Georgina could hear only a few words of the answer because Tippy had her head in the closet now, reaching for the box on the top shelf. She stopped her search as soon as Cousin Mehitable said that, and the two of them went over to the fire and talked in low tones for a few minutes, leaning against the mantel. Georgina heard a word now and then. Several times it was her own name. Finally, in a louder tone Cousin Mehitable said:

"Well, I wanted to know, and I was sure you could tell me if anyone could."

They went back across the hall to the other guests. The instant they were gone Georgina crawled out from under the bed with the big bonnet cocked over one eye. Then she scudded down the hall and up the back stairs. She knew the company would be going soon, and she would be expected to bid them good-bye if she were there. She didn't want Cousin Mehitable to kiss her again. She didn't like her any more since she had called her father "peculiar."

She wandered aimlessly about for a few minutes, then pushed the door open into Mrs. Triplett's room. It was warm and cozy in there for a small fire still burned in the little drum stove. She opened the front damper to make it burn faster, and the light shone out in four long rays which made a flickering in the room. She sat down on the floor in front of it and began to wonder.

"What did Cousin Mehitable mean by something eating Barby's heart out?" Did people die of it? She had read of the Spartan youth who let the fox gnaw his vitals under his cloak and never showed, even by the twitching of a muscle, that he was in pain. Of course, she knew that no live thing was tearing at her mother's heart, but what if something that she couldn't understand was hurting her darling Barby night and day and she was bravely hiding it from the world like the Spartan youth?

Did all grown people have troubles? It had seemed such a happy world until to-day, and now all at once she had heard about Dan Darcy and Belle Triplett. Nearly everyone whom the guests talked about had borne some unhappiness, and even her own father was "peculiar." She wished she hadn't found out all these things. A great weight seemed to settle down upon her.

Thinking of Barbara in the light of what she had just learned she recalled that she often looked sorry and disappointed, especially after the postman had come and gone without leaving a letter. Only this morning Tippy had said—could it be she thought something was wrong and was trying to comfort her?

"Justin always was a poor hand for writing letters. Many a time I've heard the Judge scolding and stewing around because he hadn't heard from him when he was away at school. Letter writing came so easy to the Judge he couldn't understand why Justin shirked it so."

Then Georgina thought of Belle in the light of what she had just learned. Belle had carried her around in her arms when she was first brought to live in this old gray house by the sea. She had made a companion of her whenever she came to visit her Aunt Maria, and Georgina had admired her because she was so pretty and blonde and gentle, and enjoyed her because she was always so willing to do whatever Georgina wished. And now to think that instead of being the like-everybody-else kind of a young lady she seemed, she was like a heroine in a book who had lived through trouble which would "blight her whole life."

Sitting there on the floor with her knees drawn up and her chin resting on them, Georgina looked into the fire through the slits of the damper and thought and thought. Then she looked out through the little square window-panes across the wind-swept dunes. It did not seem like summer with the sky all overcast with clouds. It was more like the end of a day in the early autumn. Life seemed overcast, too.

Presently through a rift in the sky an early star stole out, and she made a wish on it. That was one of the things Belle had taught her. She started to wish that Barby might be happy. But before the whispered verse had entirely passed her lips she stopped to amend it, adding Uncle Darcy's name and Belle's. Then she stopped again, overcome by the knowledge of all the woe in the world, and gathering all the universe into her generous little heart she exclaimed earnestly:

"I wish everybody in the world could be happy."

Having made the wish, fervently, almost fiercely, in her intense desire to set things right, she scrambled to her feet. There was another thing that Belle had told her which she must do.

"If you open the Bible and it chances to be at a chapter beginning with the words, 'It came to pass,' the wish will come true without fail."

Taking Tippy's Bible from the stand beside the bed, she opened it at random, then carried it over to the stove in order to scan the pages by the firelight streaming through the damper. The book opened at First Kings, seventeenth chapter. She held it directly in the broad rays examining the pages anxiously. There was only that one chapter head on either page, and alas, its opening words were not "it came to pass." What she read with a sinking heart was:

"And Elijah the Tishbite."

Now Georgina hadn't the slightest idea what a Tishbite was, but it sounded as if it were something dreadful. Somehow it is a thousand times worse to be scared by a fear which is not understood than by one which is familiar. Suddenly she felt as bewildered and frightened as she had on that morning long ago, when Jeremy's teeth went flying into the fire. The happiness of her whole little world seemed to be going to pieces.

Throwing herself across the foot of Tippy's bed she crawled under the afghan thrown over it, even burrowing her head beneath it in order to shut out the dreadful things closing down on her. It had puzzled and frightened her to know that something was eating Barby's heart out, even in a figurative way, and now the word "Tishbite" filled her with a vague sense of helplessness and impending disaster.

Barbara, coming upstairs to hunt her after the guests were gone, found her sound asleep with the afghan still over her head. She folded it gently back from the flushed face, not intending to waken her, but Georgina's eyes opened and after a bewildered stare around the room she sat up, remembering. She had wakened to a world of trouble. Somehow it did not seem quite so bad with Barbara standing over her, smiling. When she went downstairs a little later, freshly washed and brushed, the Tishbite rolled out of her thoughts as a fog lifts when the sun shines.

But it came back at bedtime, when having said her prayers, she joined her voice with Barbara's in the hymn that had been her earliest lullaby. It was a custom never omitted. It always closed the day for her:

"Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm doth bind the restless wave, Oh, hear us when we cry to thee For those in peril on the sea."_

As they sang she stole an anxious glance at Barbara several times. Then she made up her mind that Cousin Mehitable was mistaken. If her father were "peculiar," Barby wouldn't have that sweet look on her face when she sang that prayer for him. If he were making her unhappy she wouldn't be singing it at all. She wouldn't care whether he was protected or not "from rock and tempest, fire and foe."

And yet, after Barby had gone downstairs and the sound of the piano came softly up from below—another bedtime custom, Georgina began thinking again about those whispering voices which she had heard as she sat under the bed, behind the bird-of-paradise valance. More than ever before the music suggested someone waiting for a ship which never came home, or fog bells on a lonely shore.

Nearly a week went by before Richard made his first visit to the old gray house at the end of town. He came with the Towncrier, carrying his bell, and keeping close to his side for the first few minutes. Then he found the place far more interesting than the bungalow. Georgina took him all over it, from the garret where she played on rainy days to the seat up in the willow, where standing in its highest crotch one could look clear across the Cape to the Atlantic. They made several plans for their treasure-quest while up in the willow. They could see a place off towards Wood End Lighthouse which looked like one of the pirate places Uncle Darcy had described in one of his tales.

Barby had lemonade and cake waiting for them when they came down, and when she talked to him it wasn't at all in the way the ladies did who came to see his Aunt Letty, as if they were talking merely to be gracious and kind to a strange little boy in whom they had no interest. Barby gave his ear a tweak and said with a smile that made him feel as if they had known each other always:

"Oh, the good times I've had with boys just your size. I always played with my brother Eddy's friends. Boys make such good chums. I've often thought how much Georgina misses that I had."

Presently Georgina took him out to the see-saw, where Captain Kidd persisted in riding on Richard's end of the plank.

"That's exactly the way my Uncle Eddy's terrier used to do back in Kentucky when I visited there one summer," she said, after the plank was adjusted so as to balance them properly. "Only he barked all the time he was riding. But he was fierce because Uncle Eddy fed him gunpowder."

"What did he do that for?"

"To keep him from being gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one time when he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it would make him game."

"Did it?"

"I don't know whether that did or not. Something did though, for he's the gamest man I know."

Richard considered this a moment and then said: "I wonder what it would do to Captain Kidd if I fed him some."

"Let's try it!" exclaimed Georgina, delighted with the suggestion. "There's some hanging up in the old powder-horn over the dining-room mantel. You have to give it to 'em in milk. Wait a minute."

Jumping from the see-saw after giving fair warning, she ran to one of the side windows.

"Barby," she called. "I'm going to give Captain Kidd some milk."

Barbara turned from her conversation with Uncle Darcy to say:

"Very well, if you can get it yourself. But be careful not to disturb the pans that haven't been skimmed. Tippy wouldn't like it."

"I know what to get it out of," called Georgina, "out of the blue pitcher."

Richard watched while she opened the refrigerator door and poured some milk into a saucer.

"Carry it in and put it on the kitchen table," she bade him, "while I get the powder."

When he followed her into the dining-room she was upon a chair, reaching for the old powder horn, which hung on a hook under the firearm that had done duty in the battle of Lexington. Richard wanted to get his hands on it, and was glad when she could not pull out the wooden plug which stopped the small end of the horn. She turned it over to him to open. He peered into it, then shook it.

"There isn't more than a spoonful left in it," he said.

"Well, gunpowder is so strong you don't need much. You know just a little will make a gun go off. It mightn't be safe to feed him much. Pour some out in your hand and drop it in the milk."

Richard slowly poured a small mound out into the hollow of his hand, and passed the horn back to her, then went to the kitchen whistling for Captain Kidd. Not all of the powder went into the milk, however. The last bit he swallowed himself, after looking at it long and thoughtfully.

At the same moment, Georgina, before putting back the plug, paused, looked all around, and poured out a few grains into her own hand. If the Tishbite was going to do anybody any harm, it would be well to be prepared. She had just hastily swallowed it and was hanging the horn back in place, when Richard returned.

"He lapped up the last drop as if he liked it," he reported. "Now we'll see what happens."



Chapter VIII

The Telegram that Took Barby Away



The painting of Richard's portrait interfered with the quest for buried treasure from day to day; but unbeknown either to artist or model, the dreams of that quest helped in the fashioning of the picture. In the preliminary sittings in the studio at home Richard's father found it necessary always to begin with some exhortation such as:

"Now, Dicky, this has got to be more than just a 'Study of a Boy's Head.' I want to show by the expression of your face that it is an illustration of that poem, 'A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' Chase that Binney Rogers and his gang out of your mind for a while, can't you, and think of something beside shinny and the hokey-pokey man."

So far the portrait was satisfactory in that it was a remarkably good likeness of an unusually good-looking boy, but it was of a boy who seemed to be alertly listening for such things as Binney's cat-call, signaling him from the alley. Here by the sea there was no need for such exhortations. No sooner was he seated before the easel in the loft which served as a studio, with its barn-like, double doors thrown open above the water, than the rapt expression which his father coveted, crept into his dark eyes. They grew big and dreamy, following the white sails across the harbor. He was planning the secret expedition he and Georgina intended to undertake, just as soon as the portrait was finished.

There were many preparations to make for it. They would have to secrete tools and provisions; and in a book from which Georgina read aloud whenever there was opportunity, were descriptions of various rites that it were well to perform. One was to sacrifice a black cock, and sprinkle its blood upon the spot before beginning to dig. Richard did not question why this should be done. The book recommended it as a practice which had been followed by some very famous treasure hunters. If at times a certain wide-awake and calculating gleam suddenly dispelled the dreaminess of expression in which his father was exulting, it was because a black Orpington rooster which daily strayed from a nearby cottage to the beach below the studio window, chose that moment to crow. Richard had marked that black cock for the sacrifice. It was lordly enough to bring success upon any enterprise.

In the meantime, as soon as his duties as model were over each morning, he was out of the studio with a whoop and up the beach as hard as he could run to the Huntingdon house. By the time he reached it he was no longer the artist's only son, hedged about with many limitations which belonged to that distinction. He was "Dare-devil Dick, the Dread Destroyer," and Georgina was "Gory George, the Menace of the Main."

Together they commanded a brigantine of their own. Passers-by saw only an old sailboat anchored at the deserted and rotting wharf up nearest the breakwater. But the passers-by who saw only that failed to see either Dare-devil Dick or Gory George. They saw, instead, two children whose fierce mustachios were the streakings of a burnt match, whose massive hoop ear-rings were the brass rings from a curtain pole, whose faithful following of the acts of Captain Quelch and other piratical gentlemen was only the mimicry of play.

But Barbara knew how real they were, from the spotted handkerchief tied around the "bunged eye" of Dare-devil Dick, under his evil-looking slouch hat, to the old horse pistol buckled to his belt. Gory George wore the same. And Barbara knew what serious business it was to them, even more serious than the affairs of eating and drinking.

Tippy scolded when she found that her half-pint bottles which she kept especially for cream had been smuggled away in the hold of the brigantine. But without bottles how could one give a realistic touch to the singing of "Yo ho, and the rum below"?

And Tippy thought it was heathenish for Barbara to let Georgina dress up in some little knickerbockers and a roundabout which had been stored away with other clothes worn by Justin as a small boy. But her disapproval was beyond words when Barbara herself appeared at the back door one morning, so cleverly disguised as a gypsy, that Mrs. Triplett grudgingly handed out some cold biscuits before she discovered the imposition. The poor she was glad to feed, but she had no use for an impudent, strolling gypsy.

"Don't be cross, Tippy," pleaded Barbara, laughing till the tears came. "I had to do it. I can't bear to feel that Georgina is growing away from me—that she is satisfied to leave me out of her games. Since she's so taken up with that little Richard Moreland I don't seem as necessary to her as I used to be. And I can't bear that, Tippy, when I've always been first in everything with her. She's so necessary to me."

Mrs. Triplett made no answer. She felt that she couldn't do justice to the occasion. She doubted if the Pilgrim monument itself could, even if it were to stretch itself up to its full height and deliver a lecture on the dignity of motherhood. She wondered what the Mayflower mothers would have thought if they could have met this modern one on the beach, with face stained brown, playacting that she was a beggar of a gypsy. How could she hope to be one of those written of in Proverbs—"Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her own works praise her in the gates."

Tippy ate her dinner alone that day, glancing grimly through the open window from time to time to the sand dunes back of the house, where an old hag of a gypsy in a short red dress with a gay bandanna knotted over her head, broiled bacon and boiled corn over a smoky campfire; and two swaggering villains who smelled of tar and codfish (because of the old net which half-way filled the brigantine), sucked the very cobs when the corn was eaten from them, forever registering that feast high above all other feasts in the tablet of blessed memories.

The interruption to all this came as unexpectedly as a clap of thunder from a clear sky. A messenger boy on a wheel whirled up to the front gate with a telegram. Tippy signed for it, not wanting the boy to see Barbara in such outlandish dress, then carried it out to the picnickers. She held it under her apron until she reached them. Telegrams always spelled trouble to Mrs. Triplett, but Barbara took this one from her with a smiling thank you, without, rising from her seat on the sand. Her father often telegraphed instead of writing when away on his vacations, and she knew he was up at a lake resort in Michigan, at an Editors' Convention. Telegrams had always been pleasant things in her experience. But as she tore this open and read she turned pale even under her brown stain.

"It's papa," she gasped. "Hurt in an automobile accident. They don't say how bad—just hurt. And he wants me. I must take the first train."

She looked up at Mrs. Triplett helplessly, not even making an effort to rise from the sand, she was so dazed and distressed by the sudden summons. It was the first time she had ever had the shock of bad news. It was the first time she had ever been called upon to act for herself in such an emergency, and she felt perfectly numb, mind and body. Tippy's voice sounded a mile away when she said:

"You can catch the boat. It's an hour till the Dorothy Bradford starts back to Boston."

Still Barbara sat limp and powerless, as one sits in a nightmare.

Georgina gave a choking gasp as two awful words rose up in her throat and stuck there. "The Tishbite." Whatever that mysterious horror might be, plainly its evil workings had begun.

"Tut!" exclaimed Tippy, pulling Barbara to her feet. "Keep your head. You'll have to begin scrubbing that brown paint off your face if you expect to reach the boat on time."

Automatically Georgina responded to that "tut" as if it were the old challenge of the powder horn. No matter how she shivered she must show what brave stuff she was made of. Even with that awful foreboding clutching at her heart like an iron hand and Barby about to leave her, she mustn't show one sign of her distress.

It was well that Georgina had learned to move briskly in her long following after Tippy, else she could not have been of such service in this emergency. Her eyes were blurred with tears as she hurried up to the garret for suitcase and satchel, and down the hall to look up numbers in the telephone directory. But it was a comfort even in the midst of her distress to feel that she could take such an important part in the preparations, that Tippy trusted her to do the necessary telephoning, and to put up a lunch for Barby without dictating either the messages or the contents of the lunch-box.

When Mr. James Milford called up, immediately after Richard had raced home with the news, and offered to take Mrs. Huntingdon to the boat in his machine, he thought it was Mrs. Huntingdon herself who answered him. The trembling voice seemed only natural under the circumstances. He would have smiled could he have seen the pathetic little face uplifted towards the receiver, the quivering lip still adorned with the fierce mustachios of Gory George, in strange contrast to the soft curls hanging over her shoulders now that they were no longer hidden by a piratical hat. She had forgotten that she was in knickerbockers instead of skirts, and that the old horse-pistol was still at her belt, until Barbara caught her to her at parting with a laugh that turned into a sob, looking for a spot on her face clean enough to kiss.

It was all over so soon—the machine whirling up to the door and away again to stop at the bank an instant for the money which Georgina had telephoned to have waiting, and then on to the railroad wharf where the Dorothy Bradford had already sounded her first warning whistle. Georgina had no time to realize what was actually happening until it was over. She climbed up into the mammoth willow tree in the corner of the yard to watch for the steamboat. It would come into view in a few minutes as it ploughed majestically through the water towards the lighthouse.

Then desolation fell upon her. She had never realized until that moment how dear her mother was to her. Then the thought came to her, suppose it was Barby who had been hurt in an accident, and she Georgina, was hurrying to her as Barby was hurrying to grandfather Shirley, unknowing what awaited her at the journey's end. For a moment she forgot her own unhappiness at being left behind, in sympathetic understanding of her mother's distress. She wasn't going to think about her part of it she told herself, she was going to be so brave——

Then her glance fell on the "holiday tree."

The holiday tree was a little evergreen of Barby's christening if not of her planting. For every gala day in the year it bore strange fruit, no matter what the season. At Hallowe'en it was as gay with jack-o-lanterns and witches' caps as if the pixies themselves had decorated it. On Washington's birthday each branch was tipped with a flag and a cherry tart. On the fourteenth of February it was hung with valentines, and at Easter she was always sure of finding a candy rabbit or two perched among its branches and nests of colored eggs. It seemed to be at its best at Christmas, but it was when it took its turns at birthday celebrations that it was most wonderful. Then it blossomed with little glass lanterns of every color, glowing like red and green and golden stars. Last year it had borne a great toy ship with all sails set, and nine "surprise" oranges, round, yellow boxes, each containing a gift, because she was nine years old. In just two more days she would be ten, and Barby gone!

At that instant the boat whistle sounded long and deep, sending its melodious boom across the water. It seemed to strike some chord in the very center of her being, and make her feel as if something inside were sinking down and down and down. The sensation was sickening. It grew worse as the boat steamed away. She stood up on a limb to watch it. Smaller and smaller it seemed, leaving only a long plume of smoke in its wake as it disappeared around Long Point. Then even the smoke faded, and a forlorn little figure, strangely at variance with the fierce pirate suit, she crumpled up in the crotch of the willow, her face hidden in her elbow, and began to sob piteously: "Oh, Barby! Barby!"



Chapter IX

The Birthday Prism



The Towncrier, passing along the street on an early morning trip to the bakery, stopped at the door of the antique shop, for a word with Mrs. Yates, the lady who kept it. She wanted him to "cry" an especial bargain sale of old lamps later in the week. That is how he happened to be standing in the front door when the crash came in the rear of the shop, and it was because he was standing there that the crash came.

Because Mrs. Yates was talking to him she couldn't be at the back door when the fish-boy came with the fish, and nobody being there to take it the instant he knocked, the boy looked in and threw it down on the table nearest the door. And because the fish was left to lie there a moment while Mrs. Yates finished her conversation, the cat, stretched out on the high window ledge above the table, decided to have his breakfast without waiting to be called. He was an enormous cat by the name of "Grandpa," and because he was old and ponderous, and no longer light on his feet, when he leaped from the windowsill he came down clumsily in the middle of the very table full of the old lamps which were set aside for the bargain sale.

Of course, it was the biggest and fanciest lamp in the lot that was broken—a tall one with a frosted glass shade and a row of crystal prisms dangling around the bowl of it. It toppled over on to a pair of old brass andirons, smashing into a thousand pieces. Bits of glass flew in every direction, and "Grandpa," his fur electrified by his fright until he looked twice his natural size, shot through the door as if fired from a cannon, and was seen no more that morning.

Naturally, Mrs. Yates hurried to the back of the store to see what had happened, and Mr. Darcy, following, picked up from the wreck the only piece of the lamp not shattered to bits by the fall. It was one of the prisms, which in some miraculous way had survived the crash, a beautiful crystal pendant without a single nick or crack.

He picked it up and rubbed his coat sleeve down each of its three sides, and when he held it up to the light it sent a ripple of rainbows dancing across the shop. He watched them, pleased as a child; and when Mrs. Yates, loud in her complaints of Grandpa, came with broom and dustpan to sweep up the litter, he bargained with her for the prism.

That is how he happened to have an offering for Georgina's birthday when he reached the house a couple of hours later, not knowing that it was her birthday. Nobody had remembered it, Barby being gone.

It seemed to Georgina the forlornest day she had ever opened her eyes upon. The very fact that it was gloriously sunny with a delicious summer breeze ruffling the harbor and sending the white sails scudding along like wings, made her feel all the more desolate. She was trying her best to forget what day it was, but there wasn't much to keep her mind off the subject. Even opportunities for helping Tippy were taken away, for Belle had come to stay during Barby's absence, and she insisted on doing what Georgina otherwise would have done.

If Barby had been at home there would have been no piano practice on such a gala occasion as a tenth birthday. There would have been no time for it in the program of joyful happenings. But because time dragged, Georgina went to her scales and five-finger exercises as usual. With the hour- glass on the piano beside her, she practised not only her accustomed time, till the sand had run half through, but until all but a quarter of it had slipped down. Then she sauntered listlessly out into the dining- room and stood by one of the open windows, looking out through the wire screen into the garden.

On any other day she would have found entertainment in the kitchen listening to Belle and Mrs. Triplett. Belle seemed doubly interesting now that she had heard of the unused wedding dress and the sorrow that would "blight her whole life." But Georgina did not want anyone to see how bitterly she was disappointed.

Just outside, so close to the window that she could have reached out and touched it had it not been for the screen, stood the holiday tree. It had held out its laden arms to her on so many festal occasions that Georgina had grown to feel that it took a human interest in all her celebrations. To see it standing bare now, like any ordinary tree, made her feel that her last friend was indifferent. Nobody cared. Nobody was glad that she was in the world. In spite of all she could do to check them, two big tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks; then another and another. She lifted up the hem of her dress to wipe them away, and as she did so Uncle Darcy came around the hoase.

He looked in at the open window, then asked: "Weather a bit squally, hey? Better put into port and tie up till storm's over. Let your Uncle Darcy have a hand at the helm. Come out here, Barby, and let's talk it over on the door-step."

There was something so heartening in the cheery voice that Georgina made one more dab at her eyes with the hem of her dress skirt, then dropped it and went out through the screen door to join him on the steps which led down into the garden. At first she was loath to confess the cause of her tears. She felt ashamed of being caught crying simply because no one had remembered the date. It wasn't that she wanted presents, she sobbed. It was that she wanted someone to be glad that she'd been born and it was so lonesome without Barby—

In the midst of her reluctant confession Mr. Darcy bethought himself of the prism in his pocket.

"Here," he said, drawing it out. "Take this and put a rainbow around your troubles. It's a sort of magic glass. When you look through it, it shows you things you can't see with your ordinary eyes. Look what it does to the holiday tree."

There was a long-drawn breath of amazement from Georgina as she held the prism to her eyes and looked through it at the tree.

"Oh! Oh! It does put a rainbow around every branch and every little tuft of green needles. It's even lovelier than the colored lanterns were. Isn't it wonderful? It puts a rainbow around the whole outdoors."

Her gaze went from the grape arbor to the back garden gate. Then she jumped up and started around the house, the old man following, and smiling over each enthusiastic "oh" she uttered, as the prism showed her new beauty at every step. He was pleased to have been the source of her new pleasure.

"It's like looking into a different world," she cried, as she reached the kitchen door, and eagerly turned the prism from one object to another. Mrs. Triplett was scowling intently over the task of trying to turn the lid of a glass jar which refused to budge.

"Oh, it even puts a rainbow around Tippy's frown," Georgina cried excitedly. Then she ran to hold the prism over Belle's eyes.

"Look what Uncle Darcy brought me for my birthday. See how it puts a rainbow around every blessed thing, even the old black pots and pans!"

In showing it to Tippy she discovered a tiny hole in the end of the prism by which it had been hung from the lamp, and she ran upstairs to find a piece of ribbon to run through it. When she came down again, the prism hanging from her neck by a long pink ribbon, Uncle Darcy greeted her with a new version of the Banbury Cross song:

"Rings on her fingers and ribbon of rose, She shall have rainbows wherever she goes."

"That's even better than having music wherever you go," answered Georgina, whirling around on her toes. Then she stopped in a listening attitude, hearing the postman.

When she came back from the front door with only a magazine her disappointment was keen, butl she said bravely:

"Of course, I knew there couldn't be a letter from Barby this soon. She couldn't get there till last night—but just for a minute I couldn't help hoping—but I didn't mind it half so much, Uncle Darcy, when I looked at the postman through the prism. Even his whiskers were blue and red and yellow."

That afternoon a little boat went dipping up and down across the waves. It was The Betsey, with Uncle Darcy pulling at the oars and Georgina as passenger. Lifting the prism which still hung from her neck by the pink ribbon, she looked out upon what seemed to be an enchanted harbor. It was filled with a fleet of rainbows. Every sail was outlined with one, every mast edged with lines of red and gold and blue. Even the gray wharves were tinged with magical color, and the water itself, to her reverent thought, suggested the "sea of glass mingled with fire," which is pictured as one of the glories of the New Jerusalem.

"Isn't it wonderful, Uncle Darcy?" she asked in a hushed, awed tone. "It's just like a miracle the way this bit of glass changes the whole world. Isn't it?"

Before he could answer, a shrill whistle sounded near at hand. They were passing the boathouse on the beach below the Green Stairs. Looking up they saw Richard, hanging out of the open doors of the loft, waving to them. Georgina stood up in the boat and beckoned, but he shook his head, pointing backward with his thumb into the studio, and disconsolately lately shrugged his shoulders.

"He wants to go so bad!" exclaimed Georgina. "Seems as if his father's a mighty slow painter. Maybe if you'd ask him the way you did before, Uncle Darcy, he'd let Richard off this one more time—being my birthday, you know."

She looked at him with the bewitching smile which he usually found impossible to resist, but this time he shook his head.

"No, I don't want him along to-day. I've brought you out here to show you something and have a little talk with you alone. Maybe I ought to wait till you're older before I say what I want to say, but at my time of life I'm liable to slip off without much warning, and I don't want to go till I've said it to you."

Georgina put down her prism to stare at him in eager-eyed wonder. She was curious to know what he could show her out here on the water, and what he wanted to tell her that was as important as his solemn words implied.

"Wait till we come to it," he said, answering the unspoken question in her eyes. And Georgina, who dearly loved dramatic effects in her own story-telling, waited for something—she knew not what—to burst upon her expectant sight.

They followed the line of the beach for some time, dodging in between motor boats and launches, under the high railroad wharf and around the smaller ones where the old fish-houses stood. Past groups of children, playing in the sand they went, past artists sketching under their white umbrellas, past gardens gay with bright masses of color, past drying nets spread out on the shore.

Presently Uncle Darcy stopped rowing and pointed across a vacant strip of beach between two houses, to one on the opposite side of the street.

"There it is," he announced. "That's what I wanted to show you."

Georgina followed the direction of his pointing finger.

"Oh, that!" she said in a disappointed tone. "I've seen that all my life. It's nothing but the Figurehead House."

She was looking at a large white house with a portico over the front door, on the roof of which portico was perched half of the wooden figure of a woman. It was of heroic size, head thrown back as if looking off to sea, and with a green wreath in its hands. Weather-beaten and discolored, it was not an imposing object at first glance, and many a jibe and laugh it had called forth from passing tourists.

Georgina's disappointment showed in her face.

"I know all about that," she remarked. "Mrs. Tupman told me herself. She calls it the Lady of Mystery. She said that years and years ago a schooner put out from this town on a whaling cruise, and was gone more than a year. When it was crossing the equator, headed for home, the look- out at the masthead saw a strange object in the water that looked like a woman afloat. The Captain gave orders to lower the boats, and when they did so they found this figurehead. She said it must have come from the prow of some great clipper in the East India trade. They were in the Indian Ocean, you know.

"There had been some frightful storms and afterwards they heard of many wrecks. This figurehead was so long they had to cut it in two to get it into the hold of the vessel. They brought it home and set it up there over the front door, and they call it the Lady of Mystery, because they said 'from whence that ship came, what was its fate and what was its destination will always be shrouded in mystery.' And Mrs. Tupman said that a famous artist looked at it once and said it was probably the work of a Spanish artist, and that from the pose of its head and the wreath in its hands he was sure it was intended to represent Hope. Was that what you were going to tell me?"

The old man had rested on his oars while she hurried through this tale, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, as if she thought she was forestalling him. Now he picked them up again and began rowing out into the harbor.

"That was a part of it," he admitted, "but that's only the part that the whole town knows. That old figurehead has a meaning for me that nobody else that's living knows about. That's what I want to pass on to you."

He rowed several minutes more before he said slowly, with a wistful tenderness coming into his dim old eyes as he looked at her:

"Georgina, I don't suppose anybody's ever told you about the troubles I've had. They wouldn't talk about such things to a child like you. Maybe I shouldn't, now; but when I saw how disappointed you were this morning, I said to myself, 'If she's old enough to feel trouble that way, she's old enough to understand and to be helped by hearing about mine.'"

It seemed hard for him to go on, for again he paused, looking off toward the lighthouse in the distance. Then he said slowly, in a voice that shook at times:

"Once—I had a boy—that I set all my hopes on—just as a man puts all his cargo into one vessel; and nobody was ever prouder than I was, when that little craft went sailing along with the best of them. I used to look at him and think, 'Danny'll weather the seas no matter how rough they are, and he'll bring up in the harbor I'm hoping he'll reach, with all flags flying.' And then—something went wrong—"

The tremulous voice broke. "My little ship went down—all my precious cargo lost—"

Another and a longer pause. In it Georgina seemed to hear Cousin Mehitable's husky voice, half whispering:

"And the lamp threw a shadow on the yellow blind, plain as a photograph. The shadow of an old man sitting with his arms flung out across the table and his head bowed on-them. And he was groaning, 'Oh, my Danny! My Danny! If you could only have gone that way.'"

For a moment Georgina felt the cruel hurt of his grief as if the pain had stabbed her own heart. The old man went on:

"If it had only been any other kind of a load, anything but disgrace, I could have carried it without flinching. But that, it seemed I just couldn't face. Only the good Lord knows how I lived through those first few weeks. Then your grandfather Huntingdon came to me. He was always a good friend. And he asked me to row him out here on the water. When we passed the Figurehead House he pointed up at that head. It was all white and fair in those days, before the paint wore off. And he said, 'Dan'l Darcy, as long as a man keeps Hope at the prow he keeps afloat. As soon as he drops it he goes to pieces and down to the bottom, the way that ship did when it lost its figurehead. You mustn't let go, Dan'l. You must keep Hope at the prow.

"'Somewhere in God's universe either in this world or another your boy is alive and still your son. You've got to go on hoping that if he's innocent his name will be cleared of this disgrace, and if he's guilty he'll wipe out the old score against him some way and make good.'

"And then he gave me a line to live by. A line he said that had been written by a man who was stone blind, and hadn't anything to look forward to all the rest of his life but groping in the dark. He said he'd not

"'Bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer Right onward.'

"At first it didn't seem to mean anything to me, but he made me say it after him as if it were a sort of promise, and I've been saying it every day of every year since then. I'd said it to myself first, when I met people on the street that I knew were thinking of Danny's disgrace, and I didn't see how I was going to get up courage to pass 'em. And I said it when I was lying on my bed at night with my heart so sore and heavy I couldn't sleep, and after a while it did begin to put courage into me, so that I could hope in earnest. And when I did that, little lass—"

He leaned over to smile into her eyes, now full of tears, he had so wrought upon her tender sympathies—

"When I did that, it put a rainbow around my trouble just as that prism did around your empty holiday tree. It changed the looks of the whole world for me.

"That's what I brought you out here to tell you, Georgina. I want to give you the same thing that your grandfather Huntingdon gave me—that line to live by. Because troubles come to everybody. They'll come to you, too, but I want you to know this, Baby, they can't hurt you as long as you keep Hope at the prow, because Hope is a magic glass that makes rainbows of our tears. Now you won't forget that, will you? Even after Uncle Darcy is dead and gone, you'll remember that he brought you out here on your birthday to give you that good word—'still bear up and steer right onward,' no matter what happens. And to tell you that in all the long, hard years he's lived through, he's proved it was good."

Georgina, awed and touched of soul, could only nod her assent. But because Childhood sometimes has no answer to make to the confidences of Age is no reason that they are not taken to heart and stowed away there for the years to build upon. In the unbroken silence with which they rowed back to shore, Georgina might have claimed three score years besides her own ten, so perfect was the feeling of comradeship between them.

As they passed the pier back of the antique shop, a great gray cat rose and stretched itself, then walked ponderously down to the water's edge. It was "Grandpa." Georgina, laughing a little shakily because of recent tears, raised her prism to put a rainbow around the cat's tail, unknowing that but for him the crystal pendant would now be hanging from an antique lamp instead of from the ribbon around her neck.



Chapter X

Moving Pictures



It often happens that when one is all primed and cocked for trouble, that trouble flaps its wings and flies away for a time, leaving nothing to fire at. So Georgina, going home with her prism and her "line to live by," ready and eager to prove how bravely she could meet disappointments, found only pleasant surprises awaiting her.

Mrs. Triplett had made a birthday cake in her absence. It was on the supper table with ten red candles atop. And there was a note from Barby beside her plate which had come in the last mail. It had been posted at some way-station. There was a check inside for a dollar which she was to spend as she pleased. A dear little note it was, which made Georgina's throat ache even while it brought a glow to her heart. Then Belle, who had not known it was her birthday in time to make her a present, announced that she would take her to a moving picture show after supper, instead.

Georgina had frequently been taken to afternoon performances, but never at night. It was an adventure in itself just to be down in the part of town where the shops were, when they were all lighted, and when the summer people were surging along the board-walk and out into the middle of the narrow street in such crowds that the automobiles and "accommodations" had to push their way through slowly, with a great honking of warning horns.

The Town Hall was lighted for a dance when they passed it. The windows of the little souvenir shops seemed twice as attractive as when seen by day, and early as it was in the evening, people were already lined up in the drug-store, three deep around the soda-water fountain.

Georgina, thankful that Tippy had allowed her to wear her gold locket for the occasion, walked down the aisle and took her seat near the stage, feeling as conspicuous and self-conscious as any debutante entering a box at Grand Opera.

It was a hot night, but on a line with the front seats, there was a double side door opening out onto a dock. From where Georgina sat she could look out through the door and see the lights of a hundred boats twinkling in long wavy lines across the black water, and now and then a salt breeze with the fishy tang she loved, stole across the room and touched her cheek like a cool finger.

The play was not one which Barbara would have chosen for Georgina to see, being one that was advertised as a thriller. It was full of hair-breadth escapes and tragic scenes. There was a shipwreck in it, and passengers were brought ashore in the breeches buoy, just as she had seen sailors brought in on practice days over at the Race Point Lifesaving station. And there was a still form stretched out stark and dripping under a piece of tarpaulin, and a girl with long fair hair streaming wildly over her shoulders knelt beside it wringing her hands.

Georgina stole a quick side-glance at Belle. That was the way it had been in the story of Emmett Potter's drowning, as they told it on the day of Cousin Mehitable's visit. Belle's hands were locked together in her lap, and her lips were pressed in a thin line as if she were trying to keep from saying something. Several times in the semi-darkness of the house her handkerchief went furtively to her eyes.

Georgina's heart beat faster. Somehow, with the piano pounding out that deep tum-tum, like waves booming up on the rocks, she began to feel strangely confused, as if she were the heroine on the films; as if she were kneeling there on the shore in that tragic moment of parting from her dead lover. She was sure that she knew exactly how Belle felt then, how she was feeling now.

When the lights were switched on again and they rose to go out, Georgina was so deeply under the spell of the play that it gave her a little shock of surprise when Belle began talking quite cheerfully and in her ordinary manner to her next neighbor. She even laughed in response to some joking remark as they edged their way slowly up the aisle to the door. It seemed to Georgina that if she had lived through a scene like the one they had just witnessed, she could never smile again. On the way out she glanced up again at Belie several times, wondering.

Going home the street was even more crowded than it had been coming. They could barely push their way along, and were bumped into constantly by people dodging back to escape the jam when the crowd had to part to let a vehicle through. But after a few blocks of such jostling the going was easier. The drug-store absorbed part of the throng, and most of the procession turned up Carver Street to the Gifford House and the cottages beyond on Bradford Street.

By the time Georgina and Belle came to the last half-mile of the plank walk, scarcely a footstep sounded behind them. After passing the Green Stairs there was an unobstructed view of the harbor. A full moon was high overhead, flooding the water and beach with such a witchery of light that Georgina moved along as if she were in a dream—in a silver dream beside a silver sea.

Belle pointed to a little pavilion in sight of the breakwater. "Let's go over there and sit down a few minutes," she said. "It's a waste of good material to go indoors on a night like this."

They crossed over, sinking in the sand as they stepped from the road to the beach, till Georgina had to take off her slippers and shake them before she could settle down comfortably on the bench in the pavilion. They sat there a while without speaking, just as they had sat before the pictures on the films, for never on any film was ever shown a scene of such entrancing loveliness as the one spread out before them. In the broad path made by the moon hung ghostly sails, rose great masts, twinkled myriads of lights. It was so still they could hear the swish of the tide creeping up below, the dip of near-by oars and the chug of a motor boat, far away down by the railroad wharf.

Then Belle began to talk. She looked straight out across the shining path of the moon and spoke as if she were by herself. She did not look at Georgina, sitting there beside her. Perhaps if she had, she would have realized that her listener was only a child and would not have said all she did. Or maybe, something within her felt the influence of the night, the magical drawing of the moon as the tide feels it, and she could not hold back the long-repressed speech that rose to her lips. Maybe it was that the play they had seen, quickened old memories into painful life again.

It was on a night just like this, she told Georgina, that Emmett first told her that he cared for her—ten years ago this summer. Ten years! The whole of Georgina's little lifetime! And now Belle was twenty-seven. Twenty-seven seemed very old to Georgina. She stole another upward glance at her companion. Belle did not look old, sitting there in her white dress, like a white moonflower in that silver radiance, a little lock of soft blonde hair fluttering across her cheek.

In a rush of broken sentences with long pauses between which somehow told almost as much as words, Belle recalled some of the scenes of that summer, and Georgina, who up to this night had only glimpsed the dim outlines of romance, as a child of ten would glimpse them through old books, suddenly saw it face to face, and thereafter found it something to wonder about and dream sweet, vague dreams over.

Suddenly Belle stood up with a complete change of manner.

"My! it must be getting late," she said briskly. "Aunt Maria will scold if I keep you out any longer."

Going home, she was like the Belle whom Georgina had always known—so different from the one lifting the veil of memories for the little while they sat in the pavilion.

Georgina had thought that with no Barby to "button her eyes shut with a kiss" at the end of her birthday, the going-to-sleep time would be sad. But she was so busy recalling the events of the day that she never thought of the omitted ceremony. For a long time she lay awake, imagining all sorts of beautiful scenes in which she was the heroine.

First, she went back to what Uncle Darcy had told her, and imagined herself as rescuing an only child who was drowning. The whole town stood by and cheered when she came up with it, dripping, and the mother took her in her arms and said, "You are our prism, Georgina Huntingdon! But for your noble act our lives would be, indeed, desolate. It is you who have filled them with rainbows."

Then she was in a ship crossing the ocean, and a poor sailor hearing her speak of Cape Cod would come and ask her to tell him of its people, and she would find he was Danny. She would be the means of restoring him to his parents.

And then, she and Richard on some of their treasure-hunting expeditions which they were still planning every time they met, would unearth a casket some dark night by the light of a fitful lantern, and inside would be a confession written by the man who had really stolen the money, saying that Dan Darcy was innocent. And Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth would be so heavenly glad—The tears came to Georgina's eyes as she pictured the scene in the little house in Fishburn Court, it came to her so vividly.

The clock downstairs struck twelve, but still she went on with the pleasing pictures moving through her mind as they had moved across the films earlier in the evening. The last one was a combination of what she had seen there and what Belle had told her.

She was sitting beside a silver sea across which a silver moon was making a wonderful shining path of silver ripples, and somebody was telling her— what Emmett had told Belle ten years ago. And she knew past all doubting that if that shadowy somebody beside her should die, she would carry the memory of him to her grave as Belle was doing. It seemed such a sweet, sad way to live that she thought it would be more interesting to have her life like that, than to have it go along like the lives of all the married people of her acquaintance. And if he had a father like Emmett's father she would cling to him as Belle did, and go to see him often and take the part of a real daughter to him. But she wouldn't want him to be like Belle's "Father Potter." He was an old fisherman, too crippled to follow the sea any longer, so now he was just a mender of nets, sitting all day knotting twine with dirty tar-blackened fingers.

The next morning when she went downstairs it was Belle and not Mrs. Triplett who was stepping about the kitchen in a big gingham apron, preparing breakfast. Mrs. Triplett was still in bed. Such a thing had never happened before within Georgina's recollection.

"It's the rheumatism in her back," Belle reported. "It's so bad she can't lie still with any comfort, and she can't move without groaning. So she's sort of 'between the de'il and the deep sea.' And touchy is no name for it. She doesn't like it if you don't and she doesn't like it if you do; but you can't wonder when the pain's so bad. It's pretty near lumbago."

Georgina, who had finished her dressing by tying the prism around her neck, was still burning with the desire which Uncle Darcy's talk had kindled within her, to be a little comfort to everybody.

"Let me take her toast and tea up to her," she begged. With that toast and tea she intended to pass along the good word Uncle Darcy had given her—"the line to live by." But Tippy was in no humor to be adjured by a chit of a child to bear up and steer right onward. Such advice would have been coldly received just then even from her minister.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she exclaimed testily. "Bear up? Of course I'll bear up. There's nothing else to do with rheumatism, but you needn't come around with any talk of putting rainbows around it or me either."

She gave her pillow an impatient thump with her hard knuckles.

"Deliver me from people who make it their business in life always to act cheerful no matter what. The Scripture itself says 'There's a time to laugh and a time to weep, a time to mourn and a time to dance.' When the weeping time comes I can't abide either people or books that go around spreading cheerful sayings on everybody like salve!"

Tippy, lying there with her hair screwed into a tight little button on the top of her head, looked strangely unlike herself. Georgina descended to the kitchen, much offended. It hurt her feelings to have her good offices spurned in such a way. She didn't care how bad anybody's rheumatism was she muttured. "It was no excuse for saying such nasty things to people who were trying to be kind to them."

Belle suggested presently that the customary piano practice be omitted that morning for fear it might disturb Aunt Maria, so when the usual little tasks were done Georgina would have found time dragging, had it not been for the night letter which a messenger boy brought soon after breakfast. Grandfather Shirley was better than she had expected to find him, Barby wired. Particulars would follow soon in a letter. It cheered Georgina up so much that she took a pencil and tablet of paper up into the willow tree and wrote a long account to her mother of the birthday happenings. What with the red-candled cake and the picture show and the afternoon in the boat it sounded as if she had had a very happy day. But mostly she wrote about the prism, and what Uncle Darcy had told her about the magic glass of Hope. When it was done she went in to Belle.

"May I go down to the post-office to mail this and stop on my way back at the Green Stairs and see if Richard can come and play with me?" she asked.

Belle considered. "Better stay down at the Milford's to do your playing," she answered. "It might bother Aunt Maria to have a boy romping around here."

So Georgina fared forth, after taking off her prism and hanging it in a safe place. Only Captain Kidd frisked down to meet her when she stood under the studio window and gave the alley yodel which Richard had taught her. There was no answer. She repeated it several times, and then Mr. Moreland appeared at the window, in his artist's smock with a palette on his thumb and a decidedly impatient expression on his handsome face. Richard was posing, he told her, and couldn't leave for half an hour. His tone was impatient, too, for he had just gotten a good start after many interruptions.

Undecided whether to go back home or sit down on the sand and wait, Georgina stood looking idly about her. And while she hesitated, Manuel and Joseph and Rosa came straggling along the beach in search of adventure.

It came to Georgina like an inspiration that it wasn't Barby who had forbidden her to play with them, it was Tippy. And with a vague feeling that she was justified in disobeying her because of her recent crossness, she rounded them up for a chase over the granite slabs of the breakwater. If they would be Indians, she proposed, she'd be the Deerslayer, like the hero of the Leather-Stocking Tales, and chase 'em with a gun.

They had never heard of those tales, but they were more than willing to undertake any game which Georgina might propose. So after a little coaching in war-whoops, with a battered tin pan for a tom-tom, three impromptu Indians sped down the beach under the studio windows, pursued by a swift-footed Deerslayer with flying curls. The end of a broken oar was her musket, which she brandished fiercely as she echoed their yells.

Mr. Moreland gave a groan of despair as he looked at his model when those war-whoops broke loose. Richard, who had succeeded after many trials in lapsing into the dreamy attitude which his father wanted, started up at the first whoop, so alert and interested that his nostrils quivered. He scented excitement of some kind and was so eager to be in the midst of it that the noise of the tom-tom made him wriggle in his chair.

He looked at his father appealingly, then made an effort to settle down into his former attitude. His body assumed the same listless pose as before, but his eyes were so eager and shining with interest that they fairly spoke each time the rattly drumming on the tin pan sounded a challenge.

"It's no use, Dicky," said his father at last. "It's all up with us for this time. You might as well go on. But I wish that little tom-boy had stayed at home."

And Richard went, with a yell and a hand-spring, to throw in his lot with Manuel and Joseph and be chased by the doughty Deer-slayer and her hound. In the readjustment of parts Rosa was told to answer to the name of Hector. It was all one to Rosa whether she was hound or redskin, so long as she was allowed a part in the thrilling new game. Richard had the promise of being Deer-slayer next time they played it.



Chapter XI

The Old Rifle Gives Up Its Secret



Out of that game with forbidden playmates, grew events which changed the lives of several people. It began by Richard's deciding that a real gun was necessary for his equipment if he was to play the part of Leather- Stocking properly. Also, he argued, it would be a valuable addition to their stock of fire-arms. The broken old horse-pistols were good enough to play at pirating with, but something which would really shoot was needed when they started out in earnest on a sure-enough adventure.

Georgina suggested that he go to Fishburn Court and borrow a rifle that she had seen up in Uncle Darcy's attic. She would go with him and do the asking, she added, but Belle had promised to take her with her the next time she went to see the net-mender, and the next time would be the following afternoon, if Tippy was well enough to be up and around. Georgina couldn't miss the chance to see inside the cottage that had been the home of a hero and Belle's drowned lover. She wanted to see the newspaper which Mr. Potter showed everybody who went to the house. It had an account of the wreck and the rescue in it, with Emmett's picture on the front page, and black headlines under it that said, "Died like a hero."

Tippy was well enough to be up next day, so Richard went alone to Fishburn Court, and Georgina trudged along the sandy road with Belle to the weather-beaten cottage on the edge of the cranberry bog. Belle told her more about the old man as they walked along.

"Seems as if he just lives on that memory. He can't get out in the boats any more, being so crippled up, and he can't see to read much, so there's lots of time for him to sit and think on the past. If it wasn't for the nets he'd about lose his mind. I wouldn't say it out, and you needn't repeat it, but sometimes I think it's already touched a mite. You see the two of them lived there together so long alone, that Emmett was all in all to his father. I suppose that's why Emmett is all he can talk about now."

When they reached the cottage Mr. Potter was sitting out in front as usual, busy with his work. Georgina was glad that he did not offer to shake hands. His were so dirty and black with tar she felt she could not bear to touch them. He was a swarthy old man with skin like wrinkled leather, and a bushy, grizzled beard which grew up nearly to his eyes. Again Georgina wondered, looking at Belle in her crisp, white dress and white shoes. How could she care for this unkempt old creature enough to call him Father?

As she followed Belle around inside the dreary three-room cottage she wanted to ask if this would have been her home if Emmett had not been drowned, but she felt a delicacy about asking such a question. She couldn't imagine Belle in such a setting, but after she had followed her around a while longer she realized that the house wouldn't stay dreary with such a mistress. In almost no time the place was put to rights, and there was a pan of cookies ready to slip into the oven.

When the smell of their browning stole out to the front door the old man left his bench and came in to get a handful of the hot cakes. Then, just as Belle said he would, he told Georgina all that had happened the night of the wreck.

"That's the very chair he was sittin' in, when Luke Jones come in with the word that men were needed. He started right off with Luke soon as he could get into his oil-skins, for 'twas stormin' to beat the band. But he didn't go fur. Almost no time it seemed like, he was comin' into the house agin, and he went into that bedroom there, and shet the door behind him. That of itself ought to 'uv made me know something out of the usual was beginnin' to happen, for he never done such a thing before. A few minutes later he came out with an old rifle that him and Dan Darcy used to carry around in the dunes for target shootin' and he set it right down in that corner by the chimney jamb.

"'First time anybody passes this way goin' down ito Fishburn Court,' he says, 'I wish you'd send this along to Uncle Dan'l. It's his by rights, and he'd ought a had it long ago.'

"An' them was his last words to me, except as he pulled the door to after him he called 'Good-bye Pop, if I don't see you agin.'

"I don't know when he'd done such a thing before as to say good-bye when he went out, and I've often wondered over it sence, could he 'a had any warnin' that something was goin' to happen to him?"

Georgina gazed at the picture in the newspaper long and curiously. It had been copied from a faded tin-type, but even making allowances for that Emmett didn't look as she imagined a hero should, nor did it seem possible it could be the man Belle had talked about. She wished she hadn't seen it. It dimmed the glamor of romance which seemed to surround him like a halo. Hearing about him in the magical moonlight she had pictured him as looking as Sir Galahad. But if this was what he really looked like—Again she glanced wonderingly at Belle. How could she care so hard for ten long years for just an ordinary man like that?

When it was time to go home Belle suggested that they walk around by Fishburn Court. It would be out of their way, but she had heard that Aunt Elspeth wasn't as well as usual.

"Emmett always called her Aunt," she explained to Georgina as they walked along, "so I got into the way of doing it, too. He was so fond of Dan's mother. She was so good to him after his own went that I feel I want to be nice to her whenever I can, for his sake."

"You know," she continued, "Aunt Elspeth never would give up but that Dan was innocent, and since her memory's been failing her this last year, she talks all the time about his coming home; just lies there in bed half her time and babbles about him. It almost kills Uncle Dan'l to hear her, because, of course, he knows the truth of the matter, that Dan was guilty. He as good as confessed it before he ran away, and the running away itself told the story."

When they reached Fishburn Court they could see two people sitting in front of the cottage. Uncle Darcy was in an armchair on the grass with one of the cats in his lap, and Richard sat on one seat of the red, wooden swing with Captain Kidd on the opposite site one. Richard had a rifle across his knees, the one Georgina had suggested borrowing. He passed his hand caressingly along its stock now and then, and at intervals raised it to sight along the barrel. It was so heavy he could not keep it from wobbling when he raised it to take aim in various directions.

At the click of the gate-latch the old man tumbled Yellownose out of his lap and rose stiffly to welcome his guests.

"Come right in," he said cordially. "Mother'll be glad to see you, Belle. She's been sort of low in her mind lately, and needs cheering up."

He led the way into a low-ceilinged, inner bedroom with the shades all pulled down. It was so dark, compared to the glaring road they had been following, that Georgina blinked at the dim interior. She could scarcely make out the figure on the high-posted bed, and drew back, whispering to Belle that she'd stay outside until they were ready to go home. Leaving them on the threshold, she went back to the shady door-yard to a seat in the swing beside Captain Kidd.

"It's Uncle Darcy's son's rifle," explained Richard. "He's been telling me about him. Feel how smooth the stock is."

Georgina reached over and passed her hand lightly along the polished wood.

"He and a friend of his called Emmett Potter used to carry it on the dunes sometimes to shoot at a mark with. It wasn't good for much else, it's so old. Dan got it in a trade once; traded a whole litter of collie pups for it. Uncle Darcy says he'd forgotten there was such a gun till somebody brought it to him after Emmett was drowned."

"Oh," interrupted Georgina, her eyes wide with interest. "Emmett's father has just been telling me about this very rifle. But I didn't dream it was the one I'd seen up in the attic here. He showed me the corner where Emmett stood it when he left for the wreck, and told what was to be done with it. 'Them were his last words,'" she added, quoting Mr. Potter.

She reached out her hand for the clumsy old firearm and almost dropped it, finding it so much heavier than she expected. She wanted to touch with her own fingers the weapon that had such an interesting history, and about which a hero had spoken his last words.

"The hammer's broken," continued Richard. "Whoever brought it home let it fall. It's all rusty, too, because it was up in the attic so many years and the roof leaked on it. But Uncle Darcy said lots of museums would be glad to have it because there aren't many of these old flint-locks left now. He's going to leave it to the Pilgrim museum up by the monument when he's dead and gone, but he wants to keep it as long as he lives because Danny set such store by it."

"There's some numbers or letters or something on it," announced Georgina, peering at a small brass plate on the stock. "I can't make them out. I tell you what let's do," she exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm. "Let's polish it up so's we can read them. Tippy uses vinegar and wood ashes for brass. I'll run get some."

Georgina was enough at home here to find what she wanted without asking, and as full of resources as Robinson Crusoe. She was back in a very few minutes with a shovel full of ashes from the kitchen stove, and an old can lid full of vinegar, drawn from a jug in the corner cupboard. With a scrap of a rag dipped first in vinegar, then in ashes, she began scrubbing the brass plate diligently. It had corroded until there was an edge of green entirely around it.

"I love to take an old thing like this and scrub it till it shines like gold," she said, scouring away with such evident enjoyment of the job that Richard insisted on having a turn. She surrendered the rag grudgingly, but continued to direct operations.

"Now dip it in the ashes again. No, not that way, double the rag up and use more vinegar. Rub around that other corner a while. Here, let me show you."

She took the rifle away from him again and proceeded to illustrate her advice. Suddenly she looked up, startled.

"I believe we've rubbed it loose. It moved a little to one side. See?"

He grabbed it back and examined it closely. "I bet it's meant to move," he said finally. "It looks like a lid, see! It slides sideways."

"Oh, I remember now," she cried, much excited. "That's the way Leather- Stocking's rifle was made. There was a hole in the stock with a brass plate over it, and he kept little pieces of oiled deer-skin inside of it to wrap bullets in before he loaded 'em in. I remember just as plain, the place in the story where he stopped to open it and take out a piece of oiled deer-skin when he started to load."

As she explained she snatched the rifle back into her own hands once more, and pried at the brass plate until she broke the edge of her thumb nail. Then Richard took it, and with the aid of a rusty button-hook which he happened to have in his pocket, having found it on the street that morning, he pushed the plate entirely back.

"There's something white inside!" he exclaimed. Instantly two heads bent over with his in an attempt to see, for Captain Kidd's shaggy hair was side by side with Georgina's curls, his niriosity as great as hers.

"Whatever's in there has been there an awful long time," said Richard as he poked at the contents with his button-hook, "for Uncle Darcy said the rifle's never been used since it was brought back to him."

"And it's ten years come Michaelmas since Emmett was drowned," said Georgina, again quoting the old net-mender.

The piece of paper which they finally succeeded in drawing out had been folded many times and crumpled into a flat wad. Evidently the message on it had been scrawled hastily in pencil by someone little used to letter writing. It was written in an odd hand, and the united efforts of the two little readers could decipher only parts of it.

"I can read any kind of plain writing like they do in school," said Richard, "but not this sharp-cornered kind where the m's and u's are alike, and all the tails are pointed."

Slowly they puzzled out parts of it, halting long over some of the undecipherable words, but a few words here and there were all they could recognize. There were long stretches that had no meaning whatever for them. This much, however, they managed to spell out:

"Dan never took the money.... I did it.... He went away because he knew I did it and wouldn't tell.... Sorry.... Can't stand it any longer.... Put an end to it all...."

It was signed "Emmett Potter."

The two children looked at each other with puzzled eyes until into Georgina's came a sudden and startled understanding. Snatching up the paper she almost fell out of the swing and ran towards the house screaming:

"Uncle Darcy! Uncle Darcy! Look what we've found."

She tripped over a piece of loose carpet spread just inside the front door as a rug and fell full length, but too excited to know that she had skinned her elbow she scrambled up, still calling:

"Uncle Darcy, Dan never took the money. It was Emmett Potter. He said so himself!"



Chapter XII

A Hard Promise



A dozen times in Georgina's day-dreaming she had imagined this scene. She had run to Uncle Darcy with the proof of Dan's innocence, heard his glad cry, seen his face fairly transfigured as he read the confession aloud. Now it was actually happening before her very eyes, but where was the scene of heavenly gladness that should have followed?

Belle, startled even more than he by Georgina's outcry, and quicker to act, read the message over his shoulder, recognized the handwriting and grasped the full significance of the situation before he reached the name at the end. For ten years three little notes in that same peculiar hand had lain in her box of keepsakes. There was no mistaking that signature. She had read it and cried over it so many times that now as it suddenly confronted her with its familiar twists and angles it was as startling as if Emmett's voice had called to her.

As Uncle Darcy looked up from the second reading, with a faltering exclamation of thanksgiving, she snatched the paper from his shaking hands and tore it in two. Then crumpling the pieces and flinging them from her, she seized him by the wrists.

"No, you're not going to tell the whole world," she cried wildly, answering the announcement he made with the tears raining down his cheeks. "You're not going to tell anybody! Think of me! Think of Father Potter!"

She almost screamed her demand. He could hardly believe it was Belle, this frenzied girl, who, heretofore, had seemed the gentlest of souls. He looked at her in a dazed way, so overwhelmed by the discovery that had just been made, that he failed to comprehend the reason for her white face and agonized eyes, till she threw up her arms crying:

"Emmett a thief! God in heaven! It'll kill me!"

It was the sight of Georgina's shocked face with Richard's at the door, that made things clear to the old man. He waved them away, with hands which shook as if he had the palsy.

"Go on out, children, for a little while," he said gently, and closed the door in their faces.

Slowly they retreated to the swing, Georgina clasping the skinned elbow which had begun to smart. She climbed into one seat of the swing and Richard and Captain Kidd took the other. As they swung back and forth she demanded in a whisper:

"Why is it that grown people always shut children out of their secrets? Seems as if we have a right to know what's the matter when we found the paper."

Richard made no answer, for just then the sound of Belle's crying came out to them. The windows of the cottage were all open and the grass plot between the windows and the swing being a narrow one the closed door was of little avail. It was very still there in the shady dooryard, so still that they could hear old Yellownose purr, asleep on the cushion in the wooden arm-chair beside the swing. The broken sentences between the sobs were plainly audible. It seemed so terrible to hear a grown person cry, that Georgina felt as she did that morning long ago, when old Jeremy's teeth flew into the fire. Her confidence was shaken in the world. She felt there could be no abiding happiness in anything.

"She's begging him not to tell," whispered Richard.

"But I owe it to Danny," they heard Uncle Darcy say. And then, "Why should I spare Emmett's father? Emmett never spared me, he never spared Danny."

An indistinct murmur as if Belle's answer was muffled in her handkerchief, then Uncle Darcy's voice again:

"It isn't fair that the town should go on counting him a hero and brand my boy as a coward, when it's Emmett who was the coward as well as the thief."

Again Belle's voice in a quick cry of pain, as sharp as if she had been struck. Then the sound of another door shutting, and when the voices began again it was evident they had withdrawn into the kitchen.

"They don't want Aunt Elspeth to hear," said Georgina.

"What's it all about?" asked Richard, much mystified.

Georgina told him all that she knew herself, gathered from the scraps she had heard the day of Cousin Mehitable's visit, and from various sources since; told him in a half whisper stopping now and then when some fragment of a sentence floated out to them from the kitchen; for occasional words still continued to reach them through the windows in the rear, when the voices rose at intervals to a higher pitch.

What passed behind those closed doors the children never knew. They felt rather than understood what was happening. Belle's pleading was beginning to be effectual, and the old man was rising to the same heights of self- sacrifice which Dan had reached, when he slipped away from home with the taint of his friend's disgrace upon him in order to save that friend.

That some soul tragedy had been enacted m that little room the children felt vaguely when Belle came out after a while. Her eyes were red and swollen and her face drawn and pinched looking. She did not glance in their direction, but stood with her face averted and hand on the gate- latch while Uncle Darcy stopped beside the swing.

"Children," he said solemnly, "I want you to promise me never to speak to anyone about finding that note in the old rifle till I give you permission. Will you do this for me, just because I ask it, even if I can't tell you why?"

"Mustn't I even tell Barby?" asked Georgina, anxiously.

He hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Belle, then answered:

"No, not even your mother, till I tell you that you can. Now you see what a very important secret it is. Can you keep it, son? Will you promise me too?"

He turned to Richard with the question. With a finger under the boy's chin he tipped up his face and looked into it searchingly. The serious, brown eyes looked back into his, honest and unflinching.

"Yes, I promise," he answered. "Honor bright I'll not tell."

The old man turned to the waiting figure at the gate.

"It's all right, Belle. You needn't worry about it any more. You can trust us."

She made no answer, but looking as if she had aged years in the last half hour, she passed through the gate and into the sandy court, moving slowly across it towards the street beyond.

With a long-drawn sigh the old man sank down on the door-step and buried his face in his hands. They were still shaking as if he had the palsy. For some time the children sat in embarrassed silence, thinking every moment that he would look up and say something. They wanted to go, but waited for him to make some movement. He seemed to have forgotten they were there. Finally a clock inside the cottage began striking five. It broke the spell which bound them.

"Let's go," whispered Richard.

"All right," was the answer, also whispered. "Wait till I take the shovel and can lid back to the kitchen."

"I'll take 'em," he offered. "I want to get a drink, anyhow."

Stealthily, as if playing Indian, they stepped out of the swing and tiptoed through the grass around the corner of the house. Even the dog went noiselessly, instead of frisking and barking as he usually did when starting anywhere. Their return was equally stealthy. As they slipped through the gate Georgina looked back at the old man. He was still sitting on the step, his face in his hands, as if he were bowed down by some weight too heavy for his shoulders to bear.

The weary hopelessness of his attitude made her want to run back and throw her arms around his neck, but she did not dare. Trouble as great as that seemed to raise a wall around itself. It could not be comforted by a caress. The only thing to do was to slip past and not look.

Richard shared the same awe, for he went away leaving the rifle lying in the grass. Instinctively he felt that it ought not to be played with now. It was the rifle which had changed everything.



Chapter XIII

Lost and Found at the Liniment Wagon



With Mrs. Triplett back in bed again on account of the rheumatism which crippled her, and Belle going about white of face and sick of soul, home held little cheer for Georgina. But with Mrs. Triplett averse to company of any kind, and Belle anxious to be alone with her misery, there was nothing to hinder Georgina from seeking cheer elsewhere and she sought it early and late.

She had spent her birthday dollar in imagination many times before she took her check to the bank to have it cashed. With Richard to lend her courage, and Manuel, Joseph and Rosa trailing after by special invitation, she walked in and asked for Mr. Gates. That is the way Barby always did, and as far as Georgina knew he was the only one to apply to for money.

The paying teller hesitated a moment about summoning the president of the bank from his private office at the behest of so small a child, so small that even on tiptoe her eyes could barely peer into the window of his cage. But they were entreating eyes, so big and brown and sure of their appeal that he decided to do their bidding.

Just as he turned to knock at the door behind him it opened, and Mr. Gates came out with the man with whom he had been closeted in private conference. It was Richard's Cousin James. The children did not see him, however, for he stopped at one of the high desks inside to look at some papers which one of the clerks spread out before him.

"Oh, it's my little friend, Georgina," said Mr. Gates, smiling in response to the beaming smile she gave him. "Well, what can I do for you, my dear?"

"Cash my check, please," she said, pushing the slip of paper towards him with as grand an air as if it had been for a million dollars instead of one, "and all in nickels, please."

He glanced at the name she had written painstakingly across the back.

"Well, Miss Huntingdon," he exclaimed gravely, although there was a twinkle in his eyes, "if all lady customers were as businesslike in endorsing their checks and in knowing what they want, we bankers would be spared a lot of trouble."

It was the first time that Georgina had ever been called Miss Huntingdon, and knowing he said it to tease her, it embarrassed her to the point of making her stammer, when he asked her most unexpectedly while picking out twenty shining new nickels to stuff into the little red purse:

"All of these going to buy tracts for the missionaries to take to the little heathen?"

"No, they're all going to—to——"

She didn't like to say for soda water and chewing gum and the movies, and hesitated till a substitute word occurred to her.

"They're all going to go for buying good times. It's for a sort of a club we made up this morning, Richard and me."

"May I ask the name of the club?"

Georgina glanced around. No other customer happened to be in the bank at the moment and Richard had wandered out to the street to wait for her. So tiptoeing a little higher she said in a low tone as if imparting a secret:

"It's the Rainbow Club. We pretend that everytime we make anybody happy we've made a little rainbow in the world."

"Well, bless your heart," was the appreciative answer. "You've already made one in here. You do that every time you come around."

Then he looked thoughtfully at her over his spectacles.

"Would you take an old fellow like me into your club?"

Georgina considered a moment, first stealing a glance at him to see if he were in earnest or still trying to tease. He seemed quite serious so she answered:

"If you really want to belong. Anybody with a bank full of money ought to be able to make happy times for the whole town."

"Any dues to pay? What are the rules and what are the duties of a member?"

Again Georgina was embarrassed. He seemed to expect so much more than she had to offer. She swung the red purse around nervously as she answered:

"I guess you won't think it's much of a club. There's nothing to it but just its name, and all we do is just to go around making what it says."

"Count me as Member number Three," said Mr. Gates gravely. "I'm proud to join you. Shake hands on it. I'll try to be a credit to the organization, and I hope you'll drop around once in a while and let me know how it's getting along."

The beaming smile with which Georgina shook hands came back to him all morning at intervals.

Cousin James Milford, who had been an interested listener, followed her out of the bank presently and as he drove his machine slowly past the drug-store he saw the five children draining their glasses at the soda- water fountain. He stopped, thinking to invite Richard and Georgina to go to Truro with him. It never would have occurred to him to give the three little Portuguese children a ride also had he not overheard that conversation in the bank.

"Well, why not?" he asked himself, smiling inwardly. "It might as well be rainbows for the crowd while I'm about it."

So for the first time in their lives Manuel and Joseph and Rosa rode in one of the "honk wagons" which heretofore they had known only as something to be dodged when one walked abroad. Judging by the blissful grins which took permanent lodging on their dirty faces, Cousin James was eligible to the highest position the new club could bestow, if ever he should apply for membership.

If Mrs. Triplett had been downstairs that evening, none of the birthday nickels would have found their way through the ticket window of the moving picture show. She supposed that Georgina was reading as usual beside the evening lamp, or was out on the front porch talking to Belle. But Belle, not caring to talk to anyone, had given instant consent when Georgina, who wanted to go to the show, having seen wonderful posters advertising it, suggested that Mrs. Fayal would take her in charge. She did not add that she had already seen Mrs. Fayal and promised to provide tickets for her and the children in case she could get permission from home. Belle did not seem interested in hearing such things, so Georgina hurried off lest something might happen to interfere before she was beyond the reach of summoning voices.

On the return from Truro she had asked to be put out at the Fayal cottage, having it in mind to make some such arrangement. Manuel had seen one show, but Joseph and Rosa had never so much as had their heads inside of one. She found Mrs. Fayal glooming over a wash-tub, not because she objected to washing for the summer people. She was used to that, having done it six days out of seven every summer since she had married Joe Fayal. What she was glooming over was that Joe was home from a week's fishing trip with his share of the money for the biggest catch of the season, and not a dime of it had she seen. It had all gone into the pocket of an itinerant vendor, and Joe was lying in a sodden stupor out under the grape arbor at the side of the cottage.

Georgina started to back away when she found the state of affairs. She did not suppose Mrs. Fayal would have a mind for merry-making under the circumstances. But, indeed, Mrs. Fayal did.

"All the more reason that I should go off and forget my troubles and have a good time for a while," she said decidedly. Georgina recognized the spirit if not the words of her own "line to live by." Mrs. Fayal could bear up and steer onward with a joyful heart any time she had the price of admission to a movie in her pocket. So feeling that as a member of the new club she could not have a better opportunity to make good its name, Georgina promised the tickets for the family even if she could not go herself. She would send them by Richard if not allowed to take them in person.

It was still light when Georgina fared forth at the end of the long summer day. Richard joined her at the foot of the Green Stairs with the price of his own ticket in his pocket, and Captain Kidd tagging at his heels.

"They won't let the dog into the show," Georgina reminded him.

"That's so, and he might get into a fight or run over if I left him outside," Richard answered. "B'leeve I'll shut him up in the garage."

This he did, fastening the door securely, and returning in time to see the rest of the party turning the corner, and coming towards the Green Stairs.

Mrs. Fayal, after her long day over the wash-tub, was resplendent in lavender shirt-waist, blue serge skirt and white tennis shoes, with long gold ear-rings dangling half-way to her shoulders. Manuel and Joseph were barefooted as usual, and in over-alls as usual, but their lack of gala attire was made up for by Rosa's. No wax doll was ever more daintily and lacily dressed. Georgina looked at her in surprise, wishing Tippy could see her now. Rosa in her white dress and slippers and with her face clean, was a little beauty.

Mrs. Fayal made a delightful chaperon. She was just as ready as anyone in her train to stop in front of shop windows, to straggle slowly down the middle of the street, or to thrust her hand into Richard's bag of peanuts whenever he passed it around. Cracking shells and munching the nuts, they strolled along with a sense of freedom which thrilled Georgina to the core. She had never felt it before. She had just bought five tickets and Richard his one, and they were about to pass in although Mrs. Fayal said it was early yet, when a deep voice roaring through the crowd attracted their attention. It was as sonorous as a megaphone.

"Walk up, ladies and gentlemen. See the wild-cat, Texas Tim, brought from the banks of the Brazos."

"Let's go," said Richard and Georgina in the same breath. Mrs. Fayal, out for a good time and to see all that was to be seen, bobbed her long earrings in gracious assent, and headed the procession, in order that her ample form might make an entering wedge for the others, as she elbowed her way through the crowd gathered at the street end of Railroad wharf.

It clustered thickest around a wagon in which stood a broad-shouldered man, mounted on a chair. He wore a cow-boy hat. A flaming torch set up beside the wagon lighted a cage in one end of it, in which crouched a wild-cat bewildered by the light and the bedlam of noisy, pushing human beings. The children could not see the animal at first, but pushed nearer the wagon to hear what the man was saying. He held up a bottle and shook it over the heads of the people.

"Here's your marvelous rheumatism remedy," he cried, "made from the fat of wild-cats. Warranted to cure every kind of ache, sprain and misery known to man. Only fifty cents, ladies and gentlemen, sure cure or your money back. Anybody here with an ache or a pain?"

The children pushed closer. Richard, feeling the effect of the gun-powder he had eaten, turned to Georgina.

"I dare you to climb up and touch the end of the wild-cat's tail."

Georgina stood on tiptoe, then dodged under someone's elbow for a nearer view. The end of the tail protruded from between the bars of the cage, in easy reach if one were on the wagon, but those furtive eyes keeping watch above it were savage in their gleaming. Then she, too, remembered the gun-powder.

"I'll do it if you will."

Before Richard could put the gun-powder to the test the man reached down for a guitar leaning against his chair, and with a twanging of chords which made the shifting people on the outskirts stand still to see what would happen next, he began to sing a song that had been popular in his youth. Or, rather, it was a parody of the song. Georgina recognized it as one that she had heard Uncle Darcy sing, and even Tippy hummed it sometimes when she was sewing. It was, "When you and I were young, Maggie."

"They say we are aged and gray, Maggie, As spray by the white breakers flung, But the liniment keeps us as spry, Maggie, As when you and I were young."

Several people laughed and passed on when the song was done, but the greater part of the crowd stayed, hoping to hear another, for the voice was a powerful one and fairly sweet.

"Anybody here with any aches or pains?" he called again. "If so, step this way, please, and let me make a simple demonstration of how quickly this magic oil will cure you."

There was a commotion near the wagon, and a man pushed his way through and climbed up on the wheel. He offered a stiff wrist for treatment. The vendor tipped up the bottle and poured out some pungent volatile oil from the bottle, the odor of which was far-reaching. He rubbed the wrist briskly for a moment, then gave it a slap saying, "Now see what you can do with it, my friend."

The patient scowled at it, twisting his arm in every possible direction as if skeptical of any help from such a source, but gradually letting a look of pleased surprise spread across his face. The crowd watched in amusement, and nearly everybody laughed when the patient finally announced in a loud voice that he was cured, that it was nothing short of a miracle and that he'd buy half a dozen bottles of that witch stuff to take home to his friends.

The vendor began his speech-making again, calling attention to the cure they had just witnessed, and urging others to follow. As the subject of the cure stepped down from the wheel Richard sprang up in his place. Georgina, pressing closer, saw him lean over the side of the wagon and boldly take hold of the end of the beast's tail.

"There. I did it," he announced. "Now it's your turn."

Georgina gave one glance at the wild-cat's eyes and drew back. They seemed to glare directly at her. She wondered how strong the bars were, and if they would hold the beast in case it rose up in a rage and sprang at her. But Richard was waiting, and she clambered up on the hub of the wheel. Luckily its owner was turned towards the other side at that moment or she might have been ordered down.

"There! I did it, too," she announced an instant later. "Now you can't crow over me."

She was about to step down when she saw in the other end of the wagon, something she had not been able to see from her place on the ground under the elbows of the crowd. In a low rocking chair sat an elderly woman, oddly out of place in this traveling medicine show as far as appearance was concerned. She had a calm, motherly face, gray hair combed smoothly down over her ears, a plain old-fashioned gray dress and an air of being perfectly at home. It was the serene, unconscious manner one would have in sitting on the door-step at home. She did not seem to belong in the midst of this seething curious mass, or to realize that she was a part of the show. She smiled now at Georgina in such a friendly way that Georgina smiled back and continued to stand on the wheel. She hoped that this nice old lady would say something about the virtues of the medicine, for it cured two more people, even while she looked, and if she could be sure it did all that was claimed for it she would spend all the rest of her birthday money in buying a bottle for Tippy.

The placid old lady said nothing, but her reassuring presence finally made Georgina decide to buy the bottle, and she emptied the red purse of everything except the tickets. Then the man embarrassed her until her cheeks flamed.

"That's right, little girl. Carry it to the dear sufferer at home who will bless you for your kindness. Anybody else here who will imitate this child's generous act? If you haven't any pain yourself, show your gratitude by thinking of someone less fortunate than you."