But Uncle Darcy had built his hopes on it, had set his heart on finding this was the right clue, and his beaming face said, "I told you so," when she answered:

"It was a little tobacco pouch, and I'm dreadfully put out over losing it, because aside from the valuables and keep-sakes in it there was a letter that's been following me all over the country. It didn't reach me till just before I got to Provincetown. It's from some heathen country with such an outlandish name I couldn't remember it while I was reading it, scarcely, and now I'll never think of it again while the world wags, and there's no way for me to answer it unless I do."

"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Uncle Darcy. "You must think of it. And I must know. How did this come into your hands?"

He held out the little watch-fob charm, the compass set in a nut and she seized it eagerly.

"Well, you did find my pouch, didn't you?" she exclaimed. "I made sure that was what you were aiming to tell me. That's a good-luck charm. It was given to me as much as eight years ago, by a young fellow who was taken sick on our ranch down in Texas. He'd been working around the docks in Galveston, but came on inland because somebody roped him in to believe he could make a fortune in cattle in a few months. He was riding fences for Henry, and he came down with a fever and Henry and me nursed him through."

Always talkative, she poured out her information now in a stream, drawn on by the compelling eagerness of the old man's gaze.

"He was a nice boy and the most grateful soul you ever saw. But he didn't take to the cattle business, and he soon pushed on. He was all broke up when it came to saying good-bye. You could see that, although he's one of your quiet kind, hiding his real feelings like an Indian. He gave me this good-luck charm when he left, because he didn't have anything else to give, to show he appreciated our nursing him and doing for him, and he said that he'd make it bring us good luck or die a-trying and we'd hear from him some of these days."

"And you did?"

The old man's face was twitching with eagerness as he asked the question.

"Yes, about five years ago he sent us a nice little check at Christmas. Said he had a good job with a wealthy Englishman who spent his time going around the world discovering queer plants and writing books about them. He was in South America then. We've heard from him several times since. This last letter followed me around from pillar to post, always just missing me and having to have the address scratched out and written over till you could hardly make head or tail of what was on it.

"He asked me to write to the address he gave me, but whether it was in 'Afric's sunny fountain or India's coral strand,' I can't tell now. It was some heathenish 'land in error's chain,' as the missionary hymn says. I was so worried over losing the letter on account of the address, for he did seem so bent on hearing from us, and he's a nice boy. I'd hate to loose track of him. So I'm mighty thankful you found the pouch."

She stopped, expecting them to hand it over. Mr. Milford made the necessary explanation. He told of Captain Kidd finding it and bringing it home, of the two children burying it in play and the storm sweeping away every trace of the markers. While he told the story several automobiles passed them and the occupants leaned out to look at the strange group beside the road. It was not every day one could see an old lady seated in a rocking chair in one end of an unattached wagon with a wild-cat in the other. These passing tourists would have thought it stranger still, could they have known how fate had been tangling the life threads of these people who were in such earnest conversation, or how it had wound them together into a queer skein of happenings.

"And the only reason this compass was saved," concluded Mr. Milford, "was because it had the initials 'D. D.' scratched on it, which stands for this little boy's name when he plays pirate—Dare-devil Dick."

The motherly eyes smiled on Richard "If you want to know the real name those letters stand for," she said, "it's Dave Daniels. That's the name of the boy who gave it to me."

Richard looked alarmed, and even Mr. Milford turned with a questioning glance towards Uncle Darcy, about to say something, when the old man leaned past him and spoke quickly, almost defiantly, as a child might have done.

"That's all right. I don't care what he told you his name was. He had a good reason for changing it. And I'm going to tell you this much no matter what I promised. I scratched those initials on there my own self, over forty years ago. And the boy who gave it to you is named Daniel, but it's his first name, same as mine. Dan'l Darcy. And the boy's mine, and I've been hunting him for ten long years, and I've faith to believe that the good Lord isn't going to disappoint me now that I'm this near the end of my hunt. He had a good reason for going away from home the way he did. He'd a good reason for changing his name as he did, but the time has come now when it's all right for him to come back and," shaking his finger solemnly and impressively at the woman, "I want you to get that word back to him without fail."

