+Escorting Rosa Marie to Dandelion Cottage proved no light task.
+Her legs were very short, it soon became evident that she was not
+accustomed to using them for walking purposes, the way was mostly
+uphill and the little brown feet were bare. At first Mabel led, coaxed
+and encouraged with the utmost patience; but presently Rosa Marie sat
+heavily on the sidewalk and refused to rise. That is, she didn't _say_
+that she wouldn't rise. She remained sitting with such firmness of
+purpose that it seemed hopeless to attempt to break her of the habit.
+
+Mabel walked round and round her firmly seated charge in helpless
+despair. Rosa Marie and the sidewalk were one.
+
+"Want any help?" asked a friendly voice. It belonged to a large,
+freckled boy who was carrying two pails of water from the lake to one
+of the tumble-down houses.
+
+[Illustration: ROSA MARIE AND THE SIDEWALK WERE ONE.]
+
+"Yes, I do," responded Mabel, promptly. "If you could just lift this
+child high enough for me to get hold of her I think I could carry her."
+
+So the boy, setting his pails down, obligingly lifted Rosa Marie's
+solid little person, Mabel clasped the barrel-shaped body closely, and,
+after a word of thanks to the kind boy, proceeded homeward. But even
+now her troubles were not ended. By silently refusing to cuddle, Rosa
+Marie converted herself into a most uncomfortable burden. Her entire
+body was a silent protest against leaving her home.
+
+"Do make yourself soft and bunchy," pleaded Mabel, giving Rosa Marie
+sundry pokes, calculated to make her double up like a jack-knife.
+"Here, bend this way. _Haven't_ you any joints anywhere? Do hold tight
+with your arms and legs. _This_ way. Pshaw! You're just like a
+stuffed crocodile. Well, _walk_ then, if you can't hang on like a real
+child. There's one thing certain, you shan't sit down again. I s'pose
+we'll get there _sometime_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Mabel's Day
+
+
+ALMOST hopeless as it seemed at times, Mabel and the silent brown
+baby finally reached Dandelion Cottage. There they found Jean, seated
+in a chair with her lovely little cousin Anne Halliday perched like
+a pink and white blossom on the edge of the dining table before her,
+tying Anne's bewitching yellow curls with wide pink ribbons. Anne was
+a perpetual delight, for, besides being a picture during every moment
+of the long day, her ways were so quaint and so attractive that no one
+could help admiring her.
+
+Marjory, her countenance carefully arranged to depict the deepest
+sorrow, stood guard over the Marcotte twins, who, touchingly covered
+with nasturtiums, were laid out on the parlor cozy corner, awaiting
+burial. Their blue eyes blinked and their pink toes twitched; but, on
+the whole, they played their parts in a most satisfactory manner.
+
+Bettie, with two small but attractive Tucker babies clinging to her
+brief skirts, was exclaiming: "These are my jewels," when tired, dusty
+Mabel, pushing reluctant Rosa Marie before her, walked in.
+
+"For mercy's sake, what's that!" gasped Jean, sweeping Anne Halliday
+into her protecting arms.
+
+"Is--is it something the cat dragged in?" asked Marjory.
+
+"Is--_can_ it be a _real_ child?" demanded Bettie.
+
+"This," announced Mabel, with dignity, "is _my_ child. Her name is Rosa
+Marie--with all the distress on the _ee_."
+
+"The distress seems to be all over both of you," giggled Marjory.
+
+"That's just dust," explained Mabel.
+
+"Did you both roll home like a pair of barrels?" queried Jean, "or did
+the Village Improvement folks use you to dust the sidewalks?"
+
+"What's the matter with that child's complexion?" demanded Marjory. "Is
+she tanned?"
+
+"Coming home took long enough for us both to get tanned," returned
+Mabel, crossly, "but Rosa Marie's French, I guess."
+
+"French! French nothing!" exclaimed Marjory. "She's nothing but a
+little wild Indian. Look at her hair. Look at her small black eyes.
+Look at her high cheekbones. Where in the world did you get her?"
+
+Mabel explained. For once, the girls listened with the most flattering
+attention. Anne Halliday bobbed her pretty head to punctuate each
+sentence, the Tucker babies stood in silence with their mouths open,
+even the nicely laid-out Marcotte twins on the sofa sat up to hear the
+tale.
+
+"And she's all mine until six o'clock," concluded Mabel, triumphantly.
+
+"If she were mine," said Jean, "I'd give her a bath."
+
+"I'd give her two," giggled Marjory.
+
+So Mabel, assisted by Jean, Marjory, Bettie, little Anne, the two
+Tucker babies and the now very much alive Marcotte twins gave Rosa
+Marie a bath in the dish-pan. Although they changed the water as fast
+as they could heat more in the tea-kettle, although they used a whole
+bar of strong yellow soap, two teaspoonfuls of washing powder and a
+_very_ scratchy washcloth lathered with Sapolio, Rosa Marie, who bore
+it all with stolid patience, was still richly brown from head to heels,
+when she emerged from her bath.
+
+"Let's play Pocohontis!" cried Marjory, seizing the feather duster.
+"Put feathers in her hair and drape her in my brown petticoat. I'll be
+Captain John Smith in Bob Tucker's rubber boots."
+
+"You won't either," retorted Mabel, indignantly. "I guess, after I
+dragged this child all the way up here to play 'Mother' with, I'm not
+going to have her used for any old Pocohontises. She's my child, and
+I'm going to have the entire use of her while she lasts."
+
+"After all," replied Marjory, cuttingly, "I don't want her. I'm sure
+_I_ wouldn't care for any of _that_ colored children. The usual shade
+is quite good enough for me."
+
+But, while the novelty lasted and in spite of Marjory's declaration,
+Rosa Marie was a distinct success. Little Anne Halliday's cunningest
+ways and quaintest speeches went unheeded when Rosa Marie refused to
+wear shoes and stockings. She had never worn a shoe, and, without
+uttering a word, she made it plain that she had no intention of
+hampering her pudgy brown feet with the cast-off footgear of the young
+Tuckers.
+
+Neither would she wear clothes, until Jean showed her the solitary
+garment she had arrived in, now soaking in a pan of soapy water. After
+they had arrayed her in a long-sleeved apron of Anne's--it didn't go
+round, but had to be helped out with a cheese-cloth duster--it was
+evident that the unaccustomed whiteness bothered her. She was not used
+to being so remarkably stiff and clean.
+
+The Marcotte twins, again prepared for burial, quarrelled most
+engagingly as to which should be buried under the apple-tree, both
+preferring that fruitful resting-place to the barren waste under
+the snowball bush; but nobody listened because Rosa Marie was doing
+extraordinary things with her bowl of bread and milk. Having lapped the
+milk like a cat, she was deftly chasing the crumbs round the bowl with
+a greedy and experienced tongue. It was plain that Rosa Marie had no
+table manners.
+
+As for the infantile Tuckers, they were an old story. On this occasion
+they crawled into the corner cupboard and went to sleep and nobody
+missed them for a whole hour, just because Rosa Marie was emitting
+queer little startled grunts every time Marjory's best doll wailed
+"Mam-mah!" "Pap-pah!" for her benefit. There was no doubt about it,
+Rosa Marie was decidedly amusing.
+
+The day passed swiftly; much too swiftly, Mabel thought. Very much
+mothered Rosa Marie, who had obligingly consumed an amazing amount of
+milk--all, indeed, that the Cottagers had been able to procure--started
+homeward, towed by Mabel. That elated young person had declined all
+offers of company; she coveted the full glory of returning Rosa Marie
+to her rightful guardian. Mabel, indeed, was visibly swollen with
+pride. She had given the Cottagers a most unusual treat. She had not
+only surprised them by proving that she _could_ borrow a baby, but
+had kept them amused and entertained every moment of the day. It had
+certainly been a red-letter day in the annals of Dandelion Cottage.
+
+Mabel more than half expected to meet Rosa Marie's mother at the very
+first corner. The other real mothers had always seemed desirous--over
+desirous, Mabel thought--of welcoming their home-coming babies back
+to the fold; but the mother of Rosa Marie, apparently, was of a less
+grudging disposition.
+
+Mabel laboriously escorted her reluctant charge to the very door of the
+shanty without encountering any welcoming parent. The borrower of Rosa
+Marie knocked. No one came. She tried the door. It was locked.
+
+"How queer!" said Mabel. "Seems to me I'd be on hand if I had an
+engagement at exactly six o'clock. But then, I always _am_ late."
+
+Dragging an empty wooden box to the side of the house, Mabel climbed to
+the high, decidedly smudgy window and peered in.
+
+There was no one inside. There was no fire in the battered stove. The
+doors of a rough cupboard opposite the window stood open, disclosing
+the fact that the cupboard was bare. There were no bedclothes in the
+rough bunk that served for a bed; no dishes on the table; no clothing
+hanging from the hooks on the wall. Both inside and outside the house
+wore a strangely deserted aspect. It seemed to say: "Nobody lives here
+now, nobody ever did live here, nobody ever will live here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+An Unusual Evening
+
+
+MABEL looked in dismay at Rosa Marie.
+
+"Where do you s'pose your mother is?" she demanded.
+
+It was useless, however, to question Rosa Marie. That stolid young
+person was as uncommunicative as what Marjory called "the little
+stuffed Indians in the Washington Museum." The Indians to whom Marjory
+referred were made of wax. Rosa Marie seemed more like a little wooden
+Indian. The countenance of little Anne Halliday changed with every
+moment; but Rosa Marie's wore only one expression. Perhaps it had only
+one to wear.
+
+"I say," said Mabel, gently shaking her small brown charge by the
+shoulders, "where does your mother usually go when she isn't home?"
+
+A surprised grunt was the only response.
+
+Rosa Marie, too suddenly released, sat heavily on the ground,
+thoughtfully scratched up the surface and filled her lap with handfuls
+of loose, unattractive earth.
+
+"Goodness! What an untidy child!" cried Mabel, snatching her up and
+shaking her, although Rosa Marie's weight made her youthful guardian
+stagger. "I wanted your mother to see you clean, for once. Here, sit
+on this stick of wood. I s'pose we'll just have to wait and wait until
+somebody comes. Well, _sit_ in the sand if you want to. I'm tired of
+picking you up."
+
+Rosa Marie's home was in rather an attractive spot. The big, quiet lake
+was smooth as glass, and every object along its picturesque bank was
+mirrored faithfully in the quiet depths. The western sky was faintly
+tinged with red. Against it the spires and tall roofs of the town stood
+out sharply; but at this quiet hour they seemed very far away.
+
+Mabel, seated on the wooden box that she had placed under the window,
+leaned back against the house and clasped her hands about her knees,
+while she gazed dreamily at the picture and listened with enjoyment to
+the faint lap of the quiet water on the pebbled beach.
+
+Both Mabel and Rosa Marie had had a busy day. Both had taken unusual
+exercise. And now all the sights and sounds were soothing, soothing.
+
+You can guess what happened. Both little girls fell asleep. Rosa Marie,
+flat on her stomach, pillowed her head on her chubby arms. Mabel's
+head, drooping slowly forward, grew heavier and heavier until finally
+it touched her knees.
+
+An hour later, the sleepy head had grown so very heavy that it pulled
+Mabel right off the box and tumbled her over in a confused, astonished
+heap on the ground.
+
+"My goodness!" gasped Mabel, still on hands and knees. "Where am I,
+anyway? Is this Saturday or Sunday? Why! It's all dark. This--this
+isn't my room--why! why! I'm outdoors! How did I get outdoors?"
+
+Mabel stood up, took a step forward, stumbled over Rosa Marie and went
+down on all-fours.
+
+"What's that!" gasped bewildered Mabel, groping with her hands. She
+felt the rough black head, the plump body, the round legs, the bare
+feet of her sleeping charge. Memory returned.
+
+"Why! It's Rosa Marie, and we're waiting here by the lake for her
+mother. It--ugh! It must be midnight!"
+
+But it wasn't. It was just exactly twenty minutes after seven o'clock
+but, with the autumn sun gone early to bed, it certainly seemed very
+much later. The house was still deserted.
+
+"I guess," said Mabel, feeling about in the dark for Rosa Marie's
+fat hand, "we'd better go home--or some place. Come, Rosa Marie, wake
+up. I'm going to take you home with me. Oh, _please_ wake up. There's
+nobody here but us. It's way in the middle of the night and there might
+be _any_thing in those awfully black bushes."
+
+But Rosa Marie, deprived of her noontide nap, slumbered on. Mabel shook
+her.
+
+"Do hurry," pleaded frightened Mabel. "I don't like it here."
+
+It was anything but an easy task for Mabel to drag the sleeping
+child to her feet, but she did it. Rosa Marie, however, immediately
+dropped to earth again. During the day she had seemed stiff; but now,
+unfortunately, she proved most distressingly limber. She seemed, in
+fact, to possess more than the usual number of joints, and discouraged
+Mabel began to fear that each joint was reversible.
+
+"Goodness!" breathed Mabel, when Rosa Marie's knees failed for the
+seventh time, "it seems wicked to shake you _very_ hard, but I've got
+to."
+
+Even with vigorous and prolonged shakings it took time to get Rosa
+Marie firmly established on her feet, and the children had walked more
+than a block of the homeward way before Rosa Marie opened one blinking
+eye under the street lamp.
+
+If it had been difficult to make the uphill journey in broad daylight
+with Rosa Marie wide awake and moderately willing, it was now a doubly
+difficult matter with that young person half or three-quarters asleep
+and most decidedly unwilling.
+
+"I wish to goodness," grumbled Mabel, stumbling along in the dark,
+"that I'd borrowed a real baby and not a heathen."
+
+The longest journey has an end. The children reached Dandelion
+Cottage at last. Mabel found the key, unlocked the door, tumbled Rosa
+Marie, clothes and all, into the middle of the spare-room bed; waited
+just long enough to make certain that the Indian baby slept; then,
+reassured by gentle, half-breed snores, Mabel, still supposing the
+time to be midnight, ran home, climbed into her own bed nearly an hour
+earlier than usual and was soon sound asleep. Her mind was too full of
+other matters to wonder why the front door was unlocked at so late an
+hour.
+
+Mrs. Bennett, dressing to go to a party, heard her daughter come in.
+
+"How fortunate!" said she. "Now I shan't have to go to Jean's
+and Marjory's and Bettie's to hunt for Mabel. She must be tired
+to-night--she doesn't often go to bed so early."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Returning Rosa Marie
+
+
+EARLY the next morning, Jean, needing her thimble to sew on a vitally
+necessary button, ran to the supposedly empty cottage to get it. Taking
+the short cut through the Tuckers' back yard she found Bettie feeding
+Billy, the seagull, one of Bob's numerous pets.
+
+"Billy always wakes everybody up crying for his breakfast," explained
+thoughtful little Bettie. "Bob's spending a week at the Ormsbees' camp,
+so I have to get up to feed Billy so father can sleep."
+
+"Why don't the other boys do it?"
+
+"Mercy! _They'd_ sleep through anything. Going to the Cottage?"
+
+"Yes, come with me," returned Jean, "while I get my thimble. It's so
+big that it almost takes two to carry it."
+
+"All right," laughed Bettie, crawling through the hole in the fence.
+
+Jean's thimble was a standing joke. A stout and prudent godmother had
+bestowed a very large one on the little girl so that Jean would be
+in no danger of outgrowing the gift. Jean was now living in hopes of
+sometime growing big enough to fit the thimble.
+
+"Why!" exclaimed Jean, after a brief search, "the key isn't under the
+doormat! Where do you s'pose it's gone?"
+
+"Here it is in the door. But how in the world did it get there? I
+locked that door myself last night and tucked the key under the mat. I
+_know_ I did."
+
+"I saw you do it," corroborated Jean.
+
+"Perhaps Marjory's inside."
+
+"It isn't Mabel, anyway. She's always the last one up."
+
+"Mercy me!" cried Bettie, who had been peeking into the different rooms
+to see if Marjory were inside. "Come here, Jean. Just look at this!"
+
+"This" was brown little Rosa Marie sitting up in the middle of the
+pink and white spare-room bed, like, as Bettie put it, a brown bee
+in the heart of a rose. Her small dark countenance was absolutely
+expressionless, so there was no way of discovering what _she_ thought
+about it all.
+
+"My sakes!" exclaimed Jean, with indignation, "that lazy Mabel never
+took her home, after all! Why! We'll have a whole band of wild Indians
+coming to scalp us right after breakfast! How _could_ she have been so
+careless. This is the worst she's done yet."
+
+"But it's just like Mabel," said Bettie, giving vent, for once, to her
+disapproval of Mabel's thoughtlessness. "She likes things ever so much
+at first. Then she simply forgets that they ever existed."
+
+"Who forgets?" demanded Mabel, bouncing in at the front door.
+
+"You," returned Jean and Bettie, with one accusing voice.
+
+"Prove it."
+
+"You forgot to take Rosa Marie home last night."
+
+"I never did. I took her every inch of the way home, stayed with her
+all alone in the dark for pretty nearly a _year_, and then had to bring
+her all the way back again, walking in her sleep. So there, now!"
+
+"But why in the world didn't you leave her with her own folks?"
+
+"Her horrid mother wasn't there. And between 'em, I didn't get any
+supper and only a little sleep."
+
+"But what are you going to do?" queried astonished Jean.
+
+"After she drinks this quart of milk," explained Mabel, "I'm going to
+take her home again."
+
+"Where did you get so much milk?" asked Bettie, suspiciously.
+
+Mabel colored furiously. "I begged it from the milkman," she confessed.
+"That's why I'm up so early. I've been sitting on our kitchen doorstep
+for two hours, waiting for him to come."
+
+Mabel spent all that day industriously returning Rosa Marie to a home
+that had locked its doors against her. No pretty, dark, French mother
+stood in the doorway. No tall, dark man wandered about the yard. No
+neighbor came from the tumbling houses across the street to explain the
+woman's puzzling absence.
+
+It proved a most tiresome day. Mabel was not only mentally weary from
+trying to solve the mystery, but physically tired also from dragging
+Rosa Marie up and down the hill between Dandelion Cottage and the
+child's deserted home. The girls went with her once, but, having
+satisfied their curiosity as to Rosa Marie's abiding-place, turned
+their attention to pleasanter tasks. Walking with Rosa Marie was too
+much like traveling with a snail. One such journey was enough.
+
+Moreover, Mabel's pride had suffered. A grinning boy, looking from
+plump Mabel's ruddy countenance to fat Rosa Marie's expressionless
+brown one, had asked wickedly:
+
+"Is that your sister? You look enough alike to be twins."
+
+After that, Mabel feared that other persons might mistake the small
+brown person for a relative of hers, or, worse yet, mistake her for an
+Indian.
+
+"Goodness me!" groaned Mabel, toiling homeward from her second trip,
+"it was hard enough to borrow a baby, but it's enough sight worse
+getting rid of one afterwards. There's one thing certain; I'll _never_
+borrow another."
+
+Late in the day Mabel thought of Mrs. Malony, the egg-woman. Perhaps
+she would know what had become of Rosa Marie's vanished mother.
+Dropping Rosa Marie inside the gate, Mabel knocked at Mrs. Malony's
+door.
+
+"The folks that lived in the shanty beyant?" asked Mrs. Malony. "Sure,
+darlint, nobody's lived there for years and years save gipsies and
+tramps and such like."
+
+"But day before yesterday--no, yesterday morning--I saw a young
+Frenchwoman----"
+
+"A black-eyed gal wid two long braids and wan small Injin? Sure, Oi
+know the wan you mane. Her man, Injin Pete, died a month ago, some two
+days after they come to the shack."
+
+"But where is she now?" asked Mabel.
+
+"Lord love ye," returned Mrs. Malony, "how wud Oi be after knowin'? She
+came and she wint, like the rest av thim."
+
+"There was a man--not a gentleman and not exactly a tramp--talking
+to her yesterday. Perhaps you know where _he_ is. I couldn't find
+_anybody_."
+
+"Depind upon it," said Mrs. Malony, easily, "she's gone wid him. She's
+Mrs. Somebody Else by now, and good riddance to the pair av thim."
+
+"But," objected Mabel, drawing the branches of a small shrub aside and
+disclosing Rosa Marie sprawling on the ground behind it, "she left her
+baby."
+
+"The Nation, she did!" gasped Mrs. Malony, for once surprised out of
+her serenity. "Wud ye think of thot, now!"
+
+"I've _been_ thinking of it," returned Mabel, miserably. "And I don't
+know what in the world to do. You see, she left the baby with _me_."
+
+"Take her home wid ye," advised Mrs. Malony, hastily; so hastily that
+it looked as if the Irishwoman feared that _she_ might be asked to
+mother Rosa Marie. "I'll kape an eye on the shack for ye. If that
+good-for-nothin' black-haired wan comes back, Oi'll be up wid the news
+in two shakes of a dead lamb's tail, so Oi will. In the mane toime, be
+a mother to thot innocent babe yourself. She needs wan if iver a choild
+did."
+
+"I've been that for two whole days now," groaned Mabel.
+
+"Thot's right, thot's right," encouraged Mrs. Malony. "Ye were just
+cut out for thot same. Good luck go wid ye."
+
+Rosa Marie spent a second night in the spare room of Dandelion Cottage.
+She, at least, seemed utterly indifferent as to her fate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Dark Secret
+
+
+THE four Cottagers sat in solemn conclave round the dining-room table
+next morning. Rosa Marie, flat on her stomach on the floor, lapped milk
+like a cat and licked the bowl afterwards; but now no one paid the
+slightest attention.
+
+"I think," said Jean, removing her elbows from the table, "that we'd
+better tell our mothers and Aunty Jane all about it at once. They'll
+know what to do."
+
+"So do I," said Marjory.
+
+"So do I," echoed Bettie.
+
+"_I_ don't," protested Mabel, whose hitherto serene countenance now
+showed signs of great anxiety. "If you ever tell _anybody_, I'll--I'll
+never speak to you again. This joke--if it _is_ a joke--is on _me_. I
+got into this scrape and it's _my_ scrape."
+
+"But," objected Jean, "we always do tell our mothers everything. That's
+why they trust us to play all by ourselves in Dandelion Cottage."
+
+"Give me just a few days," pleaded Mabel. "Perhaps that woman got kept
+away by some accident. I'm sure Rosa Marie's mother has mother feelings
+inside of her, _some_ place--I saw 'em in her face when I was leading
+Rosa Marie away. I _know_ she'll come back. Until she does, I'll take
+care of that poor deserted child myself."
+
+"It's a blessing she never cries, anyway," observed Bettie. "If she
+were a howling child I don't know _what_ we'd do. As it is, she's not
+_much_ more trouble than a Teddy bear."
+
+If Mrs. Mapes hadn't had a missionary box in her cellar to pack for
+Reservation Indians of assorted sizes and shapes with the cast-off
+garments of all Lakeville; if Mrs. Bennett had not been exceedingly
+busy with a seamstress getting ready to go out of town for an
+important visit; if Aunty Jane had not been even busier trying to make
+green tomato pickles out of ripe tomatoes; if Mrs. Tucker had not been
+too anxious about the throats of the youngest three Tuckers to give
+heed to the doings of the larger members of her family, these four good
+women would surely have discovered that something unusual was taking
+place under the Cottage roof. As it was, not one of the mothers, not
+even sharp Aunty Jane, discovered that the Cottagers were borrowing an
+amazing amount of milk from their respective refrigerators.
+
+The novelty worn off, Rosa Marie became a heavy burden to at least
+three of the Cottagers' tender consciences. Mabel's conscience may have
+troubled her, but not enough to be noticed by a pair of moderately
+careless parents. Mabel, however, grew more and more attached to Rosa
+Marie; the others did not. To tell the truth, the borrowed infant was
+not an attractive child. Many small Indians are decidedly pretty, but
+Rosa Marie was not. Her small eyes were too close together, her upper
+lip was much too long for the rest of her countenance and her large
+mouth turned sharply down at the corners. But loyal Mabel was blind
+to these defects. She saw only the babyish roundness of Rosa Marie's
+body, the cunning dimples in her elbows and the affectionate gleam that
+sometimes showed in the small black eyes. But then, it was always Mabel
+who found beauty in the stray dogs and cats that no one else would
+have on the premises. During these trying days the Cottagers _almost_
+quarreled.
+
+"That child is all cheeks," complained Marjory, petulantly. "They
+positively hang down. Do you suppose we're giving her too much milk?
+She's disgustingly fat, and she hasn't any figure."
+
+"She has altogether too much figure," declared Jean, almost crossly. "I
+fastened this little petticoat around what I _thought_ was her waist
+and it slid right off. So now I've got to make buttonholes. Such a
+nuisance!"
+
+"Pity you can't use tacks and a hammer," giggled Marjory.
+
+The clothing of Rosa Marie had presented another distressing problem.
+She owned absolutely nothing in the way of a wardrobe. The single,
+unattractive garment she had worn on her arrival had not survived the
+girls' attempts to wash it. They had left it boiling on the stove, the
+water had cooked off and the faded gingham had cooked also.
+
+To make up for this accident, all four of the Cottagers had contributed
+all they could find of their own cast-off garments; but these of course
+were much too large without considerable making over.
+
+"If," said Jean, reproachfully, as she took a large tuck in the
+grown-up stocking that she was trying to re-model for Rosa Marie,
+"you'd only let me tell my mother, she'd give us every blessed thing
+we need. One live little Indian in the hand ought to be worth more to
+her than a whole dozen invisible ones on a way-off Reservation; and you
+know she's always doing things for _them_."
+
+"Jeanie Mapes!" threatened Mabel, "if you tell her, that's the very
+last breath I'll ever speak to you."
+
+"I'll be good," sighed Jean, "but I just hate _not_ telling her. And
+this horrid stocking is _still_ too long."
+
+"Button it about her neck," giggled Marjory, who flatly declined to do
+any sewing for Rosa Marie. "That'll take up the slack and save making
+her a shirt."
+
+"Don't bother about stockings," said Bettie, fishing a round lump from
+her blouse. "Here's a pair of old ones that I found in the rag bag.
+One's black and the other's tan; but they're exactly the right size and
+that's _something_."
+
+"What's the use," demurred Marjory. "She won't wear them."
+
+"If Rosa Marie were about eight shades slimmer," said Jean, "I could
+easily get some of Anne Halliday's dear little dresses--her mother gave
+my mother a lot day before yesterday for that Reservation box; but
+goodness! You'd have to sew two of them together sideways to get them
+around _that_ child."
+
+"She _is_ awfully thick," admitted Mabel.
+
+Yet, after all, dressing Rosa Marie was not exactly a hardship. Indeed,
+it is probable that the difficulties that stood in the way made the
+task only so much the more interesting; then, of course, dressing a
+real child was much more exciting than making garments for a mere doll.
+
+Whenever the Cottagers spoke of Rosa Marie outside the Cottage they
+referred to her as the D. S. D. S. stood for "Dark Secret." This seemed
+singularly appropriate, for Rosa Marie was certainly dark and quite as
+certainly a most tremendous secret--a far larger and darker secret than
+the troubled girls cared to keep, but there seemed to be no immediate
+way out of it.
+
+Fortunately, the stolid little "D. S." was amiable to an astonishing
+degree. She never cried. Also, she "stayed put." If Mabel stood her in
+the corner she stayed there. If she were tucked into bed, there she
+remained until some one dragged her out. She spent her days rolling
+contentedly about the Cottage floor, her nights in deep, calm slumber.
+Never was there a youngster with fewer wants. Teaching Rosa Marie to
+talk furnished the Cottagers with great amusement. The round brown
+damsel very evidently preferred grunts to words; but she was always
+willing to grunt obligingly when Mabel or the others insisted.
+
+"Say, 'This little pig went to market,'" Mabel would prompt.
+
+"Eigh, ugh, ugh, ee, ee, _ee_, hee!" Rosa Marie would grunt.
+
+Then, when everybody else laughed her very hardest, Rosa Marie's grim
+little mouth would relax to show for an instant the row of white teeth
+that Mabel scrubbed industriously many times a day. This rare smile
+made the borrowed baby almost attractive. But not to Marjory. From the
+first, Marjory regarded her with strong disapproval.
+
+Fortunately for Mabel's secret, little Anne Halliday, the Marcotte
+twins and the two Tucker babies were too small to tell tales out of
+school, so in spite of sundry narrow escapes, Rosa Marie remained as
+dark a secret as one's heart could desire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Discovery
+
+
+SCHOOL began the first day of October--fortunately, repairs to the
+building had delayed the opening. And there was Rosa Marie still on the
+Cottagers' hands, still a dark and undivulged secret. In the meantime,
+Mabel had paid many a visit to Mrs. Malony, who for reasons of her own
+had kept silence about the borrowed baby. Probably she felt that Mrs.
+Bennett would blame her for advising Mabel to harbor the deserted child.
+
+"No, darlint," Mrs. Malony would say, encouragingly. "Oi ain't exactly
+_seen_ her, but she'll be back prisintly, she'll be back prisintly--Oh,
+most anny toime, now. Just do be waitin' patient and you'll see me
+come walkin' in most anny foine day wid yon blackhaired lass at me
+heels an' full to the eyes of her wid gratichude. Anny day at all, Miss
+Mabel."
+
+Buoyed by this hope, Mabel had waited from day to day, hoping for
+speedy deliverance. And now, school!
+
+"We'll just have to get excused for part of each day," said Marjory,
+always good at suggesting remedies. "Last year, all my recitations came
+in the morning; perhaps they will again. Then, if one of you others
+could do all your reciting during the afternoon we could manage it."
+
+The year previously Mabel had been obliged to spend many a half-hour
+after school, making up neglected lessons. Now, however, she studied
+furiously. If she failed frequently it was only because she couldn't
+help making absurd blunders; it was never for lack of study. In this
+one way, at least, Rosa Marie proved beneficial.
+
+The united efforts of all four made it possible for Rosa Marie to
+possess a more or less unwilling guardian for all but one hour during
+the forenoon. It grieves one to confess it, but Rosa Marie spent that
+solitary hour securely strapped to the leg of the dining-room table;
+but, stolid as ever, she did not mind that.
+
+It was there that Aunty Jane discovered her, the second week in
+October. Aunty Jane had missed her best saucepan. Rightly suspecting
+that Marjory had carried it off to make fudge in, she hurried to the
+Cottage, discovered the key under the door-mat, opened the door and
+walked in.
+
+Rosa Marie was grunting. "Eigh, ugh, ugh, ee, ee, _ee_, hee!" to her
+own bare brown toes.
+
+"For mercy's sake! What's that?" gasped Aunty Jane, with a terrified
+start. "There's some sort of an animal in this house."
+
+Arming herself with the broken umbrella that stood in the mended
+umbrella jar in the front hall, Aunty Jane peered cautiously into
+the dining-room. The "animal" turned its head to blink with mild,
+expressionless curiosity at Aunty Jane.
+
+"My soul!" ejaculated that good lady, "what are you, anyway?"
+
+The pair blinked at each other for several moments.
+
+"Are--are you a _baby_?" demanded Aunty Jane.
+
+No response from Rosa Marie.
+
+"What," asked Aunty Jane, cautiously drawing closer, "is your name?"
+
+Still no response.
+
+"Who tied you to that table?"
+
+Silence on Rosa Marie's part.
+
+"I'm going straight after Mrs. Mapes," declared Aunty Jane, retreating
+backwards in order to keep a watchful eye on the queer object under the
+table. "I might have known that those enterprising youngsters would be
+up to _something_, if I gave my whole mind to pickles."
+
+Excited Aunty Jane collected not only Mrs. Mapes, but Mrs. Tucker and
+Mrs. Bennett, before she returned to the Cottage. And then, the three
+mothers and Aunty Jane sat on the floor beside Rosa Marie and asked
+questions; useless questions, because Rosa Marie licked the table-leg
+bashfully but yielded no other reply.
+
+This lasted for nearly half an hour. And then, school being out and the
+four Cottagers discovering their front door wide open, Jean, Bettie,
+Marjory and Mabel, all sorts of emotions tugging at their hearts,
+rushed breathlessly in. On beholding their mothers and Aunty Jane,
+they, too, turned suddenly bashful and leaned, speechless, against the
+Cottage wall.
+
+"Whose child is that?" demanded all four of the grown-ups, in concert.
+
+"Mine," replied Mabel.
+
+"Mabel's," responded the other three, with disheartening promptness.
+
+"What!" gasped the parents and Aunty Jane.
+
+"I borrowed her," explained Mabel, "so she's _mostly_ mine."
+
+"She's spending the day here, I suppose," said Mrs. Mapes.
+
+"Ye-es," faltered Mabel. Marjory giggled, and Mabel turned crimson.
+
+"I hope," said Mrs. Bennett, severely, "that you're not thinking of
+keeping her all night."
+
+"I--I--we--" faltered Mabel, "we--we sort of did."
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Bennett, not knowing how very late she was, "I
+guess we've come just in time. Mabel, put that child's things on and
+take her home at once."
+
+"I can't," replied Mabel.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"She hasn't any home."
+
+"No home!"
+
+"No. It's--it's run away."
+
+"What! That baby?"
+
+"No," stammered Mabel, "that baby's home. Not--not the house. Just her
+mother. She--she--Oh, she'll be back, _some_ day."
+
+"Mabel Bennett!" demanded Mrs. Bennett, suspecting something of the
+truth, "how long have you had that child here?"
+
+"Not--Oh, not so _very_ long," evaded Mabel.
+
+"Mabel," demanded her mother, "tell me, instantly, exactly how long?"
+
+"About--yes, just about five weeks."
+
+"Five weeks!" gasped Mrs. Bennett.
+
+"Five _weeks_!" shrieked Mrs. Tucker.
+
+"Five weeks!" groaned Mrs. Mapes.
+
+"Fi--ve weeks!" cried Aunty Jane.
+
+"It'll be five to-morrow," said Bettie.
+
+"No, the day after," corrected Marjory.
+
+For the next few moments the mothers and Aunty Jane were too astounded
+for further speech. The girls, too, had nothing to say. All four of the
+Cottagers kept their eyes on the floor, for they knew precisely what
+their elders were thinking.
+
+"Jean," began Mrs. Mapes, reproachfully.
+
+"I--I _wanted_ to tell," stammered Jean.
+
+"I wouldn't let her," defended Mabel, looking up. "They _all_ wanted to
+tell, but I wouldn't let them. Truly, they did, Mrs. Mapes."
+
+"But five whole weeks!" murmured Mrs. Bennett. "I wonder that you were
+able to keep the secret so long. Why! I've been over here half a dozen
+times at least to ask for my scissors and other things that Mabel has
+carried off."
+
+"So have I," said Mrs. Mapes.
+
+"So have I," echoed Mrs. Tucker.
+
+"And so have I," added Aunty Jane, "and I've never heard a sound from
+that remarkable child."
+
+"You see," confessed Bettie, flushing guiltily, "we kept the door
+locked. Whenever we saw anybody coming we whisked Rosa Marie into the
+spare-room closet."
+
+"If Rosa Marie had been an ordinary child," explained Jean, "she would
+probably have howled; but you see, every blessed thing about us was so
+new and strange to her that she just thought that everything we did was
+all right. And anyhow, she doesn't have the same sort of feelings that
+Anne Halliday does. Anne would have cried."
+
+"You naughty, naughty children," scolded Mrs. Mapes, "to keep a secret
+like that for five whole weeks."
+
+"But, Mother," protested Jean, gently, "we never supposed it was going
+to be a five-weeks-long secret. We didn't _want_ it to be. We've been
+expecting her horrid mother to turn up every single minute since Rosa
+Marie came."
+
+"It was all my fault," declared loyal Mabel. "_They'd_ have told, the
+very first minute, if it hadn't been for me. Blame me for everything."
+
+"What," asked Mrs. Bennett, "do you intend to do with that--that
+atrocious child?"
+
+"She _isn't_ atrocious!" blazed Mabel, with sudden fire. "She's a
+perfect darling, when you get used to her, and I _love_ her. She isn't
+so very pretty, I know, but she's just dear. She's good, and that--and
+that's--Why! You've said, yourself, that it was better to be good than
+beautiful."
+
+"But what do you intend to do with her?" persisted Mrs. Bennett.
+
+"Keep her," said Mabel, firmly. "She doesn't eat anything much but milk
+and sample packages."
+
+"You can't. I won't have her in my house. Why! Her parents are probably
+dreadful people."
+
+"That's why she ought to have me for a mother and you for a
+grandmother," pleaded Mabel, earnestly. "But if you don't like her,
+I'll keep her here."
+
+"But you can't, Mabel. It's so cold that there ought to be a fire here
+this minute, and you can't possibly leave a child alone with a fire."
+
+"Couldn't _you_ take her, Mrs. Mapes?" pleaded Mabel.
+
+"No, I'm afraid I couldn't. If she were the least bit lovable----"
+
+"Oh, she _is_----"
+
+"Not to me," returned Mrs. Mapes, firmly.
+
+"Wouldn't _you_ take her, Mrs. Tucker?"
+
+"What! With all the family I have now? I couldn't think of such a
+thing."
+
+"Then you," begged Mabel, turning to Aunty Jane. "There's only you and
+Marjory in that great big house. Oh, _do_ take her."
+
+"Mercy! I'd just as soon undertake to board a live bear! Why! Nobody
+wants a child of _that_ sort around. She's as homely----"
+
+"I'm extremely glad," said Mabel, with much dignity and a great deal of
+emphasis, "that _my_ child doesn't understand grown-up English."
+
+"Perhaps," said Mrs. Mapes, smiling with sympathetic understanding,
+"we four older people had better talk this matter over by ourselves.
+Suppose you walk home with me.
+
+"_I_ think," said Aunty Jane, forgetting all about the saucepan that
+had led her to the Cottage, "that the orphan asylum is the place for
+that unspeakable child."
+
+"Yes," agreed Mrs. Bennett, "she'll certainly have to go to the
+asylum."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The Fugitive Soldier
+
+
+THE Cottage door closed behind the three excited parents and Aunty
+Jane. The four Cottagers, all decidedly pale and subdued, looked at one
+another in silence. It is one thing to confess a fault; it is quite
+another to be ignominiously found out. Jean and Bettie and Marjory
+were feeling this very keenly; but Mabel was far more troubled at the
+prospect of losing Rosa Marie.
+
+"The orphan asylum!" breathed Bettie, at length.
+
+"It's wicked," blazed Mabel, "to make an orphan of a person that isn't."
+
+"I've heard," said Marjory, reflectively, "that orphans have to eat
+fried liver."
+
+"Horrors!" gasped Mabel.
+
+"And codfish."
+
+"Oh _horrors_!" moaned Mabel, who detested both liver and codfish.
+
+"And prunes," pursued teasing Marjory, wickedly remembering Mabel's
+dislike for that wholesome but insipid fruit. The prunes proved
+entirely too much for Mabel.
+
+"Pup--pup--prunes!" she sobbed. "And you stand there and don't do a
+thing to save her! I guess if I were Eliza escaping with my baby on
+cakes of ice----"
+
+"Rosa Marie's about the right color," giggled Marjory, who could not
+resist so fine an opportunity to tease excitable Mabel.
+
+"You'd all be glad enough to help, but when it's just me----"
+
+"Oh, we'll help," soothed Jean, slipping an arm about Mabel. "You know
+we always do stand by you."
+
+"Yes, we'll all help," promised Bettie, "if you'll just tell us what to
+do. Only _please_ don't get us into any more trouble with our mothers."
+
+"There's the cellar," suggested Mabel, doubtfully, yet with
+glimmerings of hope. "I read a story once about a lady who sat on a
+cellar door, knitting stockings."
+
+"Why in the world," demanded Marjory, "did she sit on the door?"
+
+"Some soldiers were hunting for an escaped prisoner and she had him
+hidden there."
+
+"Was the cellar all horrid with old papers and rats and mice and
+spiders and crawly things with legs?" asked Bettie, with interest.
+
+"I hope not," shuddered Mabel, "but a soldier wouldn't mind. Dear me, I
+wish we'd cleaned that cellar when we first came into the Cottage. If
+we had, it'd be just the place to hide Rosa Marie in."
+
+"Perhaps it isn't too late, now," said Marjory, stooping to loosen the
+ring in the kitchen floor. "Let's look down there, anyway."
+
+"Let's," agreed Bettie. "It'll be something to do, at least."
+
+Everybody helped with the door. When it was open and propped against
+the kitchen stove, the four girls crouched down to peer into the depths
+below. Even Rosa Marie, who had been released from the table-leg, crept
+to the edge to look.
+
+They were not very deep depths. The place was filled with rubbish,
+mostly old papers and broken pasteboard boxes; but it was perfectly
+dry, and clean except for a thick layer of dust.
+
+"Let's clean it out," said Mabel, recklessly grasping an armful of
+dusty papers and dragging them forth.
+
+"Phew!" exclaimed Jean, tumbling back from the hole. "Er--er--er hash!"
+
+"Oh, ki--_hash_! Hoo!" blubbered Bettie, likewise tumbling backwards.
+
+"Who-is-she, who-is-she," sneezed Marjory.
+
+"Kerchoo, kerchoo, kerchoo!" sneezed Rosa Marie, her head bobbing with
+each sneeze. "Kerchoo, kerchoo!"
+
+"It's pepper," explained Mabel, when she had finished _her_ sneeze. "I
+spilled a lot of it the day of Mr. Black's dinner party. I didn't know
+what else to do with it, so I swept it down that biggest crack."
+
+"Goodness! What a housekeeper!" rebuked Jean, wiping her eyes.
+
+"It's good for moths," consoled Bettie. "At any rate, Rosa Marie won't
+get moth-eaten."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Mabel, hopefully, "it's driven away all the rats
+and crawly things."
+
+Working more cautiously, the girls drew forth the yellowed papers and
+pasteboard left by some former untidy occupant of the Cottage. They
+burned most of the rubbish in the kitchen stove, Jean standing guard
+lest burning pieces should escape to set fire to the Cottage. The work
+of clearing the cellar, indeed, was precisely what the girls needed,
+after the humiliating events of the day. All four were growing more
+cheerful; but they worked as swiftly as they dared, for they felt
+certain that the cellar, as a place of concealment for Rosa Marie,
+would be speedily needed.
+
+The cellar proved to be a square hole about three feet deep. When
+Mabel, who for once was doing the lion's share of the work, had swept
+the boarded floor and sides perfectly clean, it was really a very tidy,
+inviting little shelter; as neat a shelter as fugitive soldier could
+desire.
+
+"Now," said Mabel, "we'll put a piece of carpet and an old quilt in the
+bottom, tack clean papers around the sides----"
+
+"Papers rattle," offered Marjory, sagely.
+
+"Then we'll use cloth," declared Mabel, snatching an apron from the
+hook behind the door. "We'll begin right away to practise with Rosa
+Marie, so she'll get used to it. Then we must rehearse our parts, too."
+
+The retreat ready, Rosa Marie went without a murmur into the
+underground babytender--Marjory gave it that name. Rosa Marie, at
+least, would do her part successfully. But it was different above
+ground.
+
+"Who," demanded Jean, "is to sit on the door and knit? _I_
+couldn't--I'd fly to pieces."
+
+"It's my child," said Mabel, "_I'm_ going to."
+
+"But," objected Marjory, "you _can't_ knit. You don't know how."
+
+"I can crochet," triumphed Mabel, "and I guess that's every bit as
+good."
+
+"Where," asked Bettie, "is your crochet hook?"
+
+But that, of course, was a question that Mabel could not answer,
+because Mabel never did know where any of her belongings were.
+Thereupon, Jean, Marjory and Mabel began a frantic search for the
+missing article. Mabel had used it the week previously; but could
+remember nothing more about it.
+
+"Goodness!" groaned Mabel, groveling under the spare-room bed in hopes
+that the hook might be there. "If I'd dreamed that my child's life was
+going to depend on that hook, I'd have kept it locked up in father's
+fire-proof safe."
+
+"That's what you get," said Marjory, with one eye glued to the top of a
+very tall vase, "for being so careless. It isn't in here, anyway."
+
+"Here's one," announced Bettie, scrambling in hastily and locking the
+door behind her. "I skipped home for it. But there's no time to lose.
+All our mothers and Aunty Jane are going out of Mrs. Mapes's gate with
+their best hats and gloves on. There's something doing!"
+
+In another moment, the cellar door was closed, a rocking chair was
+placed upon it, and Mabel, with ball of yarn and crochet hook in hand,
+was nervously twitching in the chair. Her fingers were stiff with
+dust--there had been no time to wash them--so the loop that she tied
+in the end of the white yarn was most decidedly black; but Mabel was
+thankful to achieve a loop of any color, with her whole body quivering
+with excitement and suspense.
+
+"Goodness!" she quavered. "That soldier lady was a wonder! Think of
+her looking calm outside with her heart going like a Dover egg-beater.
+Do--do _I_ look calm?"
+
+"Here," said Bettie, extending a basin of warm water. "Soak your hands
+in this. Warm water is said to be soothing."
+
+"Also cleansing," giggled Marjory.
+
+"Hurry!" gasped quick-eared Jean, snatching the basin and hurling a
+towel in Mabel's direction. "I heard our gate click. There's somebody
+coming."
+
+"Don't let 'em in," breathed Mabel, defiantly.
+
+"I'm afraid," said Jean, "we'll have to."
+
+"Anyway," soothed Bettie, "we'll peek first--there's the door-bell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A Surprise
+
+
+JEAN and Bettie flew to one window, Marjory to the other. Mabel wanted
+to fly, too, but she remained faithfully at her post, feeling quite
+cheered by her own heroism.
+
+"It's dark gray trousers with a crease in 'em; not skirts," announced
+Marjory, peering under the edge of the shade.
+
+"Probably a man from the asylum," shuddered Bettie. "Let's keep very
+still. He may think that this is the wrong house and go somewhere else."
+
+"But," objected Jean, "he'll only come back again."
+
+"Yes," sighed Bettie. "I s'pose we will have to open the door. You do
+it, Marjory."
+
+"I don't want to," returned Marjory, unexpectedly shrinking. "It seems
+too much like giving Rosa Marie into the hands of the enemy. After
+all, we're going to miss her dreadfully and Mabel'll be just about
+broken-hearted. She _does_ get so attached to things--Oh! He's ringing
+again."
+
+"We'll have to unlock the door," sighed Jean, placing her hand on the
+key, "but dearie me, I feel just as Marjory does about it. Knit fast,
+Mabel."
+
+The key turned in the lock, but the girls did not need to open the
+door; the visitor did that. Then there were rapturous cries of "Mr.
+Black! Mr. Black!"
+
+Mabel wanted to greet Mr. Black, too, for there was nobody in the world
+that was kinder to little girls than the stout gentleman who had just
+opened their door; but she remembered that the soldier lady (in spite
+of the Dover egg-beater heart) had remained seated, placidly knitting;
+so Mabel likewise sat still and plied her crochet hook.
+
+"Hi, hi!" exclaimed Mr. Black. "What are you all locked in for? And
+here I had to ring four times when I came with a present--apples right
+off the top of my own barrel. Began to be afraid I'd have to eat them
+all myself, you were so long letting me in."
+
+"If we'd guessed that it was you and apples," said Marjory, "we'd have
+met you at the gate."
+
+"Where's the other girl?" asked Mr. Black's big, cheery voice. "Doesn't
+she like apples, too?"
+
+"In the kitchen," chorused Jean, Marjory and Bettie.
+
+"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Black, striding kitchenward, "here she is,
+knitting like any old lady. Aren't you coming in here to eat apples
+with the rest of us?"
+
+"Can't," mumbled Mabel.
+
+"What's the matter, grandma?" teased Mr. Black. "Rheumatism troubling
+you to-day?"
+
+"Nope," returned Mabel.
+
+"Lost all your teeth?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Are you knitting me a pair of socks or is it mittens?"
+
+"Just a chain," replied Mabel, suddenly beaming. "But, Mr. Black, does
+it really look as if I were knitting?"
+
+"Precisely," smiled Mr. Black. "So much so that you remind me of the
+story of the woman who sat on the trap door and knitted--By Jove! That
+_is_ a trap door! Here's the ring sticking up."
+
+The girls shot a quick glance at the floor. Then they gazed guiltily at
+one another. Sure enough! The tell-tale ring stood upright, ready for
+use. No one had thought to conceal it.
+
+"Is there a wounded soldier down there?" asked Mr. Black, jokingly.
+
+"No!" shouted all four with suspicious haste.
+
+The deep silence that followed was suddenly punctuated by a muffled
+sneeze from Rosa Marie. Undoubtedly, some of the pepper dislodged from
+the crack in the floor had sifted down to the prisoner.
+
+The faces of the four girls flushed guiltily. Mr. Black looked
+wonderingly at the little group. It was plain that something was wrong.
+Jean, who had always met her friend's glance with level, truthful eyes,
+was now looking most sheepishly at her own toes. Bettie, hitherto
+always ready to tell the whole truth, was now fiddling evasively with
+the corner of her apron. Marjory's fair skin was crimson; her usually
+frank blue eyes were intent on something under the kitchen table.
+
+"Is there some sort of an animal in that cellar?" demanded Mr. Black.
+
+Rosa Marie chose this moment to give another large sneeze.
+
+"Is it something you're afraid of?" demanded Mr. Black.
+
+"'Fraid of losing," mumbled Mabel, shamefacedly. Poor Mabel realized
+only too well that she, with her knitting and her too-perfect playing
+of the part, had given the secret away; and she felt all the bitterness
+of failure.
+
+Seizing the back of Mabel's chair, Mr. Black drew it swiftly off the
+trap door. In another moment, he had the door open.
+
+Rosa Marie, blinking at the sudden light, bobbed upward. Mr. Black
+involuntarily started back from the opening.
+
+"What under heavens is that!" he gasped. "A monkey?"
+
+And, indeed, the error was a perfectly natural one, for all he had been
+able to see was a tousled head of hair, beneath which gleamed small
+black eyes.
+
+"I should say not!" blazed Mabel. "It's my little girl--my Rosa Marie."
+
+"Does she bite? Is she dangerous? Is that why you treat her like
+potatoes?"
+
+"Most certainly not," returned Mabel, with dignity. "She's an Indian."
+
+"Bless me!" said Mr. Black, leaning cautiously forward. "Let's have a
+look at her."
+
+Now that the secret was out, everybody eagerly clutched some portion of
+Rosa Marie's clothing. She was drawn, with some difficulty and sundry
+tearings of cloth, from the "Soldier's Retreat." Mabel cuddled the
+blinking small person in her lap.
+
+"Did you pick her up in the woods?" asked Mr. Black, "or did you simply
+kidnap her? Or, dreadful thought! Did you order her by number from some
+catalogue? And did they charge you full price?"
+
+Then Mabel, helped by the other three, told all that they knew of the
+history of Rosa Marie; and of Mabel's affection for the queer brown
+baby. They told him everything. Mabel, with visions of the orphan
+asylum's doors yawning to engulf precious Rosa Marie, considered it
+a very sad story. She felt grieved and indignant because Mr. Black,
+instead of sympathizing, laughed until his sides shook. Even the
+pathetic diet of liver, codfish and prunes seemed to amuse him.
+
+"What would you have said if your mothers had asked you where this
+child was?" inquired Mr. Black presently. "I mean, when you had her
+down cellar?"
+
+Jean looked at Bettie, Bettie looked at Marjory, Marjory looked at
+Mabel.
+
+"We never thought of that," confessed Bettie.
+
+"Oh," groaned Mabel, holding Rosa Marie closer, "our plan isn't any
+good after all. We'd have to tell the truth if they asked; we always
+do."
+
+"Yes," said Jean, "they'd get it out of us at once."
+
+"Even," teased Marjory, shrewdly, "if Mabel, sitting upon that trap
+door, were not every bit as good as a printed sign."
+
+"Never mind," soothed Jean, slipping an arm about Mabel's shoulders,
+"we'd rather be honest than smart, since we can't be both."
+
+Mabel needed soothing. She sat still and made no sound; but large
+tears were rolling down her cheeks and splashing on Rosa Marie's
+black head. Mr. Black regarded them thoughtfully. He noticed too that
+Mabel's moderately white hand was closed tightly over Rosa Marie's
+brown fingers. It reminded him, some way, of his own youthful agony
+over parting with a puppy that he had not been allowed to keep--he had
+always regretted that puppy.
+
+Suddenly the front door, propelled by some unseen force, opened from
+without to admit the three mothers and Aunty Jane, followed closely by
+Mr. Tucker, Dr. Bennett and two young women in nurses' uniform. They
+crowded into the little parlor and filled it to overflowing. None of
+the Cottagers said a word; but Mabel, tears still rolling down her
+cheeks, silently clasped both arms tightly about Rosa Marie's body. It
+began to look as if Rosa Marie would have to be taken by force.
+
+"It's all arranged," announced Mrs. Bennett, breathlessly. "The asylum
+is willing to take her and she is to go at once with these young
+ladies. Come, Mabel, don't be foolish. Take your arms away. You're
+behaving very badly--There, there, I'll buy you something."
+
+"You're just a little too late," said Mr. Black, keeping watchful
+eyes on Mabel's speaking countenance. "I've decided to take the
+responsibility of Rosa Marie into my own hands."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Breaking the News
+
+
+WHEN Mr. Black went home that afternoon to explain the matter to
+his good sister, Mrs. Crane, he took with him not only Rosa Marie,
+but Jean, Marjory, Bettie and Mabel, whose parents had given them
+permission to escort the brown baby to her new home.
+
+"You see," said he, while waiting for Rosa Marie to be made somewhat
+more attractive, "I want you to tell the story to Mrs. Crane, precisely
+as you told it to me. But don't mention _me_ until you get to the very
+end."
+
+With her hair brushed and braided and her fat little body stuffed into
+a pink gingham apron that the Cottagers had laboriously cut down from
+a wrapper of Mrs. Halliday's, Rosa Marie looked her best, in spite of
+the fact that she wore no shoes and stockings. She trotted contentedly
+at Mabel's side; but Bettie, who was supposed to be walking with Mr.
+Black, pranced delightedly about him in circles, to show her gratitude.
+Jean and Marjory followed more sedately but with beaming countenances.
+
+Now that Mrs. Crane was no longer poor, she was always dressed very
+neatly in black silk. Except for that she was precisely the same jolly,
+good-natured woman that she had been when she lived alone in the little
+house just across the street from Dandelion Cottage. Now, however, she
+lived with her brother, Mr. Black, in his big, imposing, but rather
+gloomy house. She had no husband, he had no wife and neither had any
+children. Perhaps that is why they were both so fond of the Dandelion
+Cottagers.
+
+Mrs. Crane was planting bulbs in the garden when Mr. Black ushered his
+procession in at the gate.
+
+"Bless my soul!" said she, "here you are just in time to help. I
+always said that if ever I got a chance to plant all the tulip bulbs I
+wanted, I'd die of pure happiness; but I guess I stand _more_ chance
+of dying of a broken back. My land! I've planted two thousand three
+hundred and forty-eight of the best-looking bulbs I ever laid eyes
+on, and there ain't a hole in those boxes yet. They're all named,
+too. Here's Rachel Ruish, Rose Grisdelin, Rosy Mundi, Yellow Prince,
+the Duke of York--think of having _him_ in your front yard--and Lady
+Grandison, two inches apart, clear to the gate. But land! I suppose a
+body's tongue'd go lame counting _diamonds_."
+
+"Why don't you let Martin plant them?" asked Mr. Black, with a twinkle
+in his eye. It was plain that he enjoyed his talkative elderly sister.
+
+"And have them all bloom in China?" retorted Mrs. Crane. "Now you know,
+Peter, that Martin couldn't get a bulb right end up if there were
+printed directions on the skin of every bulb. But Jean there, and
+Bettie----"
+
+"We'll do it," cried the girls. "Just tell us how."
+
+"Two inches apart, pointed end up, all the way along those little
+trenches," directed Mrs. Crane, seating herself in the wheelbarrow.
+"No, not _you_, Mabel. You and Martin--Well, I won't _say_ it. Why!
+What's the matter with your face? Looks to me as if you'd dusted the
+coal bin with yourself and then cried about it. What's the trouble?"
+
+Thereupon Mabel introduced Rosa Marie, who had been shyly hiding behind
+a rosebush, told her story and graphically described the horrors of the
+orphan asylum.
+
+"While I don't believe that any orphan asylum is as black as you've
+painted that one," said Mrs. Crane, "it does seem a pity to shut a
+little outdoor animal like that up in a cage when she ain't used to it.
+Now, Peter, you listen to me. Why couldn't _we_ keep Rosa Marie here
+for a time. Like enough, her mother'll be back after her most any day.
+In the meantime, she'd be more company than a cat and easier to wash
+than a poodle."
+
+"Well now, I don't know," returned Mr. Black, winking at Mabel. "A
+child is a great deal of trouble."
+
+"Shame on you, Peter Black. It's only yesterday that you bought a
+wretched old horse to keep his owner from ill-treating him; and here
+you are refusing----"
+
+"Oh, not exactly refusing----"
+
+"Begrudging, anyway, to rescue that innocent lamb----"
+
+"She means black sheep," whispered Marjory, into Jean's convenient ear.
+
+"From that institution. Peter Black! I'm just going to keep that child,
+anyway."
+
+At this, all five laughed merrily. Rosa Marie, cheered by the sound,
+reached gravely into a paper bag, gravely handed each person a tulip
+bulb and appropriated one herself. She took a generous bite out of
+hers.
+
+"We'll plant 'em in a ring around that snowball bush," said Mrs. Crane,
+rescuing the bitten bulb, bite and all. "That shall be Rosa Marie's own
+flower bed."
+
+"There's a nursery on the second floor," said Mr. Black. "You girls
+must help us fix it up. And, Mabel, perhaps _you_ would like to spend
+this money for some toys that would just exactly suit Rosa Marie."
+
+Mabel beamed gratefully as she accepted the money and the
+responsibility. Never before had any one singled her out to perform
+a task that required discretion. It was always Jean, or Bettie, or
+sometimes even Marjory that was chosen. Never before had greatness
+been thrust upon Mabel. She lavished grateful, affectionate glances on
+Mr. Black and inwardly determined to save part of the cash with which
+to buy him a Christmas present, not realizing that that would be a
+misappropriation of funds.
+
+Mabel, however, felt a pang of jealousy when Rosa Marie, digging
+contentedly in the sand at Mrs. Crane's feet, allowed her former
+guardian to depart absolutely unnoticed.
+
+"I _did_ think," confided Mabel to Bettie, who walked beside her, "that
+she'd at least _look_ as if she cared."
+
+That night the mothers made peace with their daughters, and Aunty Jane
+extended a flag of truce to Marjory.
+
+"It was all for your own good," explained Mrs. Bennett, her arm about
+Mabel, who was missing the pleasant task of putting Rosa Marie to bed.
+"I couldn't let you grow up with a little Indian continually at your
+heels. You'd have grown tired of her, too. And by keeping silence so
+long, you did a great deal of harm. If we'd known about the matter at
+once, we might have been able to find her mother. Now it's too late."
+
+"I never thought of that," said Mabel, contritely. "I'll tell right
+away, next time."
+
+"Mabel! There mustn't _be_ a next time. Promise me this instant that
+you'll never borrow another baby unless you know that its mother really
+wants to keep it. Promise."
+
+"All right, I promise," said Mabel, cheerfully.
+
+"But I _can't_ think," remarked Mrs. Bennett, "what possessed Mr. Black
+to be so foolish as to take such a child into his own home."
+
+There were other persons that wondered, too, why Mr. Black should
+burden his household with the care of what Martin, his man, called
+an uncivilized savage; but the truth of the matter was just this.
+The large silent tears rolling down Mabel's forlorn countenance had
+suddenly proved too much for the tender heart of Mr. Black. In some
+ways, perhaps, impulsive Mr. Black was not a wise man; but, where
+children were concerned, there was no doubt of his being an exceedingly
+tender person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Alarm
+
+
+NOW that the burden of caring for Rosa Marie was shifted to older and
+more competent shoulders, the Cottagers' thoughts returned to their
+school-work. It was time. Never had lessons been so neglected. Never
+before had four moderately intelligent little girls seemed so stupid.
+But of course with their minds filled with Rosa Marie, it had been
+impossible to keep the rivers of South America from lightmindedly
+running over into Asia, or the products of British Columbia from being
+exported from Calcutta.
+
+These fortunate girls attended a beautiful school. That is, the
+building was beautiful. It stood right in the middle of a great big
+grassy block, entirely surrounded, as Bettie put it, by street, which
+of course added greatly to its dignity. It was built of "raindrop"
+sandstone, a most interesting building material because no two blocks
+were alike and also because each stone looked as if it had just been
+sprinkled with big, spattering drops of rain. It was hard when looking
+at it to believe that it wasn't raining, and certain naughty youngsters
+delighted in fooling new teachers by pointing out the deceiving drops
+that flecked the balustrade. Perhaps even the grass was fooled by this
+semblance to showers for, in summer time, it grew so thriftily that
+no one had to be warned to "Keep off," so a great many little people
+frolicked in the schoolyard even during vacation.
+
+Of course the Dandelion Cottagers were not in the same classes in
+school. Jean, being the oldest, the most sedate and the most studious,
+was almost through the eighth grade. Marjory, being naturally very
+bright and also moderately industrious, was in the seventh. Mabel and
+Bettie were not exactly anywhere. You see, Bettie had had to stay out
+so often to keep the next to the youngest Tucker baby from falling
+downstairs, that naturally she had dropped behind all the classes that
+she had ever started with; and Mabel--of course Mabel _meant_ well,
+but when she studied at all it was usually the lesson for some other
+day; for this blundering maiden never _could_ remember which was the
+right page. But one day she happened by some lucky accident to stumble
+upon the right one, and on that solitary occasion she recited so very
+brilliantly that Miss Bonner and all the pupils dropped their books to
+listen in astonishment, and Mabel was marked one hundred.
+
+But in spite of this high mark in good black ink (if one stood less
+than seventy-five red ink was employed) the thing did not happen
+again that fall because Mabel was too busy bringing up Rosa Marie to
+study even the wrong lesson. However, she was exceedingly fond of
+pretty Miss Bonner and, having learned the exact date of that young
+woman's birthday, hoped to appease her by a gift to be paid for by
+contributions from all the pupils in Miss Bonner's room. Mabel herself
+received and cared for the slowly accumulating funds, and the little
+brown purse was becoming almost as weighty a responsibility as Rosa
+Marie had been. Sometimes it rested in Mabel's untrustworthy pocket,
+sometimes in her rather untidy desk, sometimes under her pillow in her
+own room at home. One day Mrs. Bennett found it there.
+
+"Why, Mabel!" she exclaimed. "Where did all this money come from? I
+know _you_ don't possess any."
+
+"It's the M. B. B. P. F.," responded Mabel, who was brushing her hair
+with evident enjoyment and two very handsome military brushes. "I guess
+I'd better put it in my pocket."
+
+"The what?" asked puzzled Mrs. Bennett.
+
+"The Miss Bonner Birthday Present Fund. I'm the Cus--Cus--Custodium."
+
+"The what kind of cuss?" asked Dr. Bennett, who had just poked his head
+in at the door to ask if, by any chance, Mabel had seen anything of his
+hair brushes.
+
+"The Custodium," replied Mabel, with dignity.
+
+"I think she means 'Custodian.'" explained Mrs. Bennett, rescuing the
+brushes.
+
+"Well," retorted Mabel, "the toad part was all right if the tail
+wasn't. Marjory named me that, and she's always using bigger words than
+she ought to."
+
+"So is somebody else," said Dr. Bennett, forgetting to scold about the
+brushes. "But I think the 'Custodium' had better hurry, or she'll be
+late for school."
+
+That was Friday, and the little brown purse contained two dollars and
+forty-seven cents, which seemed a tremendous sum to inexperienced Mabel.
+
+She remembered afterwards how very big, imposing and substantial
+the school building had looked that morning as she approached it and
+noticed some strangers fingering the "rain-drops" to see if they
+were real. Indeed, everybody, from the largest tax-payer down to the
+smallest pupil, was proud of that building because it was so big and
+because there was no more rain-drop sandstone left in the quarry from
+which it had been taken. Even thoughtless Mabel always swelled with
+pride when tourists paused to comment on the queer, spotted appearance
+of those massive walls. She meant to point that building out some day
+to her grandchildren as the fount of all her learning; for the huge,
+solid building looked as if it would certainly outlast not only Mabel's
+grandchildren but all their great-great-grandchildren as well. But it
+didn't.
+
+The catastrophe came on Saturday. Afterwards, everybody in Lakeville
+was glad, since the thing had to happen at all, that the day was
+Saturday, for no one liked to think what might have happened had the
+trouble come on a schoolday. It was also a Saturday in the first week
+of November, which was not quite so fortunate, as there was a stiff
+north wind.
+
+At two o'clock that afternoon the streets were almost deserted, but
+weatherproof Dick Tucker, with his hands in his pockets, was going
+along whistling at the top of his very good lungs. By the merest
+chance he glanced at the wide windows of Lakeville's most pretentious
+possession, the big Public School building.
+
+From four of the upper windows floated thin, softly curling plumes
+of gray smoke. The windows were closed, but the smoke appeared to be
+leaking out from the surrounding frames.
+
+"Hello!" muttered Dick, suddenly shutting off his whistle. "That looks
+like smoke. The janitor must be rebuilding the furnace fire. But why
+should smoke--I guess I'll investigate."
+
+The puzzled boy ran up the steps, pulled the vestibule door open and
+eagerly pressed his nose against the plate-glass panel of the inner
+door, which was locked. Through the glass, however, he could plainly
+see that the wide corridor was thick with smoke. He could even smell it.
+
+"Great guns!" exclaimed Dick. "There's things doing in there! That
+furnace never smokes as hard as all that and besides the Janitor always
+has Saturday afternoons off. Perhaps the basement door is unlocked."
+
+Dick ran down the steps to find that door, too, securely fastened.
+
+"I guess," said Dick, with another look at the curling smoke about the
+upper windows, "the thing for me to do is to turn in an alarm."
+
+Dick happened to know where the alarm-box was situated, so, feeling
+most important, yet withal strangely shaky as to legs, the lad made for
+the corner, a good long block distant, smashed the glass according to
+directions, and sent in the alarm, a thing that he had always longed to
+do.
+
+Five minutes later, the big red hosecart, with gong ringing, firemen
+shouting and dogs barking, was dashing up the street. The hook and
+ladder company followed and a meat wagon, or rather a meat-wagon horse,
+galloped after. The foundry whistle began to give the ward number in
+long, melancholy, terrifying toots and the hosehouse bell joined in
+with a mad clamor. People poured from the houses along the hosecart's
+route, for in Lakeville it was customary for private citizens to attend
+all fires.
+
+Dick, feeling most important, stood on the schoolhouse steps and
+pointed upward. The hosecart stopped with a jerk that must have
+surprised the horses, firemen leaped down and in a twinkling the
+foremost had smashed in the big glass door.
+
+"It's a fire all right," said he.
+
+Meanwhile the Janitor, chopping wood in his own backyard (which was his
+way of enjoying his afternoons off), had listened intently to the fire
+alarm.
+
+"Six-Two," said he, suddenly dropping his ax. "Guess I'll have a look
+at that fire. That's pretty close to my school."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Fire
+
+
+JEAN, Bettie, Marjory and Mabel ran with the rest to see what was
+happening, for their homes were not far from the schoolhouse. Indeed,
+owing to its ample setting, the building was plainly visible from
+all directions; and from a distance, it always loomed larger than
+anything else in the town. To all the citizens it was a most unusual
+and alarming sight to see thick, black smoke curling about the eaves
+and rising in a threatening column above the familiar building. Such a
+thing had never happened before.
+
+Marjory was the first of the quartette to discover what was going on.
+She had opened her bedroom window the better to count the strokes of
+the fire-bell when, to her astonishment, she saw the fire itself or at
+least the smoke thereof. Her first thought was of her three friends;
+for of course no Cottager could view such a spectacle as this promised
+to be without the companionship of the other three.
+
+So Marjory flew around the block--like a little excited hen, Dr. Tucker
+said--and collected the girls. They ran in a body to join the swelling
+crowd that surrounded the smoking building.
+
+"Keep back out of danger," called Aunty Jane, who was watching the fire
+from her upstairs window.
+
+"We will," shrieked Marjory, who, with the other three, was rushing by.
+
+"Don't get mixed up with the hose," warned Dr. Tucker, who was carrying
+young Peter to view the fire.
+
+"We won't," promised Bettie. "We'll stand on the very safest corner."
+
+"This is it," declared Jean, stopping short on the sidewalk. "We can
+see right over the heads of the folks that are close to the building."
+
+"Should you think," panted Mabel, hopefully, "that there'd be school
+Monday?"
+
+"Looks doubtful," said Marjory.
+
+"Not upstairs, anyway," returned Jean. "Everything must be smoked
+perfectly black. And it's getting worse every minute instead of better."
+
+"Goodness!" cried Mabel, suddenly turning pale at a new and alarming
+thought. "I do hope it won't burn _my_ room. The money for Miss
+Bonner's birthday present is in my desk. It's--it's a horrible lot of
+money to lose. I ought never to have left it there. Dear me! Do you
+think----"
+
+"Phew!" cried Jean, paying no heed to Mabel. "Look at that!"
+
+"That" was a terrifying flash of red that suddenly illumined six of the
+big upper windows.
+
+"The High School room," groaned Bettie. "It's--it's _flames_!"
+
+"Hang it!" growled an indignant tax-payer. "Why doesn't somebody _do_
+something? That building cost fifty thousand dollars."
+
+"Fire started from a defective flue on top floor," explained another
+bystander, "but that's no reason why the whole place should go. There's
+no fire downstairs, but there _will_ be--What's that? No water? Broken
+hydrant?"
+
+Mabel listened attentively. The bystander continued:
+
+"Then the whole building is doomed. It's had time enough to get a
+tremendous start."
+
+"Oh, look!" cried Jean. "It's bursting through into the next room--_my_
+room! Oh, how _dreadful_! All our plants, our books, our pictures--Oh,
+oh! I can't bear to look."
+
+Firemen and volunteer helpers were, hurrying in and out the wide
+south door. Men carried out towering piles of books and tossed them
+ruthlessly to the ground. Miss Bonner's big pink geranium was added to
+the heap. The Janitor appeared with the big hall clock, that wouldn't
+go at all on ordinary occasions but was now striking seven hundred and
+twenty-seven--or something like that--all at one stretch. It seemed to
+be crying out in alarm. The roar of flames could now be heard, likewise.
+
+"Why!" exclaimed Jean, wheeling suddenly. "Where's Mabel? Wasn't she
+right beside you a minute ago, Bettie? I certainly saw her there."
+
+"She was--but she isn't now," returned Bettie, looking about anxiously.
+"I thought she was behind me."
+
+"Dear me!" murmured motherly Jean. "I hope she hasn't gone any closer.
+Suppose the scallops on that roof should begin to melt off."
+
+"Oh, look!" cried Marjory. "There! In the doorway!"
+
+All three looked just in time to see a short, not-very-slender girl in
+an unmistakable red cap dart in at the smoky doorway.
+
+"Oh," groaned Jean, "it's Mabel!"
+
+"Oh," moaned Marjory, "why did I ever tell her that there was a fire?"
+
+"I'm afraid," hazarded Bettie, "that she's gone to Miss Bonner's room
+to get that money."
+
+Bettie was right. That was exactly what Mabel had done.
+
+All along Mabel's way hands had stretched out to stop the flying
+figure. But the hands were always just a little too late. You see, the
+owners of the tardy hands did not realize quickly enough that rash
+little Mabel actually meant to enter a building whose top floor was
+all in flames. She was fairly inside before the onlookers grasped the
+situation.
+
+"How perfectly foolish!" cried Marjory, stamping her foot in helpless
+rage. "Of course somebody'll get her out--there's two men going in
+now--but how perfectly silly for her to go in at all!"
+
+Mabel, however, was not feeling at all foolish. No, indeed. The little
+girl, to her own way of thinking, was doing a worthy, even a heroic,
+deed. She was rescuing the precious two dollars and forty-seven
+cents that her class had so laboriously raised to buy Miss Bonner
+a birthday gift. She would have liked to accomplish it in a little
+less spectacular manner, but, no other way being available, she had
+made the best of circumstances and was ignoring the crowd. She hoped,
+indeed, that no one had noticed her; with so much else to look at it
+seemed as if one small girl might easily remain unobserved. To be sure
+she was risking her life, the life of the only little girl that her
+parents possessed; but that seemed a small affair beside two dollars
+and forty-seven cents. The roof might fall, the cornice might drop, the
+huge chimney might collapse, the suffocating smoke or scorching flames
+might suddenly pour into that still unburned lower room. Let them!
+Heroes never stopped for such trifles with such a sum at stake.
+
+By this time, Jean, Marjory and Bettie were white and absolutely
+speechless with fear. Four firemen were sitting on Dr. Bennett to keep
+him from rushing in after the little girl he had promptly recognized as
+his own, and five women were supporting and encouraging Mrs. Bennett,
+who had grown too weak to stand although she still had her wits about
+her.
+
+"Fifty dollars reward," Mr. Black was shouting, "to the man that gets
+that child!"
+
+He would have gone after her himself, but Mrs. Crane had him firmly by
+the coat-tails and both Dr. and Mrs. Tucker were clinging to his arms.
+
+"Be aisy, be aisy," Mrs. Malony, the egg-woman was murmuring to the
+world in general. "Miss Mabel's the kind thot's always escapin' jist be
+the skin av her teeth. Rest aisy. Thim fire-laddies'll be havin' her
+out av thot dure in another jiffy."
+
+But, although the crowd rested as "aisy" as it could, the moments went
+by and no Mabel appeared.
+
+With every instant the fire grew worse. By this time, the smoke and
+angry sheets of flame had burst through the roof and were streaming,
+with a mighty, threatening roar, straight up into the blackened sky--a
+splendid sight that was visible for a long distance. There was no water
+to check the mighty fire, for, a very few moments after the hose had
+been attached, the hydrant had burst and the water that should have
+been busy quenching the fire was quietly drenching the feet of many an
+unheeding bystander.
+
+And presently the thing that everybody expected happened. With a
+lingering, horrible crash a large part of the upper floor dropped to
+the main hall below. Smoke poured from the lower doors and windows.
+In another moment leaping hungry flames were visible in every room
+except the basement. The entire superstructure seemed now just like a
+gigantic, topless furnace; and of course it was no longer possible for
+even the firemen to venture inside.
+
+But _where_ was Mabel?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A Heroine's Come-Down
+
+
+MABEL, with the Janitor and four pursuing firemen at her reckless
+heels, had made a bold dash through the long corridor that led to Miss
+Bonner's room. Owing to a strong upward draft, there was surprisingly
+little smoke in this corridor and none at all in Miss Bonner's distant
+corner.
+
+Still hotly pursued, Mabel, who had the advantage of knowing exactly
+whither she was bound, darted down the narrow aisle, reached into her
+desk, and, unselfishly passing by sundry dearly loved treasures of her
+own, seized the fat brown purse. Such joy to find it when so many of
+the desks had been stripped of their contents!
+
+She was none too soon, for the next moment the Janitor's hands had
+closed upon her and, plump as she was, the sturdy fellow easily
+carried her out of the room, although Mabel protested crossly that she
+would much rather walk. In this uncomfortable fashion they reached the
+corridor.
+
+[Illustration: THE STURDY FELLOW CARRIED HER OUT OF THE ROOM.]
+
+"Not that way--not that way!" shouted the firemen, pointing towards
+a glowing, spreading patch on the ceiling of the main hall. "It's
+breaking through--you can't reach the door! It's not safe at that end."
+
+"Down to the basement!" shouted the Janitor, nodding toward a narrow
+doorway, through which the men promptly vanished.
+
+Then, seemingly, a new thought assailed the Janitor.
+
+"Open door number twelve," he shouted after the men.
+
+Then, hurriedly pushing up a sliding door at the safest end of the hall
+and murmuring "Quicker this way," the Janitor unceremoniously lifted
+Mabel and dropped her down the big dust-chute.
+
+What a place for a heroine! In spite of her surprise, Mabel felt
+deeply mortified. It was humiliating enough for a would-be rescuer to
+be rescued; but to be dropped down a horrid, stuffy dust-chute and
+to land with a queer, springy thud on a pile of sliding stuff--the
+contents of a dozen or more waste-baskets and the results of
+innumerable sweepings--was worse.
+
+In a very few seconds, the hasty Janitor had opened the lower door of
+the chute and, with the firemen standing by, was calmly hauling her out
+by her feet--Oh! She could _never_ tell that part of it.
+
+And then, as if that were not bad enough, that inconsiderate Janitor
+seized her by the elbow and hurried her right into the coal bin, forced
+her to march over eighty tons of black, dusty, sliding coal and finally
+compelled her to crawl--yes, _crawl_--out of a small basement window on
+the safest side of the building. The only explanation that the rescuer
+vouchsafed was a gruff statement that the fire was "More to the other
+end" and that short-cuts saved time. Mabel tried to tell him what
+_she_ thought about it, but the Janitor seemed too excited to listen.
+
+Of course, by this time, the Bennetts, the Cottagers, the firemen, the
+Janitor's wife and most of the bystanders were in a perfectly dreadful
+state of mind; for the coal-hole window was not on their side of the
+building--Mabel was glad of that--so none of her friends witnessed
+her exit. The Cottagers, in particular, were clutching each other and
+fairly quaking with fear when a familiar voice behind them panted
+breathlessly:
+
+"I saved it, girls."
+
+Jean, Marjory and Bettie wheeled as one girl. It was certainly Mabel's
+voice, the shape and size were Mabel's, but the color----
+
+"Oh!" cried Jean, in a horrified tone. "Are you _burned_? Are you all
+burned up to a crisp?"
+
+But thoughtful Bettie, after one searching look to make certain that
+it really was Mabel, had not stopped to ask questions, nor to hear
+them answered. She remembered that the Bennetts were still anxious
+concerning their missing daughter, and straightway flew to relieve
+their minds.
+
+"She's safe, Mabel's safe," she shouted, running to the Bennetts, to
+Mr. Black, to the Tuckers, to all Mabel's friends, and completely
+forgetting her own usual shyness. "Yes, she's all safe. No, not burned;
+just scorched, I guess."
+
+Then everybody crowded around Mabel. Mrs. Bennett was about to kiss
+her, but desisted just in time.
+
+"Mabel!" she cried, as Jean had done. "Are you burned?"
+
+"No," mumbled Mabel, indignantly. "I'm not even singed. I--I just came
+out through the coal hole, but you needn't tell. That horrid Janitor
+dragged me out over a whole mountain of coal."
+
+"Thank Heaven!" breathed Mrs. Bennett.
+
+"Huh!" snorted Mabel, "that's a mighty queer thing to thank Heaven for,
+when it was only last night that I had a perfectly good bath. That's
+the meanest Janitor----"
+
+"Where is he?" demanded Dr. Bennett, eagerly. "I must thank him."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Bennett, "I must thank him too."
+
+"And I," said Dr. Tucker, "should like to shake hands with him."
+
+And would you believe it! Not a soul had a word of praise for Mabel's
+bravery. Not a person commended her for saving that precious purse.
+Instead, the local paper devoted a whole column to lauding the prompt
+action of that sickening Janitor, Dr. Bennett gave him a splendid gold
+watch, the School Board recommended him for a Carnegie medal--all
+because of the dust-chute.
+
+"Don't let me hear any more," Dr. Bennett said that night, "about that
+miserable two dollars and forty-seven cents. I'd rather give you two
+hundred and forty-seven dollars than have you take such risks."
+
+"Yes, sir," rejoined Mabel, meekly. "But you didn't say anything like
+that day before yesterday when I asked for three more cents to make it
+an even two-fifty. I must say I don't understand grown folks."
+
+"Mabel, you go--go take that bath. And when you're clean enough to
+kiss, come back and say good-night."
+
+"Yes, sir," sighed Mabel, "but I _do_ wish I _could_ raise three more
+cents."
+
+Mr. Bennett fished two quarters and three pennies from his pocket and
+handed them to Mabel.
+
+"There," said he, "you have an even three dollars, but I hope you won't
+consider it necessary to rescue them in case of any more fires."
+
+Fortunately, there were no more fires; but the original one made up for
+this lack by lasting for an astonishing length of time. For seven days
+the school building continued to burn in a safe but expensive manner;
+for the eighty tons of coal over which Mabel had walked so unwillingly
+had caught fire late in the afternoon and had burned steadily until
+entirely reduced to ashes. It was a strange, uncanny sight after dark
+to see the mighty ruin still lighted by a fitful glare from within.
+Only the four walls, the bare outer shell of the huge structure,
+remained. You see, all the rest of it had been wood--and steam pipes.
+Every splinter of wood was gone; but the pipes, and there seemed to
+be miles of them, were twisted like mighty serpents. They filled the
+cellar and seemed fairly to writhe in the scarlet glow. It made one
+think of dragons and volcanoes and things like that; and caused creepy
+feelings in one's spine.
+
+Even the dust-chute was gone. Mabel was glad of that. She hated to
+think of the Janitor proudly pointing it out to visitors and saying:
+
+"I once dropped a girl down there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A Birthday Party
+
+
+BUT if Mabel derived little joy from her experience as a heroine, there
+was at least some satisfaction in knowing that there could be no school
+on Monday, for Mabel was decidedly partial toward holidays.
+
+"If I ever teach school," she often said, "there'll be two Saturdays
+every week and no afternoon sessions."
+
+Jean, however, really liked to go to school. So did Marjory, but Bettie
+was uncertain.
+
+"If," said Bettie, "I could go long enough to know what grade I
+belonged in it might be interesting; but when you only attend in
+patches it's sort of mixing. There's a little piece of me in three
+different grades."
+
+When Mrs. Crane realized that there could be no school on Monday,
+she too was pleased. She stopped a moment after church on Sunday to
+intercept the girls on their way to Sunday School.
+
+"My!" said she. "How spruce you look!"
+
+They did look "spruce." Tall Jean was all in brown, even to her gloves
+and overshoes. Marjory's trim little winter suit was of dark green
+broadcloth with gray furs, for neat Aunty Jane, whatever her other
+failings, always kept Marjory very beautifully dressed. Bettie's short,
+kilted skirt was red under a boyish black reefer that had once belonged
+to Dick, and a black hat that Bob had discarded as "too floppy" had
+been wired and trimmed with scarlet cloth to match the skirt. This
+hand-me-down outfit was very becoming to dark-eyed Bettie, but then,
+Bettie was pretty in anything. Plump Mabel was buttoned tightly into a
+navy blue suit. Although she had owned it for barely six weeks it was
+no longer big enough either lengthwise or sidewise.
+
+"But," said Mabel, cheerfully, "by holding my breath most of the time I
+can stand it for one hour on Sundays."
+
+"How would you like," asked Mrs. Crane, "to spend to-morrow with me and
+Rosa Marie?"
+
+"We'd love to," said Jean.
+
+"We'd like it a lot," said Marjory.
+
+"Just awfully," breathed Bettie.
+
+"Oh, goody!" gurgled Mabel.
+
+"You see," said Mrs. Crane, "I'm not altogether easy about Rosa Marie.
+I do every living thing I can think of, but someway I can't get inside
+that child's shell. I declare, it seems sometimes as if she really
+pities me for being so stupid. And I think she's falling off in her
+looks."
+
+"Oh, I _hope_ not," cried Mabel, fervently.
+
+"No," agreed Marjory, "it certainly wouldn't do for Rosa Marie to fall
+off very _much_."
+
+"However," returned Mrs. Crane, loyally, "she might be very much worse
+and at any rate she is warm and well fed, even if she does seem a
+bit--foreign. So that Janitor put you down through the dust-chute, did
+he, Mabel? You must have landed with quite a jolt."
+
+"No," returned Mabel, rather sulkily, for every one was mentioning the
+dust-chute. "I had all September's and October's sweepings to land on.
+It was all mushy and springy, like mother's bed."
+
+"How," pursued kindly Mrs. Crane, "did he get you out?"
+
+"I'd--I'd rather not say," mumbled Mabel, flushing a brilliant crimson.
+No one else had thought to ask this dreaded question, and the papers,
+fortunately, had overlooked this detail.
+
+"Why!" giggled teasing Marjory, "he _must_ have dragged her out by
+her feet because she's so fat that she couldn't possibly have turned
+herself over in that narrow space. It's just like a chimney, you know.
+I've often looked down that place and wondered if Santa Claus could
+manage the trip down. Oh, Mabel! It must have been funny! Tell us about
+it."
+
+Mabel grinned, but it was rather a sickly grin.
+
+"First," she said, "he clawed out a lot of papers and stuff. Ugh! It
+was horrid to feel everything sliding right out from under me--I didn't
+know _how_ far I was going to drop. Then he grabbed my two ankles and
+just jerked me out on the bias through the little door at the bottom. I
+suppose it was a lot quicker. But he _didn't_ need to make me climb all
+that coal."
+
+"Yes, he did," returned Jean. "The cornice on the other three sides was
+all loose and flopping up and down in the flames. Pieces kept falling.
+The coal-bin side was the last to burn--the wind went the other
+way--and Miss Bonner's room was the last to catch fire."
+
+"That Janitor," declared Mrs. Crane, with conviction, "knew exactly
+what he was about. Now, girls, you'll be sure to come to-morrow, won't
+you? I think it will do Rosa Marie good and there's a reason why I'd
+like a little company myself, but I shan't tell you just now what it
+is."
+
+"Oh, do," begged all four.
+
+"No," returned Mrs. Crane. "It's a secret, and not a living soul knows
+it but me. I'll tell you to-morrow."
+
+"We'll _surely_ come," promised the girls.
+
+Of course they kept their promise. The four Cottagers arrived very soon
+after breakfast, were let in most sedately by Mr. Black's man, who
+smiled when the unceremonious visitors rushed pell-mell past him to
+fall upon Mrs. Crane, who was watering plants in the breakfast room.
+
+"Tell us the secret!" shouted Mabel. "Oh--I mean good-morning!"
+
+"Good-morning," smiled Mrs. Crane, setting the watering pot in a safe
+place. "The secret isn't a very big one. It's only that to-day is
+my birthday and I thought I'd like to have a party. You're it. The
+cook is making me a birthday cake, but she doesn't know that it is a
+birthday cake."
+
+"Goody!" cried Mabel.
+
+"Doesn't Mr. Black know it's your birthday?" queried Jean.
+
+"I don't think so. You see, it's a long time since Peter and I spent
+birthdays under the same roof, and men don't remember such things very
+well. We'll surprise him with the cake to-night. Now let's go to the
+nursery."
+
+Rosa Marie's dull countenance brightened at sight of her four friends.
+She gave four solemn little bobs with her head.
+
+"Mercy!" cried Marjory, "she's learning manners."
+
+"And see," said Bettie, "she's stringing beads."
+
+"That's a surprise," said Mrs. Crane, proudly. "I taught her that."
+
+"Fourteen," said Rosa Marie, unexpectedly.
+
+"Goodness me!" cried Mabel. "Can she count?"
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Mrs. Crane, guardedly, "but not to depend on. In
+fact, fourteen is the only counting word she _can_ say. Peter taught
+her that."
+
+"Fourteen," repeated Rosa Marie, holding up her string of beads.
+
+"You ridiculous baby!" laughed Mabel, hugging her. "Who are the pretty
+beads for?"
+
+Rosa Marie hurriedly clapped the string about her own brown throat.
+
+"No, no," remonstrated Mrs. Crane. "You're making them for Mabel."
+
+But Rosa Marie set her small white teeth firmly together and continued
+to hold the beads against her own plump neck.
+
+"_She_ knows whose beads they are," laughed Jean.
+
+"I can't teach her a single Christian virtue," sighed Mrs. Crane.
+"There isn't one unselfish hair in that child's head."
+
+"She's too young," encouraged Bettie. "All babies are little savages."
+
+"Not Anne Halliday," said Jean, who fairly worshiped her small cousin.
+
+"That's different," said Marjory. "Anne was born with manners."
+
+"The little Tuckers weren't," soothed Bettie. "Rosa Marie will be
+generous enough in time."
+
+"I wish I could believe it," sighed Mrs. Crane.
+
+"Hi, hi! What's all this racket?" cried Mr. Black from the doorway. "Is
+Rosa Marie doing all that talking? Get your things on quick, all of
+you, and come for a ride with me."
+
+"A ride!" exclaimed Mrs. Crane. "What in?"
+
+"An automobile," returned Mr. Black, turning to wink comically at
+Bettie.
+
+"An automobile!" echoed Mrs. Crane. "I'd like to know whose. There's
+only one in town and I don't know the owners."
+
+"Yours," twinkled Mr. Black. "It's your birthday present."
+
+"How did you know that this was the day?"
+
+"Perhaps I remembered," said Mr. Black, smiling rather tenderly at his
+old sister. "You _used_ to have them on this day."
+
+"I do still," beamed Mrs. Crane. "That's why I invited the girls;
+they're my birthday party. But what's this about automobiles?"
+
+"Only one. It's yours."
+
+"Peter Black! I don't believe you."
+
+"Look out the hall window."
+
+Everybody rushed to the big window in the front hall. Sure enough! A
+splendid motor car stood at the gate.
+
+"Peter," faltered Mrs. Crane, "have I _got_ to ride in that? I've never
+set foot in one, and I'm sure I'd be scared to at this late day."
+
+"What! Not ride in your own automobile? Bless you, Sarah, in another
+week you'll refuse to stay out of it. Get your things on, everybody;
+and warm ones, too. Find extra wraps for these girls, Sarah. There's
+room for everybody but Rosa Marie."
+
+"Now, isn't that just like a man?" said Mrs. Crane, looking about
+helplessly. "Whose clothes does he think you're going to wear for
+'extra wraps'? His, or mine?"
+
+Everybody laughed, for obviously Mr. Black's house was a poor one in
+which to find little girls' garments.
+
+"We'll stop at your houses," said he, "and pick up some duds. Besides,
+perhaps your mothers might like to know that you've been kidnaped.
+What! no hat on yet? Here, pin this on," said Mr. Black, handing Mrs.
+Crane a pink dust-cap. "I can't wait all day."
+
+"Mercy! That's not a bonnet," cried Mrs. Crane, scurrying away. "I'll
+be ready in two minutes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+An Unexpected Treat
+
+
+"PETER," demanded Mrs. Crane, stopping short on the horse-block, "who's
+going to run that thing?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Not with me in it. You don't know how."
+
+"My dear, I've been learning the business for five weeks."
+
+"So _that's_ what has taken you to Bancroft every afternoon for all
+that time?"
+
+"That's exactly what," admitted Mr. Black.
+
+"And you're _sure_," queried Mrs. Crane, doubtfully, "that you
+understand all those fixings?"
+
+"Every one of them."
+
+"Will you promise to go slow?"
+
+"There's a fine for exceeding the speed limit," twinkled Mr. Black.
+
+"Well, I'm glad of that," said Mrs. Crane, permitting her patient
+brother to help her into the vehicle. "My! but these cushions are soft."
+
+"Yes," said Bettie, "it's just like sitting on baking powder biscuits
+before they're baked."
+
+"How do you know?" asked Mr. Black.
+
+"Because I've tried it. You see, ministers' wives are dreadfully
+interrupted persons, and one night when Mother was making biscuits
+some visitors came. Instead of popping one of the pans into the oven,
+mother dropped it on a dining-room chair on her way to the door and
+forgot all about it. When I came in to supper that chair was at my
+place and I flopped right down on those biscuits! And I had to _stay_
+sitting on them because Father had asked one of the visitors--_such_
+a particular-looking person--to stay to tea; and I knew that Mother
+wouldn't want a perfectly strange man to know about it."
+
+"That was certainly thoughtful," smiled Mr. Black. "Now, is every one
+comfortable? If she is, we'll go for those extra wraps."
+
+The new machine rolled down the street and turned the corner in the
+neatest way imaginable. Mrs. Crane looked decidedly uneasy at first;
+but when Mr. Black had successfully steered the birthday present past
+the ice wagon, a coal team, a prancing pony and two street cars, she
+folded the hands that had been nervously clutching the side of the car
+and leaned back with a relieved sigh.
+
+But when Mabel asked a question, Mrs. Crane silenced her quickly.
+
+"Don't talk to him," she implored. "There's no telling _what_ might
+happen to us if he were to take any part of his mind off that--that
+helm, for even a single second. Don't even _look_ at him."
+
+What did happen was this. After the extra wraps had been collected
+and donned, Mr. Black carried his charges all the way to Bancroft, a
+distance of seventeen miles, in perfect safety. The road was good, the
+day was mild and the only team they passed obligingly turned in at its
+own gate before they reached it. They stopped in front of the biggest
+and best hotel in Bancroft.
+
+"Everybody out for dinner," ordered Mr. Black.
+
+"But, Peter," expostulated Mrs. Crane, hanging back, bashfully, "I'm in
+my every-day clothes."
+
+"Well, this isn't Sunday; and you always look well dressed. You're a
+very neat woman, Sarah."
+
+"Well I _am_ neat, but black alpaca isn't silk even if my sleeves _are_
+this year's. And for goodness' sake, Peter, don't ask me to pronounce
+any of that bill of fare if it isn't plain every-day English, for
+you know there isn't a French fiber in my tongue. You order for me.
+There's only one thing I can't eat and that's parsnips."
+
+It was a very nice dinner and plain English enough to suit even
+matter-of-fact Mrs. Crane. After the first few bashful moments, the
+four girls chattered so merrily that all the guests at other tables
+caught themselves listening and smiling sympathetically.
+
+"I never ate a really truly hotel dinner before," confided Bettie,
+happily.
+
+"And to think," sighed Jean, contentedly, "of doing it without knowing
+you were going to! That always makes things nicer."
+
+"And I _never_ expected to ride in a navy-blue automobile," murmured
+Marjory.
+
+"Or to have four kinds of potatoes," breathed Mabel, who sat half
+surrounded by empty dishes--"little birds' bath-tubs," she called them.
+
+"You must be a vegetarian," smiled Mr. Black.
+
+"N-no," denied Mabel. "Only a potatorian."
+
+"Mabel!" objected Marjory. "There isn't any such word."
+
+"Yes, there is," returned Mabel, calmly. "I just made it."
+
+"Well, I'm sure," sighed Mrs. Crane, "I never expected to have any such
+birthday as this."
+
+"You see," said Mr. Black, giving his sister's plump elbow a kindly
+squeeze, "this is a good many birthdays rolled into one."
+
+"It seems hard," mourned Mabel, who was earnestly scanning the bill of
+fare, "to read about so many kinds of dessert when you've room enough
+left for only three. I wish I'd began saving space sooner."
+
+"You're in luck," laughed Bettie. "A very small, thin one is all _I_
+can manage--pineapple ice, I guess."
+
+"Anyway," said Marjory, "I shan't choose bread pudding. We have that
+every Tuesday and Friday at home. Aunty Jane has regular times for
+everything, so I always know just what's coming. I'm going to have
+something different--hot mince pie, I guess."
+
+"Ice-cream," said Jean, "with hot chocolate sauce."
+
+"Bring _me_," said Mabel, turning to the waiter, "hot mince pie,
+ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce and a pineapple ice with little
+cakes."
+
+"Bring little cakes for everybody," added Mr. Black.
+
+"I declare," said Mrs. Crane, "I don't know when I've been so hungry."
+
+"Now," remarked Mr. Black, half an hour later, "I think we'd better be
+jogging along toward home because it won't be as warm when the sun goes
+down and I want to show you some of the sights in Bancroft--there's a
+pretty good candy shop a few blocks from here--before we start toward
+Lakeville. We can run down in about an hour."
+
+"Peter," demanded Mrs. Crane, "what _is_ that speed limit?"
+
+"About eight miles an hour."
+
+"Hum--and it's seventeen miles----"
+
+"Now, Sarah, don't go to doing arithmetic--you know you were never
+very good at it. If I were to keep strictly within that limit you'd
+all want to get out and push. Got all your wraps? Whose muff is this?
+Here's a glove. Whose neck belongs to this pussy-cat thing? Here's a
+handkerchief and two more gloves--Well, well! It's a good thing you had
+somebody along to gather up your duds. What! My hat? Why, that's so, I
+_did_ have a cap--here it is in my coat pocket."
+
+There was still time after the pleasant ride home for a good frolic
+with Rosa Marie and a cozy meal with Mrs. Crane; strangely enough,
+everybody was again hungry enough to enjoy the big birthday cake and
+the good apple-sauce that went with it. Then Mr. Black carried them all
+home in the motor car and delivered each damsel at her own door. But
+only one stayed delivered, for the other three immediately ran around
+the block to meet at Jean's always popular home. You see, they had to
+talk it all over without the restraint of their host's presence.
+
+"I think," said Mabel, ecstatically, "that Mr. Black is just too dear
+for words. _Some_ folks are too stingy to live, with their automobiles
+and horses and never _think_ of giving anybody a ride."
+
+"He's certainly very generous," agreed Jean.
+
+"Of course," ventured Marjory, meditatively, "he has plenty of money or
+he couldn't do nice things."
+
+"He would anyway," declared Bettie. "It's the way he's made. Don't you
+remember how Mrs. Crane was always being good to people even when she
+was so dreadfully poor? Well, Mr. Black would be just like that, too,
+even if he hadn't a single dollar. He has a Santa Claus heart."
+
+"There _are_ folks," admitted Marjory, "that wouldn't know how to give
+anybody a good time if they had all the money in the world. There's
+Aunty Jane, for instance. She's a _very_ good woman, with a terribly
+pricking conscience, and I know she'd like to make things pleasant for
+me if she knew how, but she doesn't, poor thing. She doesn't know a
+good time when she sees one. And Mrs. Howard Slater doesn't, either."
+
+"Good-evening, girls," said Mrs. Mapes, coming in with a newspaper in
+her hand. "I _thought_ I heard voices in here. Have you had a nice day?
+You're just in time to read the paper; there's something in it that
+will interest you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A Scattered School
+
+
+IT seemed too bad for such a delightful day to end sorrowfully, but
+the evening paper certainly brought disquieting news. It stated that
+the School Board hoped to provide, within a very few days, suitable
+schoolrooms for all the pupils. And, in another item, the unfeeling
+editor complimented the Board on its enterprise.
+
+"I'd like that Board a whole lot better," said Marjory, "if it weren't
+so enterprising. I s'posed we were going to have at least a month to
+play in."
+
+"Just before Christmas, too," grumbled Mabel. "They might at least have
+waited until I'd finished Father's shoe-bag. And what do you think?
+Mother says I'd better give that Janitor a Christmas present!"
+
+"Perhaps the paper is mistaken," soothed Jean. "You know it always is
+about the weather reports. If it says 'Fair,' it's sure to rain; and
+when it says 'Colder,' it's quite certain to be warm. Besides, there
+isn't a place in town big enough for all that school."
+
+But this time it was Jean and not the paper that was mistaken. In just
+a few days the School Board announced that its hopes were realized.
+It had found "suitable quarters" for all the classes. Two grades went
+into the basement of the Baptist Church. The underground portion of
+the Methodist edifice accommodated two more. The A. O. U. W. Hall
+opened its doors to three others. A benevolent private citizen took
+in the kindergarten. A downtown store hastily transformed itself from
+an unsuccessful harness shop into nearly as unsuccessful a haven for
+two other grades. The City Hall gave up its Council Chamber to the
+Seniors, and the Masons loaned their dining-room to the Juniors,
+without, however, providing any refreshment. The enterprising Board
+had telegraphed for desks the very day of the fire; and as soon as
+that dreadfully prompt furniture arrived, it was remorselessly screwed
+into place. The Stationer, too, had speedily ordered books. They, too,
+traveled with unseemly haste from New York to Lakeville. By Thursday,
+less than a week after the fire, there were desks and seats and books
+for everybody; and would you believe it, they even kept school on
+Saturday, that week!
+
+And now, an utterly unforeseen thing happened. Hitherto Jean, who was
+usually the first to be ready, had stopped for Marjory and Bettie. All
+three had stopped to finish dressing Mabel, who always needed a great
+deal of assistance, and then all four had walked merrily to school
+together. But now this happy scheme was entirely ruined, for here was
+Jean doing algebra under the Baptist roof, Bettie struggling with
+grammar in the Methodist basement, Marjory climbing two long flights
+of stairs to the A. O. U. W. Hall and Mabel passing six saloons to
+reach her desk in the made-over harness shop.
+
+"It isn't just what we'd choose," apologized the School Board, "but it
+won't last forever. We'll build just as soon as we can."
+
+Except for the inconvenience of having to go to school separately the
+children were rather pleased with the novelty of moving into such
+unusual quarters as the Board had provided; but the mothers were not at
+all satisfied.
+
+"That Baptist cellar is damp and Jean's throat is delicate," complained
+Mrs. Mapes. "I know she'll be sick half the winter; but of course
+she'll have to go to school there as long as there's no better place."
+
+"That Methodist Church is no place for children," declared Mrs. Tucker.
+"Its brick walls were condemned seven years ago and it's likely to fall
+down at any moment, even if they did brace it up with iron bands. But
+Bettie's too far behind now for me to take her out of school, so I
+suppose she'll just have to risk having that church tumble in on her."
+
+"It's a shame," sputtered Aunty Jane, "for Marjory to climb all those
+stairs twice a day. It's all very well for the Ancient Order of United
+Workmen to climb two flights with grown-up legs, but it isn't right for
+delicate girls. However, there's no help for it just now, and I can't
+say I blame the child for sliding down the banisters, though of course
+I do scold her for it."
+
+"There are saloons on both sides of that harness shop," said Mrs.
+Bennett, "and six more this side of it, besides a livery stable that is
+always full of loafers and bad language. Mabel has never been allowed
+to go to that part of town alone, and now I have to send a maid with
+her twice a day. But of course she has to go, even if the maid _is_
+more timid than Mabel is."
+
+"By next year," consoled the Board, "we'll have a bigger and better
+schoolhouse than the old one. In the meantime we must all have
+patience."
+
+Except that Mabel, without the others to get her started, was always
+late and that Bettie, without Marjory to coach her on the way, found it
+difficult to learn her lessons, school life went on very much as usual,
+for matters soon settled down as things always do and Lakeville turned
+its attention to fresher problems.
+
+Poor Bettie, indeed, was busier than ever because Miss Rossitor, the
+Domestic Science teacher, whose classes were temporarily housed in the
+Methodist kitchen, discovered that Bettie could draw. Every day or two
+she asked Bettie to remain after school to copy needed illustrations on
+the blackboard. One day, Miss Rossitor demanded a cow. She needed it,
+she explained, to show her class the different cuts of meat.
+
+"A side view of a plain cow," said she.
+
+"I think," said Bettie, reflectively nibbling the fresh stick of chalk,
+"that I could do the outside of that cow, but I know I couldn't get his
+veal cutlets in the proper spot."
+
+"I'll give you a diagram," smiled Miss Rossitor, "for I see very
+plainly, that it wouldn't be safe not to."
+
+"Perhaps Miss Bettie thinks," ventured a belated pupil, a pink-cheeked
+girl with an impertinent nose, "that one cow is a whole butcher shop."
+
+"Well," returned Miss Rossitor, meaningly, "it isn't a great while
+since some other folks were of the same opinion. But, since you are
+now so very much wiser, you may label the parts after Bettie has drawn
+them."
+
+The girl made such a comical face that Bettie's gravity was in sad
+danger, but she accepted the chalk. On the cow's shoulder she printed
+"Pork sausages," on the flank, "Mutton chops," on the backbone,
+"Oysters on the half-shell," on the breast, "buttons."
+
+Bettie looked puzzled and doubtful but Miss Rossitor laughed outright.
+
+"Henrietta Bedford," she said, "you're a complete humbug. If you don't
+settle down to business you won't get home to-night."
+
+"I'm going to walk home with Bettie," returned Henrietta, quickly
+substituting the proper labels. "I can easily write out that luncheon
+menu while she's putting feathers on the cow's tail."
+
+And the new girl did walk home with Bettie, and teased her so merrily
+all the long way that Bettie didn't know whether to like her or not.
+
+Near the Cottage they met Jean, Marjory and Mabel just starting out to
+look for belated Bettie.
+
+"This," said Bettie introducing her new acquaintance, "is
+Henrietta--Henrietta----"
+
+"Plantagenet," assisted Henrietta Bedford, smoothly. "I am really a
+Duchess in disguise, but I've left all my retainers in Ohio and I'm
+simply dying for friends. This is my day for collecting them--I always
+collect friends on Tuesdays. You are indeed fortunate to have happened
+upon me on Tuesday. But, Elizabeth, why not finish your introductions?"
+
+"This," obeyed overwhelmed Bettie, "is Jean, this is Marjory and this
+is Mabel Bennett."
+
+"What! The Damsel of the Dust-chute! I am indeed honored."
+
+Then, as her quick eye traveled over Mabel's plump figure, Henrietta
+added wickedly:
+
+"Was that chute built to fit?"
+
+Mabel flushed angrily.
+
+"It is I," apologized Henrietta, "that should wear those blushes.
+Forgive me, dear Damsel. I have an over-quick tongue and all my
+speeches are followed by repentance. But I have a warm heart and I'm
+really much nicer than I sound. See, I kneel at your insulted feet."
+
+Whereupon this ridiculous girl with the impertinent nose flopped down
+on her knees on the sidewalk and made such comically repentant faces
+that all four giggled merrily.
+
+"Get up, you goose," laughed Mabel. "Your apology is accepted."
+
+"Come along with us," urged Jean. "We're going to have hot chocolate at
+our house. Mother is trying to fatten Marjory, Bettie and me."
+
+"She seems to succeed best with--hum--no personal remarks, please.
+Dear maiden, I will inspect your home from the outside, but I regret
+that I'm strictly forbidden to go _in_side any strange house without
+my grandmother's permission. You'll have to call on me first. She
+is _very_ particular in such matters. But," added Henrietta, with a
+sudden twinkle, "I'm not. So, if you'll kindly rush in and make that
+chocolate, there's no earthly reason why I shouldn't stand just
+outside your gate and drink it."
+
+"Oh," cried Bettie, "is it possible that you're Mrs. Howard Slater's
+new granddaughter?"
+
+"I am," admitted Henrietta, "but I'm not so new as you seem to think.
+She has owned me for fourteen years. Now, hustle up that chocolate.
+I've just remembered that I'm to have a dress tried on at four. It is
+now half-past."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+An Invitation
+
+
+"BETTIE," asked Jean, when the girls were "hustling up" the chocolate
+in Mrs. Mapes' kitchen (the weather was now too cold for Dandelion
+Cottage to be habitable), "where did you find her?"
+
+"At school," replied Bettie. "She comes in for Domestic Science. I've
+seen her about three times, and every time she's had that stiff Miss
+Rossitor laughing. You know who that girl is, don't you?"
+
+"I've heard something," said Marjory, "but I can't just remember what,
+about some girl named Henrietta."
+
+"Well, you've seen Mrs. Howard Slater?"
+
+All the girls had seen Mrs. Slater, the beautifully gowned, decidedly
+aristocratic old lady with abundant but perfectly white hair and
+bright, sparkling black eyes. Mrs. Slater, who seemed a very reserved
+and exclusive person, had spent many summers and even an occasional
+winter in her own handsome home in Lakeville. She lived alone except
+for a number of servants; for both her son and her daughter were
+married. The son lived abroad, no one knew just where; and some four
+years previously Mrs. Slater's daughter, who was Henrietta's mother,
+had died in Rome. Since that event Henrietta had been cared for by her
+uncle's wife; and she had spent a winter in California and another
+in Florida with her grandmother, but this was her first visit to
+Lakeville. It was said that Henrietta's mother had left her little
+daughter a very respectable fortune, that her father, an English
+traveler of note, was also wealthy, and it was known to a certainty
+that Mrs. Howard Slater was a moneyed person.
+
+"Yes," said Marjory, replying to Bettie's question, "we sit behind Mrs.
+Slater in church, and she's the very daintiest old lady that ever
+lived. She's as slim and straight as any young girl. She's perfectly
+lovely to look at, but----"
+
+"Yes, 'but,'" agreed Jean. "She seems very proud and not
+very--get-nearable. I don't know whether I'd like to live with her or
+not; but I know I'd feel terribly set up to own a few relatives that
+_looked_ like that."
+
+"How do you like Henrietta?" asked Mabel.
+
+"I don't know," said Bettie.
+
+"Neither do I," replied Jean.
+
+"It takes time," declared Marjory, "to discover whether you like a
+person or not. And when it's such a different person--truly, she isn't
+a bit like any other girl in this town--it takes longer."
+
+"The chocolate's ready," announced Jean, opening a box of wafers.
+"Here, Bettie, you carry Henrietta's cup and I'll take these. Let's
+_all_ have our chocolate on the sidewalk."
+
+Henrietta, her hands in her pockets, was leaning against the
+fence and humming a tune. Her voice, in speaking, was very nicely
+modulated--which was fortunate, because she used it a great deal. She
+straightened up when the door opened.
+
+"I'm an icicle," said she. "I hope that chocolate's good and hot. My!
+What a nice big cup! And wafers! I'm glad I stayed for your party. I've
+had chocolate in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Switzerland and in
+England, but I do believe this is the very first time I've had any in
+America."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Jean, "that you have to have your first on the
+sidewalk."
+
+"I shan't, next time," promised Henrietta. "I have a beautiful plan.
+I made it while waiting for the chocolate. You're all to come after
+school to-morrow and pay me a formal call. Then I'll return it. After
+that, I suspect I shall be allowed to run in. But first you'll have to
+call, formally."
+
+"A formal call!" gasped Bettie.
+
+"We never made a formal call in all our lives," objected Jean.
+
+"They're dreadful," agreed Henrietta, "but in this case you'll really
+have to do it. I've planned it all nicely. In the first place, you must
+hand your cards to the butler----"
+
+"Cards!" gasped Jean and Bettie.
+
+"Cards!" snorted Mabel, flushing indignantly. "We haven't a card to our
+names!"
+
+"You _must_ have them," declared Henrietta, firmly, "or Simmons may
+consider you suspicious characters. Simmons is a very lofty person.
+You can write some, you know, because Simmons holds his chin so high
+that it interferes with the view, so he'll never know what's on them.
+Then you must be very polite to Grandmother and say 'Yes, ma'am,'
+'No, ma'am,' 'Thank you, ma'am'--and not very much else. You've seen
+Grandmother, of course? Then you know how very formal and stiff she
+looks. Well, _you_ must be like that, too."
+
+"I'll try," said Mabel, "but it'll be pretty hard work."
+
+"Be sure to wear gloves," cautioned Henrietta. "Grandmother is
+exceedingly particular about shoes and gloves. I know it's a lot of
+trouble, but you'll find it pays; for after you've beaten down the icy
+barrier that surrounds me, you'll find me quite a comfortable person.
+And _do_ come just as early as you can--I'm really desperately lonely."
+
+This was a different Henrietta from the merry one that Bettie had
+encountered. That other Henrietta had made her laugh. This one, with
+the wistful, sorrowful countenance and the four words "I'm really
+desperately lonely," was almost moving her to tears.
+
+"You'll surely come," pleaded Henrietta.
+
+"We'll come," promised Bettie, "cards and all."
+
+"_Au revoir_," said Henrietta, carefully balancing her cup on the top
+rail of the fence. "I must run along now to try on my clothes."
+
+"Was that French?" queried Mabel, gazing after the departing figure.
+
+"I think so," replied Jean.
+
+"She can certainly talk English fast enough," said Marjory. "I suppose
+just one language _isn't_ enough for anybody that chatters like that."
+
+"Do you think," asked Bettie, "she meant all that about cards and
+gloves and butlers? She's so full of fun most of the time that I don't
+exactly know whether to believe her or not."
+
+"I think she did," said Marjory. "You see, I sit behind Mrs. Slater in
+church--and I'm thankful that it's behind."
+
+"Perhaps that's the reason," ventured Bettie, "that nobody'll rent the
+three pews in front of her. Father says it's hard to even give them
+away. No one likes to sit in them."
+
+"That's it," agreed Marjory. "One would have to be sure that her back
+hair was absolutely perfect to be at all comfortable in front of Mrs.
+Slater."
+
+"And that," groaned discouraged Mabel, "is the sort of person I'm to
+make my first formal call on."
+
+"You'd better take your bath to-night," advised Jean, "and lay out all
+your very best clothes. And don't forget to polish your shoes."
+
+"Father has some blank cards," said Bettie, "and he writes beautifully.
+I'll get him to do cards for all of us."
+
+"I think," said Marjory, with a puzzled air, "that we ought to take
+five or six apiece. I know Aunty Jane leaves a whole lot at one house,
+sometimes."
+
+"No," corrected Jean, "we need just two. One for Mrs. Slater and one
+for Henrietta. My aunt, Mrs. Halliday, always gets two whenever her
+sister-in-law is visiting there."
+
+"There are holes in my best gloves," mourned Bettie. "They came in a
+missionary box, and missionary gloves are never very good even to
+start with. Besides, Dick wore them first--I never had a _new_ pair of
+kid gloves."
+
+"Never mind," said always generous Mabel. "I must have about six pairs
+and I've never had any of the things on. I know I've outgrown some of
+them. Your hands are lots smaller than mine. Come over and I'll fix you
+out--Mother said we'd have to give them to somebody and I guess you're
+just exactly the right somebody. I hate the thing myself."
+
+"Goody!" rejoiced Bettie.
+
+"I wish," said Jean, "that my shoes were newer, but I'll get the boys
+to black 'em."
+
+"I can't help _you_ out," laughed Mabel. "My shoes are short and fat
+and yours are long and slim."
+
+"A coat of Wallace's blacking will be all that's needed, thank you,
+Mabel. There's nothing like having brothers when it comes to blacking
+shoes."
+
+"We'll have to get up a little earlier to-morrow morning," said Marjory.
+
+"Mercy!" exclaimed Jean, "are you leaving all those chocolate cups on
+the fence for _me_ to carry in?"
+
+"Of course not," said obliging Bettie, seizing two. "Come on, you lazy
+people."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Obeying Instructions
+
+
+THE four girls were wonderfully excited all the next day. They were
+restless in school and fidgety at home.
+
+"A body would think," scoffed Aunty Jane, at noon, "that you were going
+to your own wedding. Don't worry so. I'll have everything ready for you
+to put on the moment you get out of school."
+
+"Oh, thank you," breathed Marjory, fervently. "That'll help a lot; but
+I do hope that Bettie's father will remember to do those cards. And,
+Aunty Jane, _could_ you lend me a perfectly inkless hankerchief?"
+
+"Jumping January!" growled Wallace Mapes, Jean's older brother. "That
+makes nineteen times, Jean, that you've reminded me of those miserable
+shoes. I'll black them when I've finished lunch. I'm not going to rush
+off in the middle of my oyster soup to black _any_body's best shoes."
+
+"Is it a reception?" asked Roger.
+
+"No," replied Wallace, "just a formal call on Henrietta Bedford."
+
+"She's in my French class," said Roger. "And kippered snakes! You ought
+to hear her recite. She talks up and down and all around poor little
+Miss McGinnis, whose French was made right here in Lakeville. It's a
+daily picnic."
+
+"You won't forget my shoes, will you?" reminded anxious Jean.
+
+"I'd like to know how I _could_," demanded Wallace, feelingly.
+
+Although Mabel had taken a most complete bath the night before, she
+spent the noon-hour taking another. She put on her best stockings and
+shoes, but looked doubtfully at her Sunday suit.
+
+"If I have to do my language in ink," reflected she, "it'll be all up
+with my clothes. I'll just have to change after school."
+
+The girls were out by half-past three. Fortunately, Miss Rossitor
+needed no more cows that afternoon, so Bettie was home in good season.
+All four dressed speedily. Three of them got into their gloves
+unassisted; but Jean, Marjory and Bettie found plump, impatient Mabel
+seated on the piano stool with her mother working over one hand, her
+perspiring father over the other. Several other gloves that had proved
+too small were scattered on the floor.
+
+"You needn't think," said Mabel, greeting her friends with an
+expressive grimace, "that _I_ ever picked out these lemon-colored
+frights. Somebody sent 'em for Christmas. None of the pretty ones were
+big enough--I've tried four pairs."
+
+"Neither are these," returned Mrs. Bennett, "and the color certainly
+is outrageous, but it's Hobson's choice. And just remember, Mabel, if
+you touch a single door-knob they'll be black before you get there.
+And don't put your hands in your pockets. And _please_ don't rub them
+along the fences. There! Mine's on as far as it will go."
+
+[Illustration: THE DECIDEDLY DEPRESSED FOUR STARTED DOWN THE STREET.]
+
+"I guess you'd better finish this one," said Dr. Bennett, abandoning
+his task. "I rather tackle a case of smallpox than wrestle with another
+job like that. She'd look much better in mittens."
+
+"Mittens!" snubbed Mabel. "You can't make formal calls in mittens! Now,
+Somebody, please put me into my jacket and hat, if I'm not to touch
+anything."
+
+The decidedly depressed four, in their Sunday best, started down the
+street. Mabel's gloves, owing to their brilliant color, were certainly
+conspicuous, and unconsciously she made them more so by the careful and
+rigid manner in which she carried them. It was plain that she had them
+very much on her mind. And when her hat tilted forward over one eye she
+left it there rather than risk damaging those immaculate lemon-hued
+gloves.
+
+"Take my muff," implored Marjory. "That yellow splendor lights up
+the whole street."
+
+"No, siree," declined Mabel. "If Mrs. Slater wants gloves she's going
+to have 'em. Do you think I'm going to suffer like this and not have
+'em _show_?"
+
+So Mabel, a swollen, imprisoned but gorgeous hand dangling at each
+side, a big navy-blue hat flopping over one eye, strutted muffless down
+the street.
+
+"That's the house," announced Jean, as they turned the corner. "That
+big one with the covered driveway."
+
+"Ugh!" shuddered Marjory, "it gives me chills to think of ringing such
+a wealthy doorbell. Are the cards safe, Bettie? My! I hope you haven't
+lost them."
+
+"In my pocket in an envelope," assured Bettie.
+
+"Can you see any white?" queried Jean, nervously. "I think my top
+petticoat has broken loose."
+
+"It seems all right," said Marjory, stooping to test it with little
+sharp jerks. "Firm as the Rock of Gibraltar."
+
+"It won't be if you pull like that," objected Jean.
+
+"Somebody open the gate," requested Mabel. "I can't touch things."
+
+"Everybody stand up straight," commanded Marjory. "We must look our
+best when we go up the walk."
+
+"I wish I hadn't come," demurred Bettie, hanging back, diffidently.
+"Let's wait till it's darker."
+
+"No," asserted Jean. "We'd better get it over."
+
+"Yes," agreed Mabel, "I don't want to wear these gloves a minute longer
+than I have to."
+
+"All right," sighed Bettie, despondently, "but you go first, Jean."
+
+They had waited on the imposing doorstep for a long five minutes when
+it occurred to Marjory to ask if any one had pushed the bell.
+
+"No," replied Jean, with a surprised air. "I thought _you_ had."
+
+"And I," said Bettie, "supposed that Mabel had."
+
+"How could I," demanded Mabel, hotly, "in these gloves?"
+
+And then, all four began to giggle. Never before had such an
+inopportune fit of helpless, hysterical giggling seized the Cottagers.
+No one could stop. Tears rolled down Mabel's plump cheeks, and,
+fettered by her lemon-colored gloves, she had to let them roll, until
+Bettie wiped them away. And that set them all off again. In the midst
+of it Marjory's sharp elbow inadvertently struck the push-bell and
+Simmons, the imposing, much-dreaded butler, opened the door. Instantly
+the giggling ceased. Four exceedingly solemn little girls filed
+into the big hall. Bettie groped nervously for her pocket, found it
+and endeavored to extract the cards. But the large, stiff envelope
+stuck and, for a long, embarrassing moment, Bettie fumbled in vain;
+while the butler, his chin "very high and scornful" as Marjory said
+afterwards, waited.
+
+At last the cards were out. Diffident Bettie dropped them, envelope and
+all, on the extended plate; but Jean deftly seized the envelope and
+shook out the cards. Next followed a most unhappy moment. Simmons was
+evidently expecting them to do _something_, they hadn't the remotest
+idea what.
+
+Then, to their great relief, there was a sudden "swish" of silken
+skirts, a flash of scarlet and lively Henrietta, who had slid down the
+broad banister, was greeting them warmly.
+
+"Grandmother's out," said she. "Come up to my room and have a real
+visit before she gets back. Simmons, just toddle down to the lower
+regions for some fruit and anything else you can find; send them up to
+my room."
+
+Something very like a smile flitted across Simmons's wooden
+countenance. Perhaps it amused him to be ordered to "toddle."
+
+"Do you like my new gown?" queried Henrietta, leading the way upstairs
+and flirting her accordion-pleated skirts in graceful fashion. "It's my
+dinner dress. I have to dress for dinner every night--such a fuss for
+just two of us. Come in here--this is my sitting-room."
+
+"How very odd," said Jean, finding her voice at last.
+
+"Isn't it?" laughed Henrietta, shaking her brown curls. She wore them
+tied back with two enormous black bows. "Grandmother's a mixture
+of everything, you know--French, English, New York Dutch--and her
+furniture shows it. Lots of it came from Europe and Father picked up
+things in India and China--such a jolly dad as he is. That's why this
+place is such a jumble."
+
+"I like it," declared Jean. "It looks interesting--as if there were
+lovely stories in it."
+
+"There are," said Henrietta, drawing aside a heavy, silken curtain,
+"and I keep making new ones to fit. This is my bedroom, this next one
+is my dressing-room and this is my bath."
+
+"Ugh!" shuddered Mabel, "do you take shower baths?"
+
+"Every morning," laughed Henrietta.
+
+"What a lovely dressing table!" exclaimed Bettie, peering into the oval
+mirror and smiling into her own dark eyes. "I never saw such pretty
+things, even in a catalogue."
+
+"It's French," said Henrietta, "but all those little jeweled boxes came
+from Calcutta--Father just loves to buy little boxes with inlaid tops.
+Oh, here's Greta, with things to eat." Henrietta hastily swept her
+belongings from a dainty little table and the smiling maid deposited
+the heavy tray.
+
+"Tangerines, nuts, figs and sponge cake," chattered Henrietta. "That's
+very nice, Greta. Help yourselves to chairs, girls. Here's a tabouret
+for you, little Marjory. Catch, Jean," and the merry little hostess
+tossed a golden tangerine to Jean. "Oh, wait," she added. "You mustn't
+take off your gloves or get them soiled, because Grandmother always
+gets in about this time, and you know you must be very formal with
+Grandmother. I'll peel them for you. Now draw up closer. You mustn't
+spot your gloves, so I'll feed you. First, a bit of sponge cake all
+around. Now an almond. Now the orange. Oh, I'm forgetting myself! Now
+more sponge cake."
+
+"This is fine," said Bettie. "I'm always hungry after school."
+
+"So am I," said Jean.
+
+"If I'd s'posed," said Mabel, "that formal calls were like this, I'd
+have started sooner."
+
+"Are you a different person every time anybody sees you?" asked Bettie,
+curiously.
+
+"Why?" queried Henrietta.
+
+"Because," explained Bettie, "you seem so very changeable. You're a
+mischief in school, yesterday you seemed almost sad and to-day you're
+so polite."
+
+"Oh, _thank_ you," said Henrietta, rising to sweep a deep and very much
+exaggerated courtesy. "Nobody _ever_ before said that I was polite."
+
+"Miss Henrietta," said Greta, tapping at the door, "the carriage has
+just turned the corner."
+
+"Follow me," said Henrietta, with an instant change of tone, as she
+hurriedly brushed the crumbs from her lap and pulled Mabel's jacket
+into place. "Follow me and don't make a sound. It's time to be formal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+With Henrietta
+
+
+THROUGH a long corridor, around several corners and down two flights
+of back stairs, the formal callers, their hearts in their throats,
+followed Henrietta, who finally paused at the basement door.
+
+"There," said Henrietta, mysteriously, "you're safe at last. Now
+listen. You must slip out through the alley, walk slowly round the
+block, approach the house with dignity, ring the doorbell and present
+your cards to Simmons."
+
+"We--we can't," faltered Bettie. "He has them _now_."
+
+"I'll poke them out through the letter slot," laughed resourceful
+Henrietta. "You're not going to escape that formal call. Wait, your
+hat's over one ear, Mabel. There now, you're perfectly lovely. Now
+don't forget to pick up the cards."
+
+Entirely bewildered by Henrietta's pranks, the conventional visitors
+walked out through the alley, strolled round the block and nervously
+ascended the front steps. There, sure enough, were eight white cards
+popping out through the letter slot.
+
+"My goodness!" gasped Jean, "they're not _our_ cards. This one says
+'Mrs. Francis Patterson.'"
+
+"And this," said Marjory, picking up another, "says 'John D. Thomas,
+sole agent for Todd's shoes.'"
+
+"According to mine," giggled Bettie, "I'm Miss Ethel Louise Cartwright.
+What's on yours, Mabel?"
+
+"'With love from Father,'" groaned Mabel.
+
+"What in the world shall we do?" queried Jean, gathering up the
+remaining cards. "Not one of them will fit _us_."
+
+"Give them to Simmons in a bunch," suggested Marjory. "He didn't look
+at the last lot, so perhaps he won't now."
+
+So the girls, gathering what courage they could, touched the bell,
+presented their odd assortment of cards to Simmons--who almost
+succeeded in not looking astonished at seeing the callers again so
+soon--and were ushered into the reception room.
+
+Such a sedate Henrietta advanced to meet them! Such a dignified, but
+charming old lady rose to shake hands all around! Such a sheepish
+quartette of visitors perched on the extreme edge of the nearest four
+chairs! Mrs. Slater smiled encouragingly; but Henrietta, from her post
+behind her grandmother's chair, displayed every sign of abject terror.
+
+"We--we came to call," faltered Jean.
+
+"That was pleasant," responded Mrs. Slater. "You are just in time to
+have some tea. Midge, will you please ring for Greta? I'm very glad you
+came, for I wanted my granddaughter to meet some of the young people."
+
+Mrs. Slater, her slender, beringed fingers moving daintily among the
+cups, made the tea. Henrietta, in absolute silence and much subdued in
+manner, passed the cups, the delicate sandwiches and the little frosted
+tea cakes.
+
+"Midge," demanded Mrs. Slater, turning suddenly to her granddaughter,
+"what in the world is the matter with you? You haven't said a word for
+fifteen minutes. I never knew you to be still for so long a time."
+
+"It's my conscience," groaned Henrietta, dolefully. "I'm in another
+scrape."
+
+"What have you done now?" asked Mrs. Slater, who seemed very much less
+terrifying than the girls had expected to find her. "Confession is good
+for the soul, my dear."
+
+Henrietta's infectious laugh gurgled out suddenly and merrily.
+
+"I've frightened four girls almost into spasms," said she. "You see,
+Grannie, I told them that they'd _have_ to call formally if they wanted
+me to visit them. When they came you were out, so I took them upstairs,
+gave them things to eat and a jolly good time, generally. Then, just
+for a joke, I had Greta tell me when you were coming and I led them
+carefully down the back way, made them go round the block and do it all
+over again, cards and all. You see, Grannie, they don't know you. They
+haven't seen anything but your husk; and I had them scared blue; didn't
+I, girls?"
+
+"Midge, you shouldn't have done it," reproved Mrs. Slater, whose black
+eyes, however, were sparkling with only half-suppressed merriment.
+"That wasn't quite a courteous way to treat your guests!"
+
+"Forgive me," pleaded Henrietta, flopping down on her knees and looking
+the very picture of penitence. "Walk on me, Jean. Wipe your shoes on
+me, Bettie. I grovel at your feet--at _every_body's feet."
+
+"Don't grovel too hard in that dress," warned Mrs. Slater.
+
+"Am I forgiven?" implored Henrietta, gathering up her ruffles with
+elaborate care.
+
+The girls were not certain. Their pride had been injured and they eyed
+Henrietta doubtfully.
+
+"When you've known Midge as long as I have," said Mrs. Slater, "you'll
+discover that she is really too tender-hearted to hurt a fly. But
+you'll also discover that she never misses an opportunity to play
+pranks on every soul she loves. It's a symbol of her favor. She will
+never tell you an untruth, she is too honorable to practise downright
+deceit; but depend on it, girls, she will fool you until you won't
+believe your own ears. And she's always sorry, afterwards. She spends
+half her time apologizing."
+
+"Ah, _do_ forgive," pleaded extravagant Henrietta, suddenly extending
+imploring hands. "I mean it, truly. It _wasn't_ nice of me."
+
+Jean, stooping suddenly, kissed the upturned lips.
+
+"Why!" exclaimed Jean, genuinely surprised, "I didn't know I was going
+to do that."
+
+"She gets around everybody," said Mrs. Slater, "and the worst of it is
+she's so good and so naughty that you'll never know whether you like
+her or not."
+
+"Why, Grannie!" exclaimed Henrietta, "don't _you_ know?"
+
+"I know that I like you," said the old lady, smiling fondly at pretty,
+whimsical Henrietta, "but you know very well that I also regard you
+with strong disapproval. I consider you a very faulty young person."
+
+"You're a dear Grannie," breathed Henrietta, kissing the old lady's
+delicate hand, "but I'm quite sure you're spoiling me; isn't she,
+Bettie?"
+
+"Were you like Henrietta," queried Jean, "when you were young?"
+
+"My dear, you've found me out," laughed Mrs. Slater. "I was just such
+a piece of impishness; but my father was very severe, and I think I
+began earlier to restrain my prankishness. Midge, unfortunately, has
+a lenient father and a doting grandmother. Between them she is having
+pretty much her own way."
+
+"I'll be good," promised Henrietta, comically, "in spite of them; but
+you see, girls, with such a pair of relatives dogging my footsteps,
+it's uphill work."
+
+After a little more conversation, the girls rose to depart. Mrs. Slater
+begged them to come again. She said that she enjoyed young people. Then
+the big front door was closed behind them and the dreaded visit was
+over.
+
+"So," said Marjory, "_that's_ what Mrs. Slater is like inside."
+
+Mabel, unable to bear them longer, was recklessly peeling off her
+lemon-colored gloves.
+
+"She's lovely, inside and out," declared Bettie, "but I never dreamed
+that she was like _that_."
+
+"She wouldn't have cared if I _had_ gone without gloves," mourned
+aggrieved Mabel. "I'd like to pay Henrietta back for _that_."
+
+"Girls," asked Marjory, "do you _like_ Henrietta?"
+
+"I adore her," declared Jean.
+
+"I _think_ I like her," said Bettie.
+
+"I know _I_ don't," asserted Mabel, waving her throbbing hands in the
+evening breeze to cool them.
+
+"I do and I don't," said Marjory. "I admire her, but she makes me
+uncomfortable. I feel as if she were just playing with me."
+
+"She seems more than fourteen," murmured Jean, dreamily.
+
+"That's because she's traveled so much," explained Bettie.
+
+"She's like the big opal in Mother's ring," mused imaginative Jean.
+"One moment all warm and sparkly, the next, all cold and quiet."
+
+"And you never know," supplemented Marjory, "which way it's going to
+be."
+
+"I like folks that are downright bad or good," said Mabel, crossly.
+"Burglars ought to be burglars and ministers ought to be ministers and
+they all ought to be marked so you can tell 'em apart; else, how are
+you going to?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Call Returned
+
+
+THE following Saturday, the girls carried their Christmas sewing to
+Jean's. The sewing had not reached a very exciting stage, so tongues
+moved faster than fingers. Mabel was still working on a shoe-bag for
+her father but, owing to some misadventure, one of the two compartments
+was several sizes larger than the other. Mabel regarded this difference
+with disapproval until comforting Jean came to the rescue.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "there's a difference in the size of your
+father's feet."
+
+"Oh, there is," cried Mabel, gleefully. "His right shoe is always
+tighter than the left."
+
+"But," objected quick-witted Marjory, "it isn't his feet that are going
+into that bag. It's his shoes, and they're the same size."
+
+"Oh," groaned Mabel, settling into a disconsolate heap, "that's so."
+
+"Never mind," said Bettie. "Give me the bag, and I'll fix those
+pockets."
+
+Bettie was embroidering an elaborate pincushion for her mother, but she
+stopped so often to help the others that there seemed small hope of its
+ever getting finished. Marjory, who was making one just like it for her
+Aunty Jane, was progressing much more rapidly.
+
+Jean, rummaging in her work-bag, was trying to decide which of four
+partly completed articles to sew on when a carriage stopped at Mrs.
+Mapes's gate.
+
+"It's a caller," said Jean. "We'll have to vacate. Here, scurry into
+the dining-room with all your stuff. I'll answer the bell; and you,
+Bettie, remind Mother to take off her apron--she's apt to forget it."
+
+Jean, stopping long enough to twitch the chairs into place, went primly
+to the door.
+
+"Good-morning," said a familiar voice, "I've come to return your
+visit. It's all right, James. You needn't wait."
+
+"Come back, girls," called Jean, when she had ushered the caller in.
+"It's Henrietta."
+
+"What luck!" cried Henrietta, pulling off her gloves. "Now I can
+make a long, long call instead of four short ones. What are you
+doing--Christmas presents? Give me a spool of fine white thread, some
+pins and a sofa pillow. I'm going to make one, too."
+
+"Take off your things," said Jean, smilingly.
+
+Henrietta wriggled out of her jacket and tossed her hat on the couch.
+
+"What is it going to be?" asked Bettie, watching the merry visitor's
+deft fingers fly to and fro.
+
+"Lace," returned Henrietta. "I learned to make it in France. Of course
+these aren't the right materials for very fine lace, but I can make an
+edge for a pincushion or a mat. I like to do things with my fingers."
+
+"Can you draw?" asked Bettie.
+
+"A little," returned Henrietta, modestly, "but you mustn't tell Miss
+Rossitor, or she'll have _me_ doing cows and pigs and roosters."
+
+"What grade do you belong in?" asked Jean.
+
+"None," laughed the visitor, arranging the pins in what looked like
+a very intricate pattern. "I couldn't be graded. I'm having Domestic
+Science under the Methodist church, Senior Latin in the Council
+Chamber, Post-graduate French in a cloak-room off the A. O. U. W. Hall,
+Sophomore American History with the Baptists, and I'm doing mathematics
+in the kindergarten--or somewhere down there. I had to go back to the
+very beginning. If I ever tell you anything with numbers in it don't
+believe it. I don't know six from six hundred. But I'm doing lessons in
+five different buildings and getting lots of exercise besides. That's
+doing pretty well for my first year in school."
+
+"Your first year!" cried Marjory. "Surely you're fooling!"
+
+"Not this time," assured Henrietta. "I've had governesses and tutors
+ever since I could think, but this is truly my first school year. And
+it's great fun. But if I stay in America, I'm to go to boarding school,
+Grandmother says. I've always wanted to, and Grannie thinks it will be
+good for me to be with other girls. You see, I've always lived with
+grown folks, so I need to renew my youth."
+
+"Mother's been reading the boarding-school advertisements in the
+magazines lately," said Mabel. "I heard her read some of them aloud to
+Father. But of course they couldn't have been thinking about _me_. But
+they sounded interesting."
+
+"Perhaps," offered Bettie, "they had read all the stories and those
+boarding schools were all they had left to read."
+
+"I guess so," said Mabel.
+
+"Aunt Jane reads them, too," added Marjory. "There's some money that is
+to be used for my education and for nothing else. When I've finished
+with High School I'm to go to College."
+
+"Oh well," laughed, Jean, lightly, "you're safe for another five years."
+
+"_I_'m not," returned Henrietta. "I'm going next September, and if
+Grandmother had known how the schools were going to be you wouldn't be
+having the pleasure of my company now. She says I'm getting thin in the
+pursuit of knowledge--it's too scattered, in Lakeville. That's why she
+made me ride to-day."
+
+"Look!" cried Mabel, her eyes bulging with astonishment. "She's really
+making lace!"
+
+"It's for you," said Henrietta, flashing a bright glance at
+Mabel. "It's an apology, Mam'selle, for my past--and perhaps my
+future--misdeeds."
+
+"I _said_ I didn't like you," blurted honest Mabel, "but I do."
+
+"Don't depend on me," sighed Henrietta. "I don't wear well. You'll find
+the real me rubbing through in spots. Granny says I'm an imp that came
+in one of Dad's Hindoo boxes."
+
+"Why does your grandmother call you Midge?" asked Bettie.
+
+"Because she doesn't like Henrietta. You see, I have five names--they
+do that sort of thing on the other side--and I take turns with them.
+When I find out which one suits me best, I'll choose that one for
+keeps."
+
+"What are they?" demanded Mabel.
+
+"Henrietta Constance Louise Frederika Francesca--you see, there isn't
+a really suitable name in the lot. But when you have five quarrelsome
+aunts, as Father had, you have to please all or none of them by giving
+your poor helpless baby all their horrid names. Call me Sallie--I've
+_always_ wanted to be Sallie."
+
+"Think of anybody," laughed Jean, "with as many names as that wanting a
+new one."
+
+"Where's that baby you adopted?" asked Henrietta, abruptly changing the
+subject. "Didn't one of you adopt a baby or something like that?"
+
+"It was Mabel," replied Marjory. "The rest of us are pretty good, but
+Mabel's sort of thoughtless about borrowing things. She just happened
+to borrow an unreturnable baby, one day."
+
+"Where is it now?"
+
+"At Mr. Black's. Her name is Rosa Marie."
+
+"I'd like to see her," said Henrietta, carefully moving a pin.
+
+"Stay to luncheon," urged Jean. "Father's away, so there'll be plenty
+of room. Afterwards we can all pay a visit to Rosa Marie."
+
+"I'm afraid," said Marjory, "she's getting to be a burden to Mrs.
+Crane."
+
+"Yes," agreed Bettie, "but it isn't Rosa Marie's fault. Mrs. Crane has
+been reading a lot of books about bringing up children--you know she
+never had any. Before she discovered how many things _might_ happen
+to a baby she was quite comfortable; but now she's always certain that
+Rosa Marie is coming down with something."
+
+"And she doesn't seem very bright," mourned Jean.
+
+"Who--Mrs. Crane?"
+
+"No, Rosa Marie. You see, we don't know exactly how old she is--Mabel
+didn't think to ask--but she seems big enough to be lots smarter than
+she is. We're rather disappointed in her."
+
+"I'm not," protested Mabel, loyally. "She's just slow because she
+hasn't any little brothers and sisters. She's a _dear_ child."
+
+"Cheer up, Mabel," soothed Henrietta. "As long as she's beautiful she
+doesn't need to be bright."
+
+At this, Marjory looked at Jean, then at Bettie, and smiled an odd,
+significant smile. Here was a chance to get even with Henrietta; and,
+unconsciously, Mabel helped.
+
+"She's beautiful to me," said Mabel, "and she's ever so cunning."
+
+"What color are her eyes?"
+
+"Dark," said Marjory. "Darker than yours."
+
+"Then she's a brunette?"
+
+"Ye-es," said Marjory, as if considering the question. "She's darker,
+at least, than I am."
+
+"We all are," said Henrietta, with an admiring glance at Marjory's
+golden locks. "We seem to shade down gradually. Mabel comes next, then
+Jean, then Bettie; I'm the darkest, because Bettie's eyes are like
+brown velvet, but mine are black, like bits of hard coal. Where does
+Rosa Marie come in?"
+
+"I think," said Marjory, with an air of pondering deeply, "that Rosa
+Marie is almost, if not quite, as dark as you; even darker, perhaps.
+But her hair isn't as curly."
+
+"Dear little soul," breathed Henrietta, tenderly. "I've a tremendous
+liking for babies, but they're pretty scarce at our house. But there
+was one in England that was--Oh, if I could just see that English baby
+_now_! Wouldn't I just hug her!"
+
+Henrietta's eyes were unwontedly tender, her expression unusually sweet.
+
+"You're not a bit like you've been any of the other times," observed
+Bettie. "I like you a lot better when you're like this."
+
+"I'm not myself to-day," twinkled Henrietta. "I'm Sallie--just plain
+Sallie. But beware of me when I'm Frederika, the Disguised Duchess.
+_That's_ when I'm not to be trusted."
+
+"I think," said Jean, listening to some faraway sound, "that lunch is
+about ready."
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Henrietta. "The sooner it's over, the sooner I can
+hug that darling baby. It's months since I've held one in my arms--the
+dear little body."
+
+"You'll find----" began Mabel; but the other three promptly headed her
+off before she had time to explain that Rosa Marie was a pretty big
+armful.
+
+"It's time to go home," exclaimed Marjory and Bettie, in chorus. "Come
+on, Mabel."
+
+"If you'll excuse me," said Jean, speaking directly to Mabel, "I'll go
+set a place for Henrietta. Sorry I can't ask everybody to stay; but
+come back at two o'clock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Getting Even
+
+
+LUNCHEON at Jean's that day proved a lively affair, for both boys were
+home; Henrietta chatted as frankly and as merrily as if she had known
+them all her life. Wallace, who was shy, squirmed uneasily at first and
+kept his eyes on his plate; but Roger, who had encountered the visitor
+in his French class, was able to respond to her friendly chatter.
+
+"I like boys," asserted Henrietta, frankly, "but I haven't any
+belonging to me but one and he's a horrid muff--sixteen and a regular
+baby. He's my cousin."
+
+"I thought you liked babies," laughed Jean.
+
+"I do, but not that kind. He's been molly-coddled until it makes you
+sick to look at him."
+
+"Trot him out," offered Roger. "I'll give him an antidote."
+
+"He's in England," said Henrietta, "and I hope he'll stay there. He
+hasn't any idea of doing anything for himself; he's always talking
+about what he'll do when somebody else does such and such a thing for
+him."
+
+"You mean," said Roger, "he hasn't any American independence."
+
+"That's it," agreed Henrietta. "He'd have made a nice pink-and-white
+girl, but he's no use at all as a boy."
+
+"How dark it's getting," said Jean. "I can hardly see my plate."
+
+"I think," prophesied Wallace, breaking his long silence, "that it's
+going to snow. The sky's been a little thick for three days; when it
+comes we'll get a lot."
+
+"Goody!" cried Henrietta, "I've never seen a real Lake Superior
+snowstorm and I want to. So far all the snow we've had has come in the
+night. I want to _see_ it snow."
+
+"You wouldn't," growled Wallace, "if you had to shovel several tons of
+it off your sidewalk."
+
+"Will it snow very soon?" queried Henrietta, eagerly.
+
+"Probably not before dark," returned Wallace, turning to glance at the
+dull sky. "It's only getting ready."
+
+Enthusiastic Henrietta, that odd mixture of extreme youth and premature
+age, was all impatience to see Rosa Marie. She had telephoned her
+grandmother to ask permission to spend the day with her new friends,
+and now she was eager to add Rosa Marie to the list. It was easy to see
+that she was expecting to behold something very choice in the line of
+babies. Jean was tempted to undeceive her, but loyalty to Marjory kept
+her silent.
+
+"A baby," breathed Henrietta, rapturously, "is the loveliest thing
+in all the world. _Isn't_ it most two o'clock? Wait, I'll look at my
+watch--Mercy! I forgot to wind it!"
+
+"Hark!" said Jean, "I think I hear the girls. Yes, I do."
+
+"Get on your things," commanded Marjory, opening the door. "Bettie
+stopped to feed the cat, sew a button on Dick, wash Peter's face, tie
+up her father's finger and hook her mother's dress, but she's here at
+last and we're to pick up Mabel on the way because Dr. Bennett called
+her back to wash her face."
+
+"We mustn't stay too long," warned Jean, glancing at the dull sky. "It
+looks as if it would get dark early."
+
+Mrs. Crane was glad to see her visitors and appeared delighted to add a
+new girl to her collection of youthful friends.
+
+"You and Jean are just of a size," said she.
+
+"And about the same age," added Bettie, who had always regretted the
+two years' difference in her age and Jean's. "I wish _I_ were as old as
+that."
+
+"Aren't you afraid," blundered well-meaning Mrs. Crane, turning to
+Bettie, "that she'll cut you out? You and Jean have always been as
+thick as thieves. Don't you let this pretty Henrietta steal your Jean
+away from you."
+
+Bettie, dear little unselfish soul, had hitherto been conscious of
+no such fear, but now her big brown eyes were troubled. This new
+possibility was alarming.
+
+"We'd like to see Rosa Marie," said Marjory. "Is she well?"
+
+"She has a bad cold," returned Mrs. Crane, shaking her head,
+sorrowfully. "I've just been looking through my books, and in the very
+first one I found more than twenty-five fatal diseases that begin with
+a bad cold."
+
+"Didn't you find _any_ that folks ever get over?" suggested Jean,
+comfortingly.
+
+"Why, yes," replied Mrs. Crane, brightening. "I've known of folks
+pulling through at least twenty-four of them. But there's one thing.
+You won't like Rosa Marie's clothes to-day. They're--they're sort of
+an accident."
+
+"An accident?" questioned Bettie. "What happened?"
+
+"Why, you see, I ordered her a ready-made dress out of a catalogue. It
+sounded very promising but--Well, it's _warm_, but I guess that's about
+all you can say for it. I'll take you to the nursery; I have to keep
+her out of drafts."
+
+Rosa Marie, well and becomingly clad, would hardly have captured a
+prize in a beauty show, even with very little competition. Poor little
+Rosa Marie, suffering with a severe cold, appeared a most unlovable
+object. Her eyes were dull and all but invisible, her nose and lips
+were red and swollen and her wide mouth seemed even larger than usual.
+The catalogue dress was more than an accident; it was an out and out
+calamity. Its gorgeous red and green plaid was marked off like a city
+map in regular squares with a startling stripe of yellow. Moreover,
+the alarming garment was a distressingly tight fit.
+
+"It looked," sighed Mrs. Crane, apologetically, "as pretty as you
+please in that book; but of course nobody would _think_ of buying such
+goods as that _outside_ a catalogue. But Rosa Marie liked it."
+
+After the first glance, however, the Cottagers did not look at Rosa
+Marie or the hideous plaid. They gazed instead at Henrietta's speaking
+countenance. Having led their new friend to expect something entirely
+different in the way of infantile charms, they wanted to enjoy her
+surprise; but strangely enough they did not. It was evident that
+something was wrong with their plan.
+
+The bright, expectant look faded suddenly from the sparkling black
+eyes. All the animation fled swiftly from the girlish countenance. Two
+large tears rolled down Henrietta's cheeks.
+
+"Oh," she mourned, "I was _so_ lonely for a real, dear little baby."
+
+"Dear me," sighed penitent Jean, "we thought you'd enjoy the joke. We
+saw at once that you supposed that Rosa Marie was an ordinary child--a
+nice little pink and white creature in long clothes. It seemed such a
+good chance to get even that we----"
+
+"It was my fault," apologized Marjory. "I _tried_ to fool you. I never
+thought you'd _care_."
+
+"I'm sorry," said offended Mabel, stiffly, "that you don't like Rosa
+Marie. She's much more interesting than a common baby, and I think,
+when I picked her out----"
+
+"It isn't that," said Henrietta, smiling through her tears. "You see,
+I had a baby cousin in England that I just hated to leave--Oh, the
+sweetest, daintiest little-girl baby--and she'll be all grown up and
+gone before I ever see her again. I simply adored that baby."
+
+"Never mind," soothed Bettie, generously. "We've any number of real
+babies at our house and three of them are small enough to cuddle. And
+even the littlest one is big enough to be played with."
+
+"What an accommodating family," said Henrietta, wiping her eyes. "I
+guess they'll make up for this remarkable infant."
+
+"Rosa Marie certainly isn't looking her best to-day," admitted Jean,
+"but you'll really find her very interesting when you know her better.
+But she never does appeal to strangers--we've found _that_ out."
+
+"And just now," said Bettie, "she's surely a sight; but when you've
+seen her in the cunning little Indian costume that Mr. Black bought for
+her you'll really like her."
+
+"Perhaps," said Henrietta, doubtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A Full Afternoon
+
+
+"NOW," said Mrs. Crane, with a note of pride in her tone, "I want
+to show you what Peter Black's been doing _this_ time. It's in the
+library."
+
+The interested girls followed Mrs. Crane into the cozy, book-lined
+room. Mr. Black's purchases were apt to be worth seeing, for, now that
+he had a family after so many years of solitude, he was spending his
+money lavishly. And he delighted in surprising his elderly sister with
+unusual gifts.
+
+"There," said Mrs. Crane, pointing to a square cabinet of polished
+wood. "What do you think of that! Can you guess what it is?"
+
+"I think," replied Jean, "it's a cupboard for your very prettiest
+tea-cups--the ones that are too nice to use."
+
+"_I_ think," said Marjory, "that it's a fire-proof safe to keep Rosa
+Marie's plaid dress in, so it won't set the house afire."
+
+"I guess," said Bettie, "it's some sort of a refrigerator to use on
+Sundays only."
+
+"It looks to me," ventured Mabel, "like a cage with a monkey in it.
+I've seen them in processions, only they were fancier."
+
+"I _know_ what it is," said Henrietta, "because we have one like it,
+but ours isn't as nice as this."
+
+"Now turn your backs," requested Mrs. Crane.
+
+In another moment the girls were listening to a delightful concert.
+Wonderful music was pouring from the polished cabinet.
+
+"I was the nearest right," asserted Mabel.
+
+"Why!" objected Bettie, "you said it was a monkey--monkeys don't sing."
+
+"I was right, just the same. It's a hand organ, and everybody knows
+that a monkey's pretty near the same thing."
+
+The girls laughed, for Mabel, who was usually wrong, always insisted
+obstinately that she was right.
+
+"It's a phonograph," explained Henrietta, "and the very best one I ever
+heard."
+
+"It's a whole brass band," breathed Bettie.
+
+"I knew it was good," said Mrs. Crane, contentedly, "for Peter refused
+to tell what he paid for it."
+
+It took a long time for the phonograph to give up all that was inside
+its polished case, and before the entertainment was quite over Mr.
+Black came in.
+
+Bettie, eager to display her new acquaintance, hardly waited to greet
+him before introducing Henrietta. It was a pleasure, as well as a
+novelty, to have so attractive a friend to present.
+
+"This," said Bettie, proudly but a little flustered, "is my hen,
+Frenriet--I mean, my hen----"
+
+Bettie turned scarlet and stopped. The girls shrieked with delight.
+Mrs. Crane laughed till she cried. Mr. Black's roars of laughter
+drowned the phonograph's best effort.
+
+"I'm _not_ your hen," giggled Henrietta. "Not even your chicken. This
+settles _that_ name--I can't risk being mistaken for any more poultry."
+
+"She's Henrietta Bedford," explained Jean, wiping her eyes.
+
+"And how long," teased Mr. Black, "have you been keeping poultry, Miss
+Bettykins?"
+
+"About two weeks," giggled Bettie. "She's Mrs. Slater's granddaughter."
+
+"I don't like to seem inhospitable," said Mr. Black, a few moments
+later, "but it's beginning to snow, and the weather's going to be a
+good deal worse before it gets any better. If you start now, you'll be
+home before the snow begins to drift--there's a strong north wind and
+the thermometer's a bit down-hearted."
+
+The girls had removed their wraps and it took time to get into them.
+Also, Mrs. Crane, noticing that the girls were dressed for mild
+weather, detained them while she hunted up a silk handkerchief to wrap
+about Marjory's throat, a veil to tie over Bettie's ears and some
+warmer gloves for Jean. Henrietta and Mabel refused to be bundled up.
+
+The outside air was many degrees colder than it had been two hours
+earlier, and was full of flying snow. The wind came in gusts, yet there
+was something bracing and stimulating about the stirring atmosphere,
+particularly to Henrietta.
+
+"Oh!" cried she, "this is fine! Why can't we take a long walk? It's a
+shame to hurry home. I just love this. Isn't there somebody we can go
+to see? Hasn't anybody an errand?"
+
+"Ye-es," said Mabel, doubtfully. "We could go down to Mrs. Malony's.
+Mother told me this morning to get her bill, and I forgot all about it."
+
+"Mabel always has a few forgotten errands laid away," teased Marjory.
+"She can show you, too, where she found Rosa Marie--it's down that way."
+
+"I hope," said Henrietta, making a comical grimace, "that there's no
+danger of finding any more like her. But let's go. It's a shame to miss
+any of this."
+
+Going down the long hill toward Mrs. Malony's was entirely delightful,
+for the wind, of which there was a great deal, was at their
+well-protected backs; they fairly scudded before it, laughing joyously
+as they were swept along almost on a run. Going westward at the bottom
+of the hill was not so very bad either, for here the road was somewhat
+sheltered, though the snow was much deeper than the girls had expected
+to find it.
+
+Mrs. Malony, the garrulous egg-woman, was at home; she expressed her
+surprise and delight at the advent of so many unexpected visitors.
+
+"'Tis mesilf thot's glad to see so manny purty faces," said she,
+flying about to find chairs. "'Tis the lovely complexion you have
+to-day, Miss Jean. An' who's the little lady wid the rosy cheek? The
+gran'choild av Mrs. Lady Slater--wud ye hark to thot now! An' how's
+Bettie darlin' wid all her purty smiles? Thot's good--thot's good. An'
+Miss Mabel here--sure she's the fat wan----"
+
+"Mother," explained Mabel, with dignity, "would like her egg-bill."
+
+"Bill, is ut?" replied Mrs. Malony, graciously. "Sure there's no hurry
+at all, at all. The sooner it comes the sooner 'tis spint. Ah, well, if
+you're afther insistin' [no one _had_ insisted] joost count the banes
+in me owld taypot. Ivery wan stands fer wan dozen eggs at twinty-foive
+cints the dozen."
+
+"Thirteen beans," announced Jean, who had counted them several times to
+make certain.
+
+"Sure," persuaded smooth-tongued Mrs. Malony, "you'd best be takin' wan
+more dozen, Miss Mabel. 'Twould be sore unlucky to stop wid t'irteen."
+
+While she was counting the eggs, Mr. Malony, redolent of the stable and
+bearing two steaming pails of milk, came into the kitchen. Mrs. Malony,
+beaming with hospitality, went hastily to the cupboard, brought forth
+five exceedingly thick cups, filled them with milk and passed them to
+her dismayed guests.
+
+Some persons like warm milk, fresh from the cow, with the cow-smell
+overshadowing all other flavors. Mrs. Malony's visitors did not. They
+were too polite to say so, however, so there they sat, five martyrs
+to courtesy, sipping the distasteful milk. It clogged their throats,
+it made them feel queerly upset inside, but still, solely out of
+politeness, they continued to sip.
+
+"Take bigger swallows," advised Mabel, in a smothered whisper.
+
+"I cuk--can't," breathed Bettie.
+
+Mr. Malony had left the room. Presently, Mrs. Malony, in search of a
+basket for the eggs, stooped to rummage in the untidy recess beneath
+the cupboard. Quick as a wink, Henrietta emptied her cup into the
+original pail, but the other unfortunates were left to struggle with
+their unwelcome refreshment. Henrietta, however, gained nothing by her
+trick, for the egg-woman, discovering that her cup was empty, promptly
+refilled it, much to the amusement of the other victims.
+
+Henrietta, discovering their state of mind, was moved to defiance.
+Lifting her cup, with a determined glint in her black eyes, she drank
+every drop in four courageous, continuous gulps. In a twinkling, the
+other girls had imitated her example and were declining Mrs. Malony's
+pressing offer of more milk.
+
+"Joost a wee sup," pleaded Mrs. Malony, reaching for Jean's cup.
+
+"No, thank you," said Jean, rising hastily. "We ought to be getting
+home."
+
+Getting home, however, proved a different matter from getting away from
+home. After escaping Mrs. Malony's insistent hospitality, the girls
+waded across the snowy street and out toward the point to see if Rosa
+Marie's home were still there. The door hung from one hinge and snow
+had drifted, and was still drifting, in at the doorway.
+
+"Do you think," asked Henrietta, gazing at the deserted house, "that
+Rosa Marie's mother will ever come back?"
+
+"No," returned Jean.
+
+"Not to any such homely baby as that," declared Marjory.
+
+"She _will_ come back," asserted Mabel, loyally. "She loved Rosa
+Marie--I saw it in her eyes."
+
+"Looks don't matter, with mothers," soothed Bettie. "A cat likes a
+homely yellow kitten as well as a lovely white one. And Dick has more
+freckles than Bob, but Mother likes him just as well."
+
+"Rosa Marie's mother stood right in that doorway," said Mabel, "and, as
+long as I could see her, her eyes were stretching out after Rosa Marie."
+
+"They must have stuck out on pegs like a lobster's," giggled Henrietta,
+"by the time you reached the corner."
+
+"I think you're _mean_," muttered Mabel.
+
+"I repent," apologized Henrietta. "For a moment I relapsed into
+Frederika, the Disguised Duchess; but now I'm your own kind-hearted
+Sallie and I wish that my toes were as warm as my affections. Let's
+start for civilization--we seem to have the world to ourselves. Doesn't
+anybody else like snow, I wonder?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Taking a Walk
+
+
+"PHEW!" gasped Jean, wheeling as the north wind, sweeping round the
+corner, caught her square in the face. "I don't think much of that!
+It's like ice."
+
+"Ugh!" groaned Marjory, "I wish I'd stayed home."
+
+"Mercy!" gulped Henrietta, "it's blowing my skin off."
+
+After that, no one had very much to say. The girls needed their breath
+for other purposes. With heads down and jackets pulled tightly about
+them, they started up the long hill with the wind in their faces. It
+was not a pleasant wind. Cold and cutting, it flung icy particles of
+snow against their cheeks, nipped their unprotected ears, stung their
+fingers and found the thin places in their garments. It rushed down
+their throats when they opened their mouths to speak, wrapped their
+petticoats so tightly about them that they had to keep unwinding
+themselves in order to walk at all, heaped the whirling snow in drifts
+and filled the air so full of flakes that it was only between gusts
+that the houses were visible. Worst of all, the way was very much
+uphill, and Mabel, besides being short of breath, was burdened with
+the basket of eggs. The snow seemed to take a delight in piling itself
+directly in front of them.
+
+"Ugh!" gasped Henrietta, "I wish my stockings were fur-lined. They
+thawed out in Mrs. Malony's and now they're frozen stiff. I don't like
+'em."
+
+"Mine, too," panted Mabel.
+
+"And all my skirts," groaned Marjory. "The edges are like saws and
+they're scraping my knees."
+
+"How do you like a real storm?" queried Jean, steering Henrietta
+through a mighty drift.
+
+"Not so well as I thought I should," admitted Henrietta. "I miss my
+blizzard clothes."
+
+The streets, when the girls finally reached the top of the hill, were
+deserted. Even the sides of the houses looked like solid walls of snow,
+for the wind had hurled the big flakes in gigantic handfuls against the
+buildings until they were all nicely coated with a thick frosting; and
+so, all the world was white. And, by the time the five girls reached
+Jean's house, for they finally accomplished that difficult feat, they,
+too, were nicely plastered from head to heels with the clinging snow.
+They looked like animated snow men as they piled thankfully into Mrs.
+Mapes's parlor.
+
+The girls themselves were warm and glowing from the unusual exercise,
+but their stockings and cotton skirts were frozen stiff.
+
+"Henrietta will simply have to stay all night," said Mrs. Mapes,
+discovering the wet stockings. "I sent the coachman home half an hour
+ago for the sake of the horses. I'll telephone Mrs. Slater that you're
+safe. You other girls must go home at once and change your clothes
+before they thaw. And, Jean, you and Henrietta must get into bed at
+once. I'll bring you a hot supper inside of five minutes."
+
+"That'll be fun," declared Jean, seizing Henrietta's hand and making
+for the stairs. "Good-night, girls."
+
+"I guess," said Marjory, when the Mapes's door had closed behind
+Bettie, Mabel and herself, "Jean and Henrietta are going to be great
+chums."
+
+"I'm afraid so," sighed Bettie. "I like Henrietta; but, dear me, I
+don't want Jean to like her better than she does me."
+
+"She won't," comforted Marjory. "Henrietta's all right for a little
+while at a time, but you're _always_ nice."
+
+Thanks to Mrs. Mapes's instructions, none of the girls caught cold; but
+their mothers were so afraid that they might that not one of them was
+permitted to poke her nose out of doors the next day. To Henrietta's
+delight, the drifts reached the fence tops; and, until a huge plow,
+drawn by six horses arranged in pairs, had cleared the way, the roads
+were impassable. The wind, after raging furiously all night, had
+quieted down; but the snow continued to fall in big, soft, clinging
+flakes, every tree and shrub was weighted down with a heavy burden and
+all the world was white. To Henrietta, who had never before seen snow
+in such abundance, it was a most pleasing spectacle.
+
+Bettie, however, was sorely troubled. There was Jean shut in with
+attractive Henrietta and getting "chummier" with her every minute.
+There was Bettie, a solitary prisoner in a fuzzy red wrapper and bed
+slippers, sighing for her beloved Jean. To be sure, Bettie had brothers
+of assorted sizes and complexions, but not one of them could fill
+Jean's place in Bettie's troubled affections.
+
+Had Bettie but known it, however, Jean was not having an entirely
+comfortable day. It happened to be one of Henrietta's "Frederika"
+days. The lively girl tormented bashful Wallace by pretending that
+she herself was excessively shy, and, as shyness was not one of her
+attributes, her victim was covered with confusion. She teased and
+bewildered Roger by chattering so rapidly in French that he couldn't
+understand a word she said, although he had studied the language for
+three years under Miss McGinnis and was proud of his progress. A number
+of times she became so witty at Jean's expense that "Sallie" had to
+rush to the rescue with profuse apologies. Also, she disturbed both Mr.
+and Mrs. Mapes by her extreme restlessness.
+
+"My sakes," confided Mrs. Mapes, in the privacy of the kitchen, whither
+she had fled for the sake of quiet, "I'm glad that girl doesn't belong
+to me; she isn't still a minute."
+
+"Perhaps," said Roger, who had escaped on the pretext of blacking his
+shoes, "it's because she has traveled so much. Maybe she feels as if
+she had to keep going."
+
+"Bettie's certainly a great deal quieter," agreed Jean, who looked
+tired, "and she doesn't talk all night when a body wants to sleep; but
+Henrietta's more fun. You see, you never know what she's going to do
+next, but Bettie's always just the same."
+
+At dinner time that day, Mrs. Mapes asked her husband if he knew
+whether the School Board had accomplished anything at the meeting held
+the night previously.
+
+"No," replied Mr. Mapes, a tall, thin man with a preoccupied air.
+"And they never will as long as each one of them wants to put that
+schoolhouse in a different place. They can't come to any sort of an
+agreement."
+
+Indeed, the poor School Board was having a perplexing time. The
+citizens that lived at the north end of the town wanted the new school
+built there. Other tax-payers declared that the southern portion of
+Lakeville, being more densely populated, offered a more suitable site.
+Then, since the town stretched westward for a long distance, a third
+group of persons were clamoring for the building in _their_ part of the
+town. Besides all these, there were persons who declared that the old
+site was the _only_ place for a school building. As the Board itself
+was divided as to opinion, it began to look as if Lakeville would have
+to get along without a schoolhouse unless it could afford to build
+four, and the tax-payers said it couldn't do that.
+
+"I wish," said Mrs. Mapes, "that I could find a first-class girls'
+school within a reasonable distance. If they don't have a proper
+building in Lakeville by next September I'll send Jean away. That
+Baptist cellar is damp, and I know it. Besides, I went to a good
+boarding school myself and I'd like Jean to have the experience--I'll
+never forget those days."
+
+"Send her," suggested Henrietta, "to the school I'm going to."
+
+"Which one is that?" asked Mrs. Mapes.
+
+"I don't know; but Grandmother says it mustn't be too far away. She
+wants me within reach."
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Mapes, reflectively, "I'll send for some
+catalogues."
+
+The next morning the sun shone brightly on a glittering world.
+Henrietta went into ecstasies over it, for even the tree trunks seemed
+incrusted with diamonds--or at least rhine-stones, Henrietta said. The
+coachman arrived with the Slater horses a little before nine o'clock
+and the two girls were carried off to school in state. They waved their
+hands to Bettie as they passed her trudging in the snow; and poor
+Bettie was suddenly conscious of a sharp twinge of jealousy.
+
+Now that Henrietta had been properly called on and had returned the
+call, she became a permanent part of all the Cottagers' plans.
+Thereafter, there was hardly a day when one or another of the four
+girls did not see the fascinating maid of many names. They always found
+her interesting, attractive and entertaining. Yet, there were days
+when she teased them almost to the limit of their endurance, times
+when they could not quite approve her and moments when she fairly
+roused them to anger; but, in spite of her faults, they could not
+help loving her, because, with all her impishness and her distressing
+lack of repose, she was warm-hearted, loyal and thoroughly true. And,
+although she possessed dozens of advantages that the other girls
+lacked, although she was beautifully gowned, splendidly housed and
+bountifully supplied with spending money, never did she show, in any
+way, the faintest scrap of false pride. She mentioned her life abroad,
+in a simple, matter-of-fact way (as if it were a mere incident that
+might have happened to anybody), but never in any boasting spirit. Her
+prankishness, however, kept her from being too good or too lovable;
+for, as her Grandmother said, she spared no one; sometimes even Jean,
+who was a model of patience, found it hard to forgive fun-loving
+Frederika, the Disguised Duchess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Statue from India
+
+
+ALL the shops in Lakeville wore a holiday air, for money was plentiful
+and trade was unusually brisk. The windows were gay with wreaths of
+holly and glittering strings of Christmas-tree ornaments. Clerks were
+busy and smiling. Customers, alert for bargains, crowded about the
+counters and parted cheerfully from their cash. Persons in the streets,
+laden with parcels of every shape, size and color, pushed eagerly
+through the doors or hurried along the busy thoroughfares. All wore
+an air of eager expectancy, for two weeks of December were gone and
+Christmas was fairly scrambling into sight.
+
+The five girls had money to spend. Very little of it, to be sure,
+belonged to the Cottagers; but Henrietta had a great deal, and,
+as they all went together on their shopping expeditions, it didn't
+matter very much, as far as enjoyment went, who did the purchasing.
+Bettie said that it was quite as much fun to help Henrietta pick out
+a five-dollar scarf pin for Simmons, the butler, as it was to choose
+ten-cent paper weights for Bob and Dick. Besides, no one was obliged
+to go home empty-handed, because it took all five to carry Henrietta's
+purchases.
+
+All five were making things besides. Sometimes they sewed at Jean's,
+sometimes at Henrietta's, occasionally at Marjory's and once in a
+while at Mabel's. They liked least of all to go to Marjory's because
+Aunty Jane, who was a wonderfully particular housekeeper, objected
+to their walking on her hardwood floors and seemed equally averse
+to having them step on the rugs. As they couldn't very well use the
+ceiling or feel entirely comfortable under the battery of Aunty Jane's
+disapproving glances, they liked to go where they were more warmly
+welcomed. Perhaps Henrietta's once-dreaded home was the most popular
+place, though in that fascinating abode they could not accomplish a
+great deal in the sewing line because Henrietta invariably produced
+such a bewildering array of unusual belongings to show them that their
+eyes kept busier than their fingers. In another way, however, they
+accomplished a great deal. Henrietta, who was really very clever with
+her needle, had started at one time or another a great many different
+articles. These, in their half-finished condition--the changeable
+girl was much better at beginning things than at completing them--she
+lavishly bestowed on her friends. Lovely flowered ribbons, dainty bits
+of silk and lace, curious scraps of Japanese and Chinese embroidery,
+embossed leather and rich brocades, all these found their way into the
+Cottagers' work-bags.
+
+Out of these fascinating odds and ends they fashioned gifts for Mrs.
+Crane, Anne Halliday's mother, their out-of-town relatives, their
+parents and their school-teachers. They wanted, of course, to buy every
+toy that ever was made for Rosa Marie, little Anne Halliday, Peter
+Tucker and the Marcotte twins; but Mr. Black, meeting them in the
+toy-shop one day, implored them to leave just a few things in the shops
+for him to buy, particularly for Rosa Marie and little Peter Tucker,
+his namesake.
+
+And now, Mabel was immensely pleased with Henrietta; for, one day, Rosa
+Marie, cured of her cold, had been dressed in her cunning little Indian
+costume for the new girl's benefit. Rosa Marie had looked so very much
+more attractive than when she had had a cold that Henrietta had been
+greatly taken with her. As the way to Mabel's affections was through
+approval of Rosa Marie, Henrietta quickly found it, so the threatened
+breach was healed.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Crane," Henrietta had cried, on beholding the little brown
+person in buckskin and feathers, "do let me telephone for James to
+bring the carriage so I can take Rosa Marie to our house and show her
+to my Grandmother. I'll take the very best of care of her. And all four
+of the girls can come with her, so she won't be afraid."
+
+"Oh, _do_," pleaded the others.
+
+"Well, it's mild out to-day," returned Mrs. Crane, glancing out the
+window, "and a little fresh air won't hurt her. I guess her coat will
+go on right over these fixings and I can tie a veil over her head.
+You'll find a telephone in the library, on Mr. Black's desk."
+
+Half an hour later, the six youngsters, carefully tucked between
+splendid fur robes, were on their way to Mrs. Slater's.
+
+"I have a perfectly heavenly plan," said Henrietta, her black eyes
+sparkling with impishness. "Want to hear it?"
+
+"Of course we do," encouraged the Cottagers.
+
+"You see," explained Henrietta, "a large box came from Father this
+morning. It hasn't been opened yet; but Greta and Simmons don't know
+that. I'm going to make them think that Rosa Marie is what came in that
+box--it's time I cheered them up a little, for Simmons has lost some
+money he had in the bank and Greta is homesick for the old country.
+Will you help?"
+
+"Ye-es," promised Jean, doubtfully, "if you're not going to hurt
+anybody's feelings."
+
+"Shan't even scratch one," assured Henrietta. "Now, when we reach the
+house, I'll slip around to the basement door with Rosa Marie--the cook
+will let us in--and you must ring the front-door bell because that will
+take Simmons out of the way while I get up the back stairs. Ask for
+Grandmother, and I'll come down and get you when I'm ready."
+
+So the girls asked for Mrs. Slater--every one of them now liked the
+entertaining old lady very much indeed--and chatted with her merrily
+until Henrietta came running down the stairs.
+
+"Grannie," asked the lively girl, pressing her warm red cheek against
+Mrs. Slater's much paler one, "would you like to be amused? Would you
+like to be a black conspirator and humble your most haughty servitor to
+the dust? Then you must ascend to my haunted den and not say a single
+word for at least five minutes. Come on, girls."
+
+In Henrietta's oddly furnished room there were two large East Indian
+gods and one heathen goddess. Henrietta had managed to group these
+interesting, Oriental figures in one corner of the spacious chamber,
+with appropriate drapings behind them. Near them she had placed an
+empty packing case, oblong in shape and plastered with curious, foreign
+labels. It looked as if it were waiting to be carried away to the
+furnace room or some such place.
+
+Darkening her bedroom and her dressing room, she placed her obliging
+grandmother and her four friends behind the heavy portières.
+
+"You can peek round the edges," said she, "but you mustn't be seen or
+heard or even suspected."
+
+Then, fun-loving Henrietta brought Rosa Marie from another room,
+removed her wraps, concealed them from sight and placed the stolid
+child in a sitting posture on a large tabouret near one of the richly
+colored statues. Next she rang for Greta, and ran downstairs in person
+to ask Simmons to come at once to remove the heavy packing case.
+
+Simmons obeyed immediately and just as the pair reached Henrietta's
+door, Greta, who had been in her own room, joined them. All three
+entered together.
+
+"Don't you want to see my lovely new statue?" asked Henrietta. "There,
+with the rest of my heathen friends."
+
+"Ho," said Simmons, leaning closer to look. "_That's_ wot came in that
+'eavy box. Another 'eathen god from Hindia."
+
+[Illustration: "ANOTHER 'EATHEN GOD FROM HINDIA."]
+
+"He ees very pretty god-lady, Miss Henrietta," approved Greta. "Looks
+most like real."
+
+Rosa Marie, awed by her strange surroundings, played her part most
+beautifully. For a long moment she sat perfectly still. But, just as
+Simmons leaned forward to take a better look at her, Rosa Marie, who
+had suddenly caught a whiff of pungent smoke from the joss-sticks
+that Henrietta had lighted to create a proper atmosphere for her gods
+and goddesses, gave a sudden sneeze. The effect was all that could be
+desired. Simmons leaped backward and Greta, who was excitable, gave a
+piercing shriek.
+
+The hidden girls restrained their giggles, but only with difficulty;
+and Bettie said afterwards that she could feel Mrs. Slater shaking with
+helpless laughter.
+
+"My heye!" exclaimed Simmons, "wot'll they be mykin' next! Look!
+Hit's movin' 'is 'ead."
+
+Rosa Marie proceeded deliberately to move more than her head. Putting
+both hands on the tabouret, she managed somehow to lift herself
+clumsily to all-fours, balancing uncertainly for several moments in
+that ungainly attitude. Then she rose to her feet, and, stiffly, like
+some mechanical toy, stretched out her arms toward Henrietta. Greta
+backed hastily through the doorway; but Simmons eyed the swaying
+youngster with enlightened eyes.
+
+"Hit's a real biby, from Hindia," said he, "but think of hit comin'
+hall that wy in that there box. But them Indoos 'ave a lot of queer
+tricks and Hi suppose they drugged 'im, mide a bloomin' mummy of 'im
+and sent directions for bringin' of 'im to."
+
+"Take the box downstairs, please," said Henrietta, succeeding in the
+difficult task of keeping her face straight. "This is a little North
+Indian from Lakeville, Simmons, not an East Indian from India, and it
+was only some things that I'm not to look at till Christmas that came
+in the box."
+
+"Hi _thought_ hit was mighty stringe," returned Simmons, looking very
+much relieved and not at all resentful. "Hit seemed sort of hawful,
+Miss 'Enrietta, to think as 'ow 'uman bein's could tike such chances
+with heven their hown hoffsprings. But, just the sime, Miss 'Enrietta,
+Hi've 'eard of them 'Indoos doing mighty queer things, and Hi, for one,
+don't trust 'em."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Comparing Notes
+
+
+IT was eight o'clock, the morning of the twenty-fourth day of December,
+which is twice as exciting a day as the twenty-fifth and at least ten
+times as interesting as the twenty-sixth.
+
+Bettie, and as many of the little Tuckers as had been able to find
+enough clothes for decency, were eating pancakes a great deal faster
+than Mrs. Tucker could bake them over the Rectory stove. Marjory, her
+young countenance somewhat puckered because of the tartness of her
+grapefruit, was sitting sedately opposite her Aunty Jane. Jean had
+finished her breakfast and was tying mysterious tissue paper parcels
+with narrow scarlet ribbon; and Mabel, having suddenly remembered
+that this was the day that the postman brought interesting mail, was
+hurrying with might and main to get into her sailor blouse in order
+to capture the letters. Of course she didn't expect to open any of her
+Christmas mail; but she did like to squeeze the packages. Henrietta was
+reading a long, delightful letter from her father. Mrs. Slater, too,
+had Christmas letters.
+
+Five blocks away Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were finishing their
+breakfast. Their dining-room was at the back of the house, where its
+three broad windows commanded a fine view of the lake. Just at the top
+of the bluff and well inside the Black-Crane yard stood a wonderfully
+handsome fir tree, a truly splendid tree, for in all Lakeville there
+was no other evergreen to compare with it in size, shape or color.
+
+Every now and again, Mr. Black would turn in his chair to gaze
+earnestly out the window at the tree. For a long time, Mrs. Crane, her
+nice dark eyes dancing with fun, watched her brother in silence. But
+when he began to consume the last quarter of his second piece of toast
+she felt that it was time to speak.
+
+"Peter," said she, "you can't do it."
+
+"Do what?" asked Mr. Black, with a guilty start.
+
+"Cut down that tree. I know, just as well as I know anything, that
+you're just aching to make that splendid big evergreen into a
+Christmas-tree for Rosa Marie and those four girls."
+
+"_How_ do you know it?" queried Mr. Black, eying his sister with quick
+suspicion.
+
+"Because I had the same thought myself. It _would_ be fine for
+Christmas--it looks like a Christmas-tree every day of the year. And if
+you've been a sort of bottled-up Santa Claus all your life you're apt
+to be pretty foolish when you're finally unbottled. And that tree----"
+
+"But," queried Mr. Black, "what would it be the day after?"
+
+"That," confessed Mrs. Crane, "is what bothers _me_."
+
+"It does seem a shame," said Mr. Black, rising and walking to the
+window, "to cut down such a perfect specimen as that; and yet, in
+all my life I never met a tree so evidently designed for the express
+purpose of serving as a Christmas-tree. It's a real temptation."
+
+"I know it," sighed Mrs. Crane. "It's been tempting _me_; but I said:
+'Get thee behind me, Santa Claus, and send me to the proper place for
+Christmas-trees.'"
+
+"And did you go to that place?"
+
+"It came to me. I engaged a twelve-foot tree from a man that was taking
+orders at the door."
+
+"So did I," confessed Mr. Black. "I'm not sure that I didn't order two."
+
+"Peter Black! You're spoiling those children."
+
+"I'm having plenty of help," twinkled Mr. Black, shrewdly.
+
+With so many trees to choose from, it certainly seemed probable that
+the Black-Crane household would have at least one respectable specimen
+to decorate; but half an hour later, when the three ordered balsams
+arrived, both Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were greatly disappointed. The
+trees had shrunk from twelve to six feet, and the uneven branches were
+thin and sparsely covered.
+
+"Why!" exclaimed Mr. Black, "all three of those trees together wouldn't
+make a whole tree."
+
+"They look," said Mrs. Crane, "as if they were shedding their feathers."
+
+"Most of them," agreed Mr. Black, "have already been shed. I said, Mr.
+Man, that I wanted _good_ trees."
+
+"My wagon broke down," explained the tree-man, "so I couldn't bring
+anything that I couldn't haul on a big sled. They weigh a lot, those
+big fellows."
+
+"Can't you make a special trip," suggested Mrs. Crane, "and bring us a
+first-class tree--just one?"
+
+"It's too late. I have to go too far before I'm allowed to cut any."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Black, "I'll pay you for these, and I'll give you
+fifty cents extra to haul them off the premises. We don't want any such
+sorrowful specimens round here to cast a gloom over our Christmas, do
+we, Sarah?"
+
+"Peter," announced Mrs. Crane, when the man had departed with his
+scraggly trees, "I have an idea. The weather's likely to stay mild for
+another twenty-four hours, isn't it?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"And this is an honest town?"
+
+"As honest as they make 'em."
+
+"And all those girls are accustomed to being outdoors----"
+
+"I _see_!" cried Mr. Black, giving Mrs. Crane's plump shoulders a
+sudden, friendly whack. "I _almost_ thought of that myself. We'll
+certainly surprise 'em _this_ time."
+
+Although it was getting late, Mr. Black still hung about the house as
+if he had not yet freed his mind of Christmas matters.
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. Black, breaking a long silence, "that you've
+thought of a few things to put on the tree for those girls?"
+
+"Yes," admitted Mrs. Crane, guardedly, "I've gathered up some little
+fixings that I thought they'd fancy."
+
+"It might be a good idea," said Mr. Black, rising to ring for Martin,
+"for us to compare notes. Two heads are better than one, you know;
+and after what they did for us, we owe those little folks a splendid
+Christmas."
+
+"We certainly do," agreed Mrs. Crane, wiping away the sudden moisture
+that sprung to her eyes at thought of the memorable dinner party in
+Dandelion Cottage--the dinner that had brought her estranged brother to
+the rescue. "I don't know where I'd have been now if it hadn't been for
+those blessed children. In the poorhouse, probably."
+
+"Martin," said Mr. Black, huskily, "you go to the storeroom in the
+basement. Take a hatchet with you and knock the top off that wooden box
+that is marked with a big blue cross and bring it up here to me."
+
+Presently Martin, who always blundered if there was the very faintest
+excuse for blundering, returned, proudly bearing the cover of the large
+box.
+
+"Thank you," replied Mr. Black, turning twinkling eyes upon Mrs. Crane,
+who twinkled back. "Now bring up the box with all the things in it."
+
+"I'll get my things, too," offered Mrs. Crane. "They're right here in
+the library closet, in a clothes hamper."
+
+Then when Martin had brought the box, the two middle-aged people began
+to sort their presents. They went about it rather awkwardly because
+neither had had much experience; but they were certainly enjoying their
+novel occupation.
+
+"This," said Mr. Black, clearing a space on the big library table, "is
+Bettie's pile, and Heaven knows that I tried not to get it bigger than
+the other three; but everything I saw in the shops shouted 'Buy me for
+Bettie'--and I usually obeyed."
+
+"This is Jean's pile," said Mrs. Crane, baring another space, "and I
+guess I feel about Jean the way you do about Bettie; but I love Bettie
+too--and all of them. Rosa Marie's things will have to go on the
+floor--they're mostly bumpy and breakable."
+
+Mr. Black rummaged in his box, Mrs. Crane fished in her basket.
+Presently there was a rapidly growing, untidy heap of large, lumpy
+bundles on the floor for Rosa Marie, and four very neat stacks of
+square, compact parcels for the Cottagers.
+
+"Let's open them all," suggested Mr. Black, eagerly. "We can tie them
+up again."
+
+So the elderly couple, as interested as two children, opened their
+packages. At first, both were too busy renewing acquaintanceship with
+their own purchases to notice what the other was doing; but presently
+Mrs. Crane gave a start as her eye traveled over the table.
+
+"Why, Peter Black," she exclaimed. "Here are two watches in Bettie's
+pile!"
+
+"I didn't buy but one of them," declared Mr. Black, placing his finger
+on one of the dainty timepieces. "That's mine."
+
+"The other's mine," confessed Mrs. Crane. "And, Peter, did you go and
+buy dolls all around, too?"
+
+"I did," owned Mr. Black, opening a long narrow box. "One _always_ buys
+dolls for Christmas."
+
+"Well," sighed Mrs. Crane, "I guess they can stand two apiece, because
+ours are not a bit alike. You see, you got carried away by fine clothes
+and I paid more attention to the dolls themselves. The bodies are
+first-class and the faces are lovely. I bought mine undressed and I've
+had four weeks' pleasure dressing them--I sort of hate to give them
+up. The clothes are plain and substantial; I couldn't make 'em fancy."
+
+"But the watches, Sarah?"
+
+"Well, I guess we'll have to send half of those watches back. Yours are
+the nicest--we'll keep yours."
+
+"I suspect," said Mr. Black, reflectively pinching two large parcels in
+Rosa Marie's heap, "that we've both bought Teddy bears for Rosa Marie.
+And we've both supplied the girls with perfume, purses and writing
+paper, but I don't see any books."
+
+"We'll use the extra-watch money for books," decided Mrs. Crane,
+promptly. "Suppose you attend to that--if we both do it we'll have
+another double supply. I see we've both bought candy, too; but I need a
+box for the milk-boy and I'd like to send some little thing to Martin's
+small sister."
+
+"On the whole," said Mr. Black, complacently, "we've managed pretty
+well considering our inexperience; but next time we'll do better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Christmas Eve
+
+
+IN Lakeville, Christmas always began at exactly four o'clock the
+afternoon of the twenty-fourth; for the young people of that little
+town--even the very old young people with gray hair and youthful
+eyes--always indulged in an unusual and extremely enjoyable custom. The
+moment that marked this real beginning of Christmas found each person
+with gifts for her neighbor sallying forth with a great basketful of
+parcels on her arm. If one had a great many friends and neighbors it
+often took until ten o'clock at night to distribute all one's gifts.
+As each package was wrapped in white tissue paper, tied with ribbon
+and further adorned with sprigs of holly or gay Christmas cards,
+these Christmas baskets were decidedly attractive; and the streets of
+Lakeville, from four to ten, were certain to be full of gayety and
+genuine Christmas cheer.
+
+On all other days of the year, the Cottagers traveled together; but
+on this occasion each girl was an entirely separate person. Bettie,
+wearing a fine air of importance, went alone to Mabel's, to Jean's and
+to Marjory's to leave her gifts for her three friends. Although, at
+all other times, it was her habit to run in unceremoniously, to-day
+she rang each door-bell and was formally admitted to each front hall,
+where she selected the package designed for each house. Jean and the
+other two, likewise, went forth by themselves to leave their mysterious
+little parcels. But when this rite was completed all four ran to their
+own homes, added more parcels to their gay baskets and then congregated
+in Mrs. Mapes's parlor.
+
+They had gifts for dear little Anne Halliday, the Marcotte twins,
+Henrietta Bedford, Rosa Marie, Mr. Black, Mrs. Crane, some distant
+cousins of Jean's and for all their school-teachers that had not gone
+out of town for the holidays. Besides, their parents had intrusted them
+with articles to be delivered to their friends and Mabel had a gift for
+the dust-chute Janitor, a silver match-safe with the date of the fire
+engraved under his initials.
+
+"We'll go to Henrietta's first," decided Jean, "because that's the
+farthest."
+
+"And to the Janitor's next," said Mabel, "because I want to get it over
+and forget about it."
+
+To make things more exciting for Henrietta, the girls went in singly
+to present their offerings, the others crouching out of sight behind
+the stone balustrades that flanked the steps. Each time the bell rang,
+Henrietta was right at Simmons's heels when he opened the door. Then,
+after a brief wait outside, all four again presented themselves to
+invite Henrietta, who had gifts for Rosa Marie, to go with them to Mr.
+Black's and all the other places. Henrietta was glad to go, because
+she herself was too new to Lakeville to have very many friends to favor
+with presents. The five had a very merry time with their baskets; but
+they were much too excited to stay a great while under any one roof.
+They shouted merry greetings to the rest of the basket-laden population
+and paused more than once to obligingly pull a door-bell for some
+elderly acquaintance who found that she needed more hands than she had
+started out with.
+
+"How jolly everybody is!" remarked Henrietta. "I never saw a more
+Christmassy lot of people. It must be lovely to have a long, long list
+to give to."
+
+"Father says this is an unusually nice town," offered Bettie. "The
+people seem actually glad to have folks sick and in trouble so they can
+send them flowers and things to eat."
+
+"What a charitable place," laughed Henrietta, gaily. "I hope nobody's
+longing for _me_ to come down with anything. I'd rather stay well than
+eat flowers--they're too expensive just now."
+
+"My!" exclaimed Mabel, after all the gifts had been distributed and the
+girls, with their empty baskets turned over their heads, had started
+homeward, "won't to-morrow be a lively day. First, all our stockings;
+very early in the morning at home. Next, all our Christmas packages to
+open--I've about ten already that I haven't even squeezed--that is, not
+_very_ hard, except one that I know is a bottle. Then our dinners----"
+
+"Too bad we can't have all our dinners together," mourned Marjory, "but
+of course your mothers and my Aunty Jane and Henrietta's grandmother
+would be too lonely if we did; and all the families in a bunch would
+make too many to feed comfortably."
+
+"And then," proceeded Mabel, "a tree at Mr. Black's just as soon as
+it's dark enough to light the candles, and supper and another tree at
+Henrietta's in the evening, and a ride home in the Slater carriage
+afterwards, because by that time we'll surely be too tired to walk."
+
+"And I've trimmed a tree for the boys at home," said Bettie. "There
+won't be anything on it for you, but you can all come to see it."
+
+"Aunty Jane says that Christmas-trees shed their feathers and make too
+much litter," said Marjory, "but with three others to visit I don't
+mind if I don't have one."
+
+"You can have half of mine," offered Mabel, generously. "I shan't have
+time to trim more than half of it, anyway, so I'd like somebody to
+help."
+
+"I suppose," said Marjory, doubtfully, "that we ought to do something
+for the poor, but I don't know where to find any since our washwoman
+married the butcher."
+
+"I'm glad you don't," laughed Henrietta. "I've nine cents left and it's
+got to last, for I shan't have any more until I get my allowance the
+first of January, unless somebody sends me money for Christmas."
+
+"I guess," giggled Jean, fishing an empty purse from her pocket, "the
+rest of us couldn't scare up nine cents between us; but I have an uncle
+who always sends me a paper dollar every year. I've spent it in at
+least fifty different ways already. I always have lovely times with
+that dollar _before_ it comes, but it just sort of melts away into
+nothing afterwards."
+
+"I wish," breathed Mabel, fervently, "_I_ had an uncle like that."
+
+"Yes," agreed Henrietta, "a few uncles with the paper-dollar habit
+wouldn't be bad things to have."
+
+"I caught a glimpse of your tree, Henrietta," confessed Marjory. "I
+stood on the balustrade outside and peeked in the window when Jean was
+inside. It's going to be perfectly grand; but of course I didn't _mean_
+to peek. I just got up there because I was too excited to stay on the
+ground."
+
+"So did I," owned Bettie.
+
+"I wonder," said Mabel, "where Mr. Black's tree is. We were in all the
+downstairs rooms and I didn't see a sign of it."
+
+"Probably," teased Henrietta, "he's forgotten to order one. Unless one
+forms the habit very early in life, one is very apt to overlook little
+things like that."
+
+"Mr. Black never forgets," assured Bettie.
+
+"Probably it's some place in the yard," ventured Marjory, not guessing
+how close she came to the truth.
+
+"No," declared Mabel, positively. "I looked out the windows and there
+wasn't a single sign of a tree anywhere. I pretty nearly asked about
+it, but I wasn't sure that that would be polite."
+
+"Don't worry," soothed Jean. "There'll _be_ one if Mr. Black has to
+plant a seed and grow it over night. He and Mrs. Crane are more excited
+over Christmas than we are. They can't think of anything else."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+A Crowded Day
+
+
+MABEL rose very early indeed on Christmas morning to explore her
+bulging stocking and to open her packages; but Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane
+were even earlier, and they were delighted to find that the weather
+had remained mild. Putting on their outside wraps and warm overshoes,
+the worthy couple went with good-natured Martin and Maggie, the nimble
+nursery maid, to the garden as soon as it was light. They strung the
+tall tree from top to bottom with tinsel and glittering Christmas-tree
+ornaments, the finest that money could buy. Martin and the maid,
+perched on tall step-ladders, worked enthusiastically. Mr. Black and
+Mrs. Crane handed up the decorations. The cook, watching them from the
+basement window, grinned broadly at the sight.
+
+"Sure," said she, "'tis a lot of children they are; but 'twould do no
+harrum if all the wurruld was loike 'em."
+
+By church time the towering tree was in readiness except for a few of
+the more precious gifts, to be added later.
+
+"I hope," said Mrs. Crane, with a lingering, backward glance, when
+there was no further excuse for remaining outdoors, "that the air will
+be as quiet to-night as it is now. It would be dreadful if we couldn't
+light the candles."
+
+"We'll have to trust to luck," returned Mr. Black, "but I'm quite sure
+that luck will be with us."
+
+Of course the girls enjoyed their stockings at home, their gifts
+that arrived by mail and express from out-of-town relatives and the
+bountiful dinners at the home tables. But the Black-Crane tree to which
+Henrietta, likewise, had been invited, was something entirely new and
+so proved particularly enjoyable; if not, indeed, the crowning event
+of the day. Martin had cleared away the snow and had laid boards and
+even a carpet for them to stand on, and there were chairs and extra
+wraps, only the girls were too excited to use them. But Mrs. Crane
+and placid Rosa Marie sat enveloped in steamer rugs while the others
+capered about the brilliantly lighted tree, constantly discovering new
+beauties.
+
+"I declare," sighed Mrs. Crane, happily, "you're the youngest of the
+lot, Peter."
+
+"Well," returned Mr. Black, "why not? It's the first real Christmas
+I've had for forty years--but let's have another Christmas dinner on
+New Year's Day; I was disappointed when all these young folks said,
+'No, thank you,' to our invitation to dinner. Just remember, girls,
+we expect to see you all here the first of January or there'll be
+trouble--I'll see that it lasts all the year, too."
+
+"Peter Black," warned Mrs. Crane, "that step-ladder's prancing on one
+leg. If you go over that bluff you won't stop till you land in the
+lake. Let Martin do all the circus acts."
+
+"I've got it, now," said Mr. Black, coming down safely with the small
+parcel that had dangled so long just above his reach. "Here's something
+for Henrietta Bedford, with the tree's compliments."
+
+"How nice of you to remember me," cried Henrietta, opening the parcel.
+"And what a dear little pin--just what I needed. Thank you very much
+indeed."
+
+Of all their gifts, however, the Cottagers liked their lovely little
+watches the best. They had expected no such magnificent gifts from Mr.
+Black, and their own people had, of course, considered them much too
+young to be trusted with watches.
+
+"Dear me," said Mabel, strutting about with her timepiece pinned to her
+blouse, "I feel too grown-upedy for words. I never expected this moment
+to come."
+
+"I've _always_ wanted a watch," breathed Jean, "but I certainly
+supposed I'd have to wait until I'd graduated from high-school--folks
+almost always get them then."
+
+"And I," beamed Marjory, "never expected a _pretty_, really truly
+girl's watch, because--worse luck--I'm to get Aunty Jane's awful watch
+when she dies. Of course I don't want her to die a minute before her
+time, but getting even _that_ watch seemed sort of hopeless because all
+Aunty Jane's ancestors that weren't killed by accident lived to enjoy
+their nineties. But that doesn't prevent Aunty Jane's promising me that
+clumsy old turnip whenever she's particularly pleased with me."
+
+Bettie was too delighted for speech. But her big brown eyes spoke
+eloquently for her.
+
+Rosa Marie accepted the unusual tree, all her Teddy bears, her dolls
+and other gifts, very much as a matter of course. Nothing it appeared
+was ever sufficiently surprising to astonish calm little Rosa Marie.
+
+"Perhaps," offered Bettie, "she's awfully surprised inside."
+
+"I know _I_ am," laughed Mabel. "Inside and out, too."
+
+Then, just as Mrs. Crane had decided that Rosa Marie had been outdoors
+long enough, the Slater carriage arrived for the girls. Mr. Black,
+beaming at the success of his Christmas party, packed them with all
+their belongings into the vehicle and they rolled happily away.
+
+They stopped at their own homes just long enough to drop most of the
+gifts they had garnered from the Black-Crane tree; and then Henrietta
+whisked her friends to the Slater home, where Mrs. Slater entertained
+them for two hours over a delightful, genuinely English Christmas
+supper.
+
+Henrietta's tree, too, was a very handsome one. A realistic Santa Claus
+who seemed as English as the supper, since he dropped the letter H just
+as Simmons always did, distributed the gifts. When the Cottagers opened
+odd, foreign-looking parcels and found that Henrietta had given each
+girl a set of three beautiful Oriental boxes with jewelled tops, their
+delight knew no bounds. They had expected nothing so fine.
+
+"You see," explained Henrietta, "I told Father, months ago, to send
+me a lot of little things to give away for Christmas and of course he
+bought boxes. I believe he buys every one he sees."
+
+"They're darlings," declared Jean, dreamily. "They take you away to
+far-off places where things smell old and--and magnificent."
+
+"It's the grown-upness of my presents that I like," explained
+eleven-year-old Mabel, with a big sigh of satisfaction. "It's lovely to
+have people treat you as if you were somebody."
+
+"You see," laughed Marjory, "it's only two years ago that an
+absent-minded aunt of Mr. Bennett's sent Mabel a rattle, and the poor
+child can't forget it."
+
+"Miss 'Enrietta," inquired Santa Claus, anxiously, when the Slater
+tree, too, had been stripped of all but its decorations, "might Hi be
+hexcused now? Hi'm due at a Christmas ball and Hi'm hawfully afride
+these togs is meltin' me 'igh collar."
+
+"Yes," laughed Henrietta, "you've done nobly and I hope you'll have a
+lovely time at the party."
+
+It was half-past ten before the Cottagers got to bed that night--a long
+day because they had risen so early.
+
+"But," breathed Bettie, happily, "when days are as nice as this I like
+'em long."
+
+"It's nice to have friends," said Jean.
+
+"I wish," sighed Mabel, "they'd make some kind of a watch that had to
+be wound every hour; it seems awfully hard to wait until morning."
+
+When Mrs. Bennett looked in that night to see if Mabel had remembered
+to take off her best hair ribbon, she found a doll on each side of the
+blissful slumberer, a watch pinned to her nightdress, a jeweled box
+clasped loosely in each relaxed hand and at least half a bushel of
+other treasures under the uncomfortable pillow. As Mrs. Bennett gently
+removed all these articles and straightened the bed-clothes Mabel
+murmured in her sleep, "Merry Christmas, girls."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A Bettie-less Plan
+
+
+THE first thing that happened after Christmas was the announcement of
+the School Board's decision to wait a full year before beginning to
+build a new schoolhouse.
+
+"Even if we could decide on a site," said they, "it would be hard
+on the tax-payers to furnish money for such a building all at one
+assessment. By spreading it over two years' tax-rolls it will come
+easier."
+
+The fathers, for the most part, were pleased with the arrangement, but
+many of the mothers disliked it very much indeed.
+
+"We must do something about it," said Aunty Jane, who had called at
+Mrs. Bennett's to talk the matter over. "I'm in favor of sending
+Marjory away to some good girls' school, because she has some money
+that is to be used solely for educational purposes. There is enough
+for college and for at least one year at a boarding school, besides
+something for extras. My conscience will feel easier when that money
+begins to go toward its proper purpose."
+
+"The Doctor thinks of going to Germany next fall for a special course
+of study that he thinks he needs," returned Mrs. Bennett. "If we could
+place Mabel in a safe, comfortable school, I could go with him. We've
+been talking of it for a long time."
+
+"I certainly am not satisfied," admitted Mrs. Mapes, when Aunty Jane
+put the matter to her. "There are too many pupils crowded into that
+Baptist basement and it's so damp that I've had to put cold compresses
+on Jean's throat four times since the fire. If you can find a good
+school to fit a modest pocketbook we'd be glad to send Jean for the one
+year."
+
+Then Aunty Jane unfolded her plans to the Tuckers.
+
+"It's a beautiful idea," said pleasant Dr. Tucker, "as far as the rest
+of you are concerned; but you will have to leave Bettie entirely out of
+the scheme; we simply can't afford it. We've always hoped to be able
+to do something for Dick--he wants to be a physician--but even that is
+hopelessly beyond us at present."
+
+"No," added Mrs. Tucker, shifting the heavy baby to her other arm and
+hoping that Aunty Jane would not notice the dust on the battered table,
+"we couldn't even think of sending Bettie. But Mrs. Slater intends
+letting Henrietta go some place next fall; why don't you talk it over
+with her?"
+
+"I mean to," assured Aunty Jane. "You see, it will need a great deal of
+talking over because it may prove hard to find exactly the right kind
+of school. The eastern seminaries are too far away. It must be some
+place south of Lakeville, within a day's journey, within reach of all
+our pocketbooks, and in a healthful location. It mustn't be too big,
+too stylish, or too old-fashioned. I'm sending out postal cards every
+day and getting catalogues by every mail; but so far, I haven't come to
+any decision except that Marjory is to go _some_ place."
+
+At first, the older people said little about school matters to the four
+girls, but as winter wore on it became an understood thing that not
+only fortunate Henrietta but Jean, Marjory and Mabel were to go away to
+school the following September.
+
+"Won't it be simply glorious," said Henrietta, who was entertaining the
+Cottagers in her den, "if all four of us land in the same school; and
+we _must_--I shall stand out for that. And you and I, Jean, shall room
+together and be chums."
+
+"Then Marjory and I," announced Mabel, "shall room together, too, and
+fight just the way we always do if Jean isn't on hand to stop us."
+
+"Won't it be perfectly fine?" breathed Marjory. "I've always loved
+boarding-school stories and now we'll be living right in one."
+
+Bettie kept silence, but her eyes were big and troubled. With the
+girls gone she knew that her world would be sadly changed. Her close
+companionship with the other Cottagers--she was only three when
+she first began to play with Jean--had prevented her forming other
+friendships. Without doubt, Aunty Jane would be lonely; the Bennetts,
+in Germany, might miss noisy, affectionate Mabel, Mrs. Mapes might
+long for helpful Jean and Mrs. Slater would certainly find her big,
+beautiful home dull with no sparkling Henrietta but it was Bettie,
+poor little impecunious, uncomplaining Bettie, who would be the very
+loneliest of all. The others would lose only one girl apiece; Bettie's
+loss would be fourfold. Lovely Jean, sprightly Marjory, jolly Mabel and
+attractive Henrietta--how _could_ she spare them all at once! And the
+glorious times the absent four would have together--how _could_ Bettie
+miss all that? It seemed, to the little, overwhelmed girl, too big a
+trouble to talk about.
+
+For a long, long time the more fortunate girls were too taken up with
+their own prospects to think very seriously of Bettie's; but one day
+Jean was suddenly astonished at the depth of misery that she surprised
+in Bettie's wistful, tell-tale eyes. After that, the girls openly
+expressed their pity for Bettie, who would have to stay in Lakeville.
+This proved even harder to bear than their light-hearted chatter; for
+it made Bettie pity herself to an even greater extent.
+
+Of course, it would be several months before the hated school--Bettie,
+by this time, was quite certain that she hated it--would swallow up
+her dearest four friends at one sudden, hideous gulp; but remote as
+the date was, the interested girls could talk of very little else. No
+matter what topic they might begin with, it always worked around at
+last to "when I go away next fall."
+
+"I can't have any clothes this spring," said Jean, when the girls, in
+a body, were escorting Henrietta home from her dressmaker's. "Mother's
+letting my old things down and piecing everything till I feel like a
+walking bedquilt. You see, I'm to have new things to go away with."
+
+"Same here," asserted Mabel. "Only _my_ mother's having a worse time
+than yours to make my things meet. My waist measure is twenty-nine
+inches and my skirt bands are only twenty-seven."
+
+"_Only_ twenty-seven," groaned shapely Henrietta.
+
+"If you see a second Aunty Jane," said Marjory, skipping ahead to
+imitate the elder Miss Vale's prim, peculiar walk, "running round
+Lakeville all summer, you'll know who it is. She's cutting down two of
+her thousand-year-old gowns to tide me over the season. One came out of
+the Ark and she purchased the other at a little shop on Mount Ararat."
+
+"Grandmother's making lists," laughed Henrietta, "of all the things
+mentioned in all the catalogues. When she gets done, probably she'll
+add them all up and divide the result by _me_; and that will give a
+respectable outfit for one girl."
+
+"Poor Bettie!" said sympathetic Jean, squeezing Bettie's slim hand.
+"You're out of it all, aren't you?"
+
+But this was too much for Bettie. She turned hastily and fled.
+
+The girls looked after her pityingly.
+
+"Poor Bettie!" murmured Jean. "It's awfully hard on her to hear all
+this talk about school. She's always had us, you know, and she thinks
+there won't be a scrap of Lakeville left when we're gone."
+
+In February Rosa Marie created a little excitement by coming down
+with measles. Maggie, the maid, had broken out with this unlovely
+affliction and no one had suspected what the trouble was until she had
+peeled in the actual presence of Rosa Marie. Of course Rosa Marie came
+down with measles too. But there was an unusual feature about this
+illness. Although it was Maggie and Rosa Marie who were supposed to be
+the sufferers it was really Mrs. Crane who did all the suffering. You
+see, this inexperienced lady read all the literature that she could
+find that touched on the subject of measles and its after-effects;
+and long after Rosa Marie had entirely recovered, conscientious Mrs.
+Crane remained awake nights waiting for the dreaded "after-effects" to
+develop.
+
+"We'll bury Mrs. Crane with whooping cough," sputtered Dr. Bennett,
+writing a soothing prescription for the good lady, "if Rosa Marie ever
+catches it. She's a hen bringing up a solitary duckling, and she's
+certainly overdoing it. She ought not to have the responsibility of
+that child; she's not fitted for responsibilities, yet she's the sort
+that takes 'em."
+
+"I'll adopt Rosa Marie myself," declared Henrietta Bedford, hearing
+of this opinion and waylaying Dr. Bennett in Mrs. Slater's hall to
+make her light-hearted offer. "She'd go beautifully with the other
+picturesque objects in my den and I'm very sure that the responsibility
+won't weigh _me_ down."
+
+"So am I," laughed Dr. Bennett. "So sure of it that I shan't allow you
+to afflict your grandmother with any carelessly adopted babies. But
+that child is on my conscience, since Mabel was the principal culprit
+in the matter. We'll try to get Mrs. Crane to send her to an asylum;
+only that dear lady's conscience will have to be bombarded from all
+sides before it will let her consent to any such sensible plan. Perhaps
+you can get the girls--particularly Mabel,--to look at the matter from
+that point of view; we must rescue Mrs. Crane."
+
+"I'll try to," promised Henrietta.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+Anxious Days
+
+
+FOR the next few weeks the Cottagers led as quiet a life as almost
+daily association with Henrietta would permit. Jean grew a trifle
+taller, Marjory discovered new ways of doing her hair and Mabel
+remained as round and ruddy as ever. But everybody was worried about
+Bettie. She seemed listless and indifferent in school, she fell asleep
+over her books when she attempted to study at night, she grew averse to
+getting up mornings and day by day she grew thinner and paler, until
+even heedless Mabel observed that she was all eyes.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Jean, when Bettie said that she didn't feel
+like going to the Public Library corner to view the Uncle Tom's Cabin
+parade. "A walk would do you good, and it's only four blocks."
+
+"I'm tired," returned Bettie. "My head would like to go but my feet
+would rather not. And my hands don't want to do anything--or even
+my tongue. You can tell me about the parade--that'll be easier than
+looking at it."
+
+Now, this was a new Bettie. The old one, while not exactly a noisy
+person, had been so active physically that the others had sometimes
+found it difficult to follow her dancing footsteps. She had ever been
+quick to wait on the other members of her large family; or to do
+errands, in the most obliging fashion, for any of her friends. This
+new Bettie eyed the Tucker cat sympathetically when it mewed for milk;
+but she relegated the task of feeding pussy to one of her much more
+unwilling small brothers.
+
+"She needs a tonic," said Mrs. Tucker, giving Bettie dark-brown doses
+from a large bottle. "It's the spring, I guess."
+
+Two days after the parade there was great excitement among Bettie's
+friends. She had not appeared at school. That in itself was not
+an unusual occurrence, for Bettie often stayed at home to help her
+overburdened mother through particularly trying days; but when Jean
+stopped in to consult her little friend about homemade valentines, Mrs.
+Tucker met her with the news that Bettie was sick in bed.
+
+"Can't I see her?" asked Jean.
+
+"I'm afraid not," replied Mrs. Tucker, who looked worried. "She's
+asleep just now and she has a temperature."
+
+When Mabel heard this latter fact she at once consulted Dr. Bennett.
+
+"Father," she queried, "do folks ever die of temperature?"
+
+"Why, yes," returned the Doctor. "If the temperature is below zero they
+sometimes freeze. Why?"
+
+"Mrs. Tucker says that's what Bettie's got--temperature."
+
+"It isn't a disease, child. It's a condition of heat or cold. But it's
+too soon to say anything about Bettie--go play with your dolls."
+
+Henrietta and the remaining Cottagers immediately thought of lovely
+things to do for Bettie. So, too, did Mr. Black. Impulsive Henrietta
+purchased a large box of most attractive candy, Jean made her a lovely
+sponge cake that sat down rather sadly in the middle but rose nobly
+at both ends; Mabel begged half a lemon pie from the cook; Marjory
+concocted a wonderful bowl of orange jelly with candied cherries on
+top, Mrs. Crane made a steaming pitcherful of chicken soup and Mr.
+Black sent in a great basket of the finest fruit that the Lakeville
+market afforded.
+
+But when all these successive and well-meaning visitors presented
+themselves and their unstinted offerings at the Rectory door, Dr.
+Tucker received them sadly.
+
+"Bettie is down with a fever," said he. "She can't eat _anything_."
+
+The days that followed were the most dreadful that the Cottagers had
+ever known. They lived in suspense. Day after day when they asked
+for news of Bettie the response was usually, "Just about the same."
+Occasionally, however, Dr. Bennett shook his head dubiously and said,
+"Not quite so well to-day."
+
+For weeks--for _years_ it seemed to the disheartened children--these
+were the only tidings that reached them from the sick-room. There was a
+trained nurse whose white cap sometimes gleamed in an upper window, the
+grave-faced, uncommunicative doctor visited the house twice a day, a
+boy with parcels from the drug store could frequently be seen entering
+the Rectory gate and that was about all that the terribly interested
+friends could learn concerning their beloved Bettie. They spent most of
+their time hovering quietly and forlornly about Mrs. Mapes's doorstep,
+for that particular spot furnished the best view of the afflicted
+Rectory. They wanted, poor little souls, to keep as close to Bettie as
+possible. If the sun shone during this time, they did not know it; for
+all the days seemed dark and miserable.
+
+"If we could only help a little," mourned Jean, who looked pale and
+anxious, "it wouldn't be so bad."
+
+"I teased her," sighed Henrietta, repentantly, "only two days before
+she was taken sick. I do wish I hadn't."
+
+"I gave her the smaller half of my orange," lamented Mabel, "the very
+last time I saw her. If--if I don't ever see--see her again----"
+
+"Oh, well," comforted Marjory, hastily, "she might have been just
+that much sicker if she'd eaten the larger piece. But _I_ wish I
+hadn't talked so much about boarding school. It always worried her and
+sometimes I tried [Marjory blushed guiltily at the remembrance] to make
+her just a little envious."
+
+"I'm afraid," confessed Jean, "I sometimes neglected her just a little
+for Henrietta; but I mean to make up for it if--if I have a chance."
+
+"That's it," breathed Marjory, softly, "if we only have a chance."
+
+Then, because the March wind wailed forlornly, because the waiting had
+been so long and because it seemed to the discouraged children as if
+the chance, after all, were extremely slight--as slight and frail a
+thing as poor little Bettie herself--the four friends sat very quietly
+for many minutes on the rail of the Mapes's broad porch, with big tears
+flowing down their cheeks. Presently Mabel fell to sobbing outright.
+
+Mr. Black, on his way home from his office, found them there. He had
+meant to salute them in his usual friendly fashion, but at sight of
+their disconsolate faces he merely glanced at them inquiringly.
+
+"She's--she's just about the same," sobbed Jean.
+
+Mr. Black, without a word, proceeded on his way; but all the sparkle
+had vanished from his dark eyes and his countenance seemed older.
+He, too, was unhappy on Bettie's account and he lived in hourly dread
+of unfavorable news. The very next morning, however, there was a more
+hopeful air about Dr. Bennett when he left the Rectory. Mabel, waiting
+at home, questioned him mutely with her eyes.
+
+"A very slight change for the better," said he, "but it is too soon for
+us to be sure of anything. We're not out of the woods yet."
+
+Next came the tidings that Bettie was really improving, though not at
+all rapidly; yet it was something to know that she was started on the
+road to recovery.
+
+Perhaps the tedious days that followed were the most trying days
+of all, however, for the impatient children; because the "road to
+recovery" in Bettie's case seemed such a tremendously long road that
+her little friends began to fear that Bettie would never come into
+sight at the end of it, but she did at last. And such a forlorn Bettie
+as she was!
+
+She had certainly been very ill. They had shaved her poor little head,
+her eyes seemed almost twice their usual size and the girls had not
+believed that any living person could become so pitiably thin; but the
+wasting fever was gone and what was left of Bettie was still alive.
+
+Long before the invalid was able to sit up, the girls had been admitted
+one by one and at different times, to take a look at her. Bettie had
+smiled at them. She had even made a feeble little joke about being able
+to count every one of her two hundred bones.
+
+After a time, Bettie could sit up in bed. A few days later, rolled in a
+gaily flowered quilt presented by the women of the parish; she occupied
+a big, pillowed chair near the window; and all four of the girls were
+able to throw kisses to her from Jean's porch. And now she could eat a
+few spoonfuls of Mrs. Crane's savory broth, a very little of Marjory's
+orange jelly and one or two of Mr. Black's imported grapes. But, for a
+long, long time, Bettie progressed no further than the chair.
+
+"I don't know what ails that child," confessed puzzled Dr. Bennett.
+"She's like a piece of elastic with all the stretch gone from the
+rubber. She seems to lack something; not exactly vitality--animation,
+perhaps, or ambition. Yes, she certainly lacks ambition. She ought to
+be outdoors by now."
+
+"Hurry and get well," urged Jean, who had been instructed to try to
+rouse her too-slowly-improving friend. "The weather's warmer every day
+and it won't be long before we can open Dandelion Cottage. And we've
+sworn a tremendous vow not to show Henrietta--she's crazy to see it--a
+single inch of that house until you're able to trot over with us.
+Here's the key. You're to keep it until you're ready to unlock that
+door yourself."
+
+"Drop it into that vase," directed Bettie. "It seems a hundred miles
+to that cottage, and I'll never have legs enough to walk so far."
+
+"Two are enough," encouraged Jean.
+
+"Both of mine," mourned Bettie, displaying a wrinkled stocking,
+"wouldn't make a whole one."
+
+"Mrs. Slater wants to take you to drive every day, just as soon as you
+are able to wear clothes. She told me to tell you."
+
+"It seems a fearfully long way to the stepping stone," sighed Bettie.
+"Go home, please. It's makes me tired to _think_ of driving."
+
+"There's certainly something amiss with Bettie," said Dr. Bennett, when
+told of this interview. "Some little spring in her seems broken. We
+must find it and mend it or we won't have any Bettie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+An April Harvest
+
+
+SPRING is an unknown season in Lakeville. But if one waits sufficiently
+long, there comes at last a period known as the breaking of winter.
+Since, owing to the heavy snows of January, February and March, there
+is always a great deal of winter to break, the process is an extended
+and--to the "overshoed" young--a decidedly trying one. But even in
+northerly Lakeville there finally came an afternoon when the girls
+decided that the day was much too fine to be spent indoors; and that
+the hour had arrived when it would be safe to leave off rubbers. The
+snow had disappeared except in very shaded spots and the Bay was free
+of ice except for a line of white that showed far out beyond the
+intense blue. The sidewalks were comparatively dry, but streams of
+icy water gurgled merrily in the deep gutters that ran down all the
+sloping streets. Although this abundant moisture was only the result of
+melting snow in the hills back of Lakeville and possessed no beauty in
+itself, these impetuous streams gave forth pleasant springlike sounds
+and made one think sentimentally of babbling brooks, fresh clover and
+blossoms by the wayside. Yet one needed to draw pretty heavily on one's
+imagination to see either flowers or grass at that early date; but the
+_feel_ of them, as Jean said, was certainly in the air.
+
+"Let's walk down by Mrs. Malony's," suggested Mabel.
+
+"She doesn't milk at this time of day, does she?" queried Henrietta,
+cautiously.
+
+"We needn't go in," assured Mabel. "We'll just run down one hill and up
+the other; but it's always lovely to walk along the shore road. There's
+a sort of a side-walk--if folks aren't too particular."
+
+"Wouldn't it be beautiful," sighed Jean, "if Bettie could only come
+too? This air would do anybody good."
+
+"Yes," mourned Marjory, "nothing seems quite right without Bettie."
+
+The girls, a trifle saddened, went slowly down the hill.
+
+"We must certainly steer clear of Mrs. Malony," warned Henrietta, as
+the egg-woman's house became visible. "Another dose of her hot milk
+would drive me from Lakeville."
+
+"There she is now!" exclaimed Mabel. "I recognize her by her cow; she's
+driving it home."
+
+"Perhaps it ran away to look for summer," offered Marjory. "The lady
+seems displeased with her pet."
+
+"An' how are the darlin' childer?" cried Mrs. Malony, greeting her
+friends while yet a long way off. "'Tis a sight for a quane to see, so
+manny purty lasses. But where's me little black-oiyed Bettie--there's
+the swate choild for yez? Sure Oi heard she was loike to die, wan
+while back. Betther, is ut? Thot's good, thot's good. An' wud yez
+belave ut, Miss Mabel,--'tis fatter than iver yez are, Oi see--Oi had
+yez in me moind all this blissid day."
+
+"Why?" asked Mabel, rather coldly.
+
+"Well, 'twas loike this, darlin'," explained Mrs. Malony, dropping her
+voice to a more confidential tone and nodding significantly toward a
+distant chimney. "'Twas siven o'clock the mornin' whin Oi seen smoke
+risin' from the shanty beyant. All day Oi've been moinded to be goin'
+acrost the p'int an' lookin' in at thot windy to see if 'twas thot
+big-eyed Frinch wan come back wid the spring."
+
+"You don't mean Rosa Marie's mother!" gasped Mabel.
+
+"Thot same," proceeded Mrs. Malony, calmly. "But what wid Malony
+white-washin' me kitchen, an' me pesky hins walkin' in me parlor and me
+cow breakin' down me fince, sure Oi've had no toime to be traipsin'
+about."
+
+"Couldn't you go now?" queried Jean, eagerly. "If it _is_ that woman we
+ought to know it."
+
+"Wait till Oi toi up me cow," consented Mrs. Malony.
+
+The four friends, with Mrs. Malony in tow, picked their way over the
+badly kept path that led to the shanty.
+
+"The door's been mended," announced observant Marjory.
+
+"It doesn't seem quite proper," said gentle-mannered Jean, "to peek
+into people's windows. Couldn't we knock and ask in a perfectly proper
+way to see the lady of the house?"
+
+"Sure we could thot," replied Mrs. Malony.
+
+"Do hurry!" urged Mabel, breathlessly.
+
+There was no response to Jean's rather nervous knock; but when Mrs.
+Malony applied her stout knuckles to the door there were results. The
+door was opened cautiously, just a tiny crack at first, then to its
+full extent. A dark-eyed woman with two thick braids falling over her
+shapely shoulders confronted them.
+
+She swept a mildly curious glance over Mrs. Malony, over Jean, over
+Marjory, over Henrietta. Then her splendid eyes fell upon Mabel; they
+changed instantaneously.
+
+In a twinkling the woman had brushed past the others to seize startled
+Mabel by both shoulders and to gaze piercingly into Mabel's frightened
+eyes. The woman tried to speak; but, for a long moment, her voice would
+not come.
+
+"You--you!" she gasped, clutching Mabel still more tightly, as if she
+feared that the youngster might escape. "Ees eet you for sure? But
+w'ere, w'ere----?"
+
+No further words would come. The poor creature's evident emotion was
+pitiful to see, and the girls were too overwhelmed to do more than
+stare with all their might.
+
+"Rosa Marie's all right," gulped Mabel, coming to the rescue with
+exactly the right words. "She's safe and happy."
+
+"Ma babee, ma babee," moaned the woman, her long-lashed eyes beaming
+with wonderful tenderness, and expressive of intense longing. "Bring me
+to heem queek--ah, so queek as evaire you can. Ma babee--I want heem
+queek."
+
+Then, without stopping for outer garments or even to close her door,
+and still holding fast to the abductor of Rosa Marie, the woman
+hurriedly led the way from the clearing.
+
+Mrs. Malony would have remained with the party if she had not
+encountered her frolicsome cow, a section of fence-rail dangling from
+her neck, strolling off toward town.
+
+On the way up the long hill the woman, who still possessed all the
+beauty and the "mother-looks" that Mabel had described, talked volubly
+in French, in Chippewa Indian and in broken English. As Henrietta was
+able to understand some of the French and part of the English, the
+girls were able to make out almost two-thirds of what she was saying.
+
+On the day of Mabel's first visit the young mother had departed with
+her new husband, who, not wanting to be burdened with a step-child,
+had persuaded her to abandon Rosa Marie, for whom she had subsequently
+mourned without ceasing. As might have been expected, the man had
+proved unkind. He had beaten her, half starved her and finally deserted
+her. She had worked all winter for sufficient money to carry her to
+Lakeville and had waited impatiently--all that time without news of her
+baby--for mild weather in order that the shanty, the only home that she
+knew, might become habitable.
+
+The hill was steep and long, but all five hastened toward the top.
+Marjory ran ahead to ring the Black-Crane door-bell. Mabel piloted the
+trembling mother straight to the nursery. Jean, learning from Martin
+where to look for Mrs. Crane, ran to fetch her.
+
+Rosa Marie, in her little chair and placidly stringing beads, looked
+up as unconcernedly as if it were an ordinary occasion. The woman,
+uttering broken, incoherent sounds sped across the big room, dropped to
+her knees and flung her arms about Rosa Marie. Then, for many moments,
+her face buried in Rosa Marie's neck, the only-half-civilized mother
+sobbed unrestrainedly.
+
+The child, however, gazed stolidly over her mother's shoulder at the
+other visitors, all of whom were much more moved than she. Mrs. Crane,
+indeed, was shedding tears and even Mr. Black seemed touched. As for
+Mabel, that sympathetic young person was weeping both visibly and
+audibly, without exactly knowing why.
+
+Since the repentant mother, who refused to let her baby out of her arms
+for a single moment, begged to be allowed to take Rosa Marie to the
+shanty that very night, Mrs. Crane, aided by the willing girls and Mr.
+Black, did what they could toward making the place comfortable.
+
+After Martin and Mr. Black had carried a whole motor-carful of bedding,
+food and fuel to the shanty, the now radiant mother, Rosa Marie, her
+toys, her clothes and all her belongings, were likewise transported
+to the humble lakeside dwelling. Everybody was so busy and the whole
+affair was over so quickly that no one had time for regrets.
+
+"I declare," said Mrs. Crane, wonderingly, "I ought to feel as if I'd
+lost something. Instead, I'm all of a whirl."
+
+"I said," Mabel triumphed, "that she'd come back."
+
+Jean was commissioned to go the next morning to break the news to
+Bettie. It seemed to Dr. Bennett and to the hopeful Cottagers that this
+important happening would surely rouse the listless little maid if
+anything could. Mr. Black, who arrived with a great bunch of violets
+while Jean was telling the wonderful tale as graphically as she could,
+expectantly watched Bettie's pale countenance. Her wistful, weary eyes
+brightened for a moment and a faint, tender smile flickered across her
+lips.
+
+"I'm glad," said she. "Now Mrs. Crane won't have to have whooping cough
+and all the other things."
+
+"Mrs. Crane is going to find work for Rosa Marie's mother," announced
+Jean, "and the shanty is to be mended."
+
+"That's nice," returned Bettie, who, however, no longer seemed
+interested in Rosa Marie's mother. "But my ears are tired now; don't
+tell me any more."
+
+After this failure, Mr. Black followed crestfallen Jean downstairs; he
+drew her into the shabby Rectory parlor.
+
+"Now, Jean," demanded he, sternly, "is there a solitary thing in this
+whole world that Bettie wants? Is there anything that could _possibly_
+happen that would wake her up and bring her back? I'm dreadfully afraid
+she's slipping away from us, Jean; and she's far too precious to lose.
+Now think--think _hard_, little girl. Has she _ever_ wanted anything?"
+
+"Why," responded Jean, slowly, as if some outside force were dragging
+the words from her, "right after Christmas there _was_ something, I
+think. A big, impossible something that _nobody_ could possibly help.
+She didn't talk about it--and yet--and yet---- Perhaps she did worry."
+
+"Go on," insisted Mr. Black, "I want it all."
+
+"She seemed to get used to the idea so--so uncomplainingly. Still, she
+may have cared more than anybody suspected. She's _like_ that--never
+cries when she's hurt."
+
+"What idea?" demanded Mr. Black. "Cared for what? Make it clear,
+child."
+
+"You see," explained Jean, "all of us--Henrietta, Marjory, Mabel
+and I--have been talking a great deal about going away to boarding
+school--we're all going. But Bettie--Bettie, of course, knew that she
+couldn't go. There was no money and her father said----"
+
+"And why in thunder," shouted Mr. Black, forgetting the invalid and
+striding up and down the room with his fists clenched, "didn't somebody
+say so? What do folks think the good Lord _gave_ us money for? Why
+didn't--Come upstairs. We'll settle this thing right now."
+
+Impulsive Mr. Black, with dazed Jean at his heels, opened Bettie's door
+and walked in. Bettie lifted her tired eyes in very mild astonishment.
+
+"Bad pennies," she smiled, "always come back. What's all the noise
+about?"
+
+"Bettie," demanded Mr. Black, "do you want to go away to school with
+those other girls next September?"
+
+Bettie opened her eyes wide. Jean said afterwards that she "pricked up
+her ears," too.
+
+"Because," continued Mr. Black, keeping a sharp watch on Bettie's
+awakening countenance, "you're going. And if _I_ say you're going, you
+surely are. Now, don't worry about it--the thing's settled. You're
+going with the others."
+
+"Open the windows," pleaded Bettie, her face alight with some of the
+old-time eagerness. "I want to see how it smells outdoors."
+
+"I believe we've done it," breathed Jean. "She looks a lot brighter."
+
+And they had. No one had realized how tender, uncomplaining Bettie had
+dreaded losing her friends. And in her weakened state, both before and
+after the fever, the trouble had seemed very big. The load had almost
+crushed sick little Bettie. Now that it was lifted, and it was, for
+Mr. Black swept everything before him, there was nothing to keep the
+little girl from getting well with truly gratifying speed.
+
+"Bettie," asked Dr. Bennett, the next evening, "are you sure this is
+your own pulse? If it is, it's behaving properly at last."
+
+"She ate every bit of her supper," said Mrs. Tucker, happily, "and she
+asked, this afternoon, if she owned any shoes. She's really getting
+well."
+
+"I'm hurrying," laughed happy Bettie, "to make up for lost time. Do
+give me things to make me fat--as fat as Mabel."
+
+"She's certainly better," said the satisfied doctor. "By to-morrow
+we'll have to tie her down to keep her from dancing. She's our own
+Bettie, at last."
+
+    THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation retained.
+
+Front page description, "Scovill" changed to "Scovel" (Florence Scovel
+Shinn)
+
+Page 96, "Bennettt" changed to "Bennett" (Mrs. Bennett, rescuing)
+
+Page 165, "shruddered" changed to "shuddered" ("Ugh!" shuddered Marjory)
+
+Page 214, repeated word "a" removed from text. Original read (like a a
+lobster's)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adopting of Rosa Marie, by 
+Carroll Watson Rankin
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 46059 ***