"But this is only circumstantial evidence, Uncle Dan'l," said Mr. Milford, soothingly. "You haven't any real proof that this Dave is your Danny."

"Proof, proof," was the excited answer. "I tell you, man, I've all the proof I need. All I ask for is the address in that letter. I'll find my boy quick enough."

"But I don't know," was all the woman could answer. "The only way in the world to find it is to dig up that pouch."

"But even if you can't remember the new address tell me one of the old ones," he pleaded. "I'll take a chance on writing there and having it forwarded."

But the woman could not recall the name of a single city. South America, Australia, New Zealand, she remembered he had been in those countries, but that was all. Richard, upon being cross-questioned again, "b'leeved" the stamp was from Siam or China but couldn't be certain which.

"Here comes Henry!" exclaimed the woman in a relieved tone. "Maybe he'll remember."

Henry, a tall, raw-boned man with iron-gray hair under his Texas sombrero, in his shirt sleeves and with his after-dinner pipe still in his mouth, came leisurely out of the woods, leading the horses. They were already harnessed, ready to be hitched to the wagon. He backed them up to the tongue and snapped the chains in place before he paused to give the strangers more than a passing nod of greeting. Then he came around to the side of the wagon nearest the machine, and putting one foot up on a spoke of his front wheel, leaned over in a listening attitude, while the whole story was repeated for his benefit.

"So you're his father," he said musingly, looking at Uncle Darcy with shrewd eyes that were used to appraising strangers.

"Who ever would a thought of coming across Dave Daniels' tracks up here on old Cape Cod? You look like him though. I bet at his age you were as much alike as two peas in a pod. I never did know where he hailed from. He was a close-mouthed chap. But I somehow got the idea he must have been brought up near salt water. He talked so much sailor lingo."

"Put on your thinking-cap, Henry," demanded his wife. "The gentlemen wants to know where that last letter was written from, what the postmark was, or the address inside, or what country the stamp belonged to. And if you don't know that, what are some of the other places he wrote to us from?"

"You're barking up the wrong tree when you ask me any such questions," was the only answer he could give. "I didn't pay any attention to anything but the reading matter."

Questions, surmises, suggestions, everything that could be brought up as aids to memory were of no avail. Henry's memory was a blank in that one important particular. Finally, Mr. Milford took two five-dollar gold pieces out of his pocket and a handful of small change which he dropped into the woman's lap despite her protests.

"We'll square up the damage the children did as far as possible," he said with a laugh. "But we can't get the letter back until the wind is ready to turn the dunes topsy-turvy again. That may be in years and it may be never. Let me have your address and if ever it is found it shall be sent directly back to you, and the children can inherit the money if I'm not here to claim it."

The man made a wry face at mention of his address. "We sort of belong to what they call the floating population now. Home with us means any old place where Mother happens to set her rocking chair. We've turned the ranch over to my daughter and her husband while we see something of the world, and as long as things go as smoothly as they do, we're in no great shakes of a hurry to get back."

"But the ranch address will always find us, Henry," she insisted. "Write it down for the gentlemen. Ain't this been a strange happening?" she commented, as she received Mr. Milford's card in return with the Towncrier's name penciled on the back. She looked searchingly at Richard.

"I remember you, now," she said. "There was such a pretty little girl with you—climbed up on the wagon to touch Tim's tail through the bars. She had long curls and a smile that made me want to hug her. She bought a bottle of liniment, I remember, and I've thought of her a dozen times since then, thought how a little face like that brightens up all the world around it."

"That was Georgina Huntingdon," volunteered Richard.

"Well, now, that's a pretty name. Write it down on the other side of this piece of paper, sonny, and yours, too. Then when I go about the country I'll know what to call you when I think about you. This is just like a story. If there was somebody who knew how to write it up 'twould make a good piece for the papers, wouldn't it?"

They were ready to start back now, since there was no more information to be had, but on one pretext or another Uncle Darcy delayed. He was so pitifully eager for more news of Danny. The smallest crumb about the way he looked, what he did and said was seized upon hungrily, although it was news eight years old. And he begged to hear once more just what it was Danny had said about the Englishman, and the work they were doing together. He could have sat there the rest of the day listening to her repeat the same things over and over if he had had his wish. Then she asked a question.

"Who is Belle? I mind when he was out of his head so long with the fever he kept saying, 'Belle mustn't suffer. No matter what happens Belle must be spared.' I remembered because that's my name, and hearing it called out in the dead of night the way a man crazy with fever would call it, naturally makes you recollect it."

"That was just a friend of his," answered Uncle Darcy, "the girl who was going to marry his chum."

"Oh," was the answer in a tone which seemed to convey a shade of disappontment. "I thought maybe—"

She did not finish the sentence, for the engine had begun to shake noisily, and it seemed to distract her thoughts. And now there being really nothing more to give them an excuse for lingering they said goodbye to their wayside acquaintances, feeling that they were parting from two old friends, so cordial were the good wishes which accompanied the leave-taking.



Chapter XXII

The Rainbow Game



With her arm stiff and cramped from being held so long in one position, Georgina waked suddenly and looked around her in bewilderment. Uncle Darcy was in the room, saying something about her riding home in the machine. He didn't want to hurry her off, but Mr. Milford was waiting at the gate, and it would save her a long walk home——.

While he talked he was leaning over Aunt Elspeth, patting her cheek, and she was clinging to his hand and smiling up at him as if he had just been restored to her after a long, long absence, instead of a separation of only a few hours. And he looked so glad about something, as if the nicest thing in the world had happened, that Georgina rubbed her eyes and stared at him, wondering what it could have been.

Evidently, it was the honk of the horn which had aroused Georgina, and when it sounded again she sprang up, still confused by the suddenness of her awakening, with only one thing clear in her mind, the necessity for haste. She snatched her prism from the window and caught up her hat as she ran through the next room, but not until she was half-way home did she remember that she had said nothing about the eggs and had asked no questions about the trip to Brewster. She had not even said good-bye.

Mr. Milford nodded pleasantly when she went out to the car, saying, "Hop in, kiddie," but he did not turn around after they started and she did not feel well enough acquainted with him to shout out questions behind his back. Besides, after they had gone a couple of blocks he began explaining something to Richard, who was sitting up in front of him, about the workings of the car, and kept on explaining all the rest of the way home. She couldn't interrupt.

Not until she climbed out in front of her own gate with a shy "Thank you, Mr. Milford, for bringing me home," did she find courage and opportunity to ask the question she longed to know.

"Did you find the woman? Was it her pouch?"

Mr. Milford was leaning forward in his seat to examine something that had to do with the shifting of the gears, and he answered while he investigated, without looking up.

"Yes, but she couldn't remember where the letter was from, so we're not much wiser than we were before, except that we know for a certainty that Dan was alive and well less than two months ago. At least Uncle Dan'l believes it is Dan. The woman calls him Dave, but Uncle Dan'l vows they're one and the same."

Having adjusted the difficulty, Mr. Milford, with a good-bye nod to Georgina, started on down the street again. Georgina stood looking after the rapidly disappearing car.

"Well, no wonder Uncle Darcy looked so happy," she thought, recalling his radiant face. "It was knowing that Danny is alive and well that made it shine so. I wish I'd been along. Wish I could have heard every thing each one of them said. I could have remembered every single word to tell Richard, but he won't remember even half to tell me."

It was in the pursuit of all the information which could be pumped out of Richard that Georgina sought the Green Stairs soon after breakfast next morning. Incidentally, she was on her way to a nearby grocery and had been told to hurry. She ran all the way down in order to gain a few extra moments in which to loiter. As usual at this time of morning, Richard was romping over the terraces with Captain Kidd.

"Hi, Georgina," he called, as he spied her coming. "I've got a new game. A new way to play tag. Look."

Plunging down the steps he held out for her inspection a crystal paperweight which he had picked up from the library table. Its round surface had been cut into many facets, as a diamond is cut to make it flash the light, and the spots of color it threw as he turned it in the sun were rainbow-hued.

"See," he explained. "Instead of tagging Captain Kidd with my hand I touch him with a rainbow, and it's lots harder to do because you can't always make it light where you want it to go, or where you think it is going to fall. I've only tagged him twice so far in all the time I've been trying, because he bobs around so fast. Come on, I'll get you before you tag me," he added, seeing that her prism hung from the ribbon on her neck.

She did not wear it every day, but she had felt an especial need for its comforting this morning, and had put it on as she slowly dressed. The difficulty of restoring the eggs loomed up in front of her as a real trouble, and she needed this to remind her to keep on hoping that some way would soon turn up to end it.

It was a fascinating game. Such tags are elusive, uncertain things. The pursuer can never be certain of touching the pursued. Georgina entered into it, alert and glowing, darting this way and that to escape being touched by the spots of vivid color. Her prism threw it in bars, Richard's in tiny squares and triangles.

"Let's make them fight!" Richard exclaimed in the midst of it, and for a few moments the color spots flashed across each other like flocks of darting birds. Suddenly Georgina stopped, saying:

"Oh, I forgot. I'm on my way to the grocery, and I must hurry back. But I wanted to ask you two things. One was, tell me all about what the woman said yesterday, and the other was, think of some way for me to earn twenty cents. There isn't time to hear about the first one now, but think right quick and answer the second question."

She started down the street, skipping backwards slowly, and Richard walked after her.

"Aw, I don't know," he answered in a vague way. "At home when we wanted to make money we always gave a show and charged a penny to get in, or we kept a lemonade stand; but we don't know enough kids here to make that pay."

Then he looked out over the water and made a suggestion at random. A boy going along the beach towards one of the summer cottages with a pail in his hand, made him think of it.

"Pick blueberries and sell them."

"I thought of that," answered Georgina, still progressing towards the grocery backward. "And it would be a good time now to slip away while Tippy's busy with the Bazaar. This is the third day. But they've done so well they're going to keep on with it another day, and they've thought up a lot of new things to-morrow to draw a crowd. One of them is a kind of talking tableau. I'm to be in it, so it wouldn't do for me to go and get my hands all stained with berries when I'm to be dressed up as a part of the show for the whole town to come and take a look at me."

Richard had no more suggestions to offer, so with one more flash of the prism and a cry of "last tag," Georgina turned and started on a run to the grocery. Richard and the paperweight followed in hot pursuit.

Up at one of the front windows of the bungalow, two interested spectators had been watching the game below. One was Richard's father, the other was a new guest of Mr. Milford's who had arrived only the night before. He was the Mr. Locke who was to take Richard and his father and Cousin James away on his yacht next morning. He was also a famous illustrator of juvenile books, and he sometimes wrote the rhymes and fairy tales himself which he illustrated. Everybody in this town of artists who knew anything at all of the world of books and pictures outside, knew of Milford Norris Locke. Now as he watched the graceful passes of the two children darting back and forth on the board-walk below, he asked:

"Who's the little girl, Moreland? She's the child of my dreams—the very one I've been hunting for weeks. She has not only the sparkle and spirit that I want to put into those pictures I was telling you about, but the grace and the curls and the mischievous eyes as well. Reckon I could get her to pose for me?"

That is how it came about that Georgina found Richard's father waiting for her at the foot of the Green Stairs when she came running back from the grocery. When she went home a few minutes later, she carried with her something more than the cake of sweet chocolate that Tippy had sent her for in such a hurry. It was the flattering knowledge that a famous illustrator had asked to make a sketch of her which would be published in a book if it turned out to be a good one.

With a sailing party and a studio reception and several other engagements to fill up his one day in Provincetown, Mr. Locke could give only a part of the morning to the sketches, and wanted to begin as soon as possible. So a few minutes after Georgina went dancing in with the news, he followed in Mr. Milford's machine. He arrived so soon after, in fact, that Tippy had to receive him just as she was in her gingham house dress and apron.

After looking all over the place he took Georgina down to the garden and posed her on a stone bench near the sun-dial, at the end of a tall, bright aisle of hollyhocks. There was no time to waste.

"We'll pretend you're sitting on the stone rim of a great fountain in the King's garden," he said. "You're trying to find some trace of the beautiful Princess who has been bewitched and carried away to a castle under the sea, that had 'a ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl.'"

Georgina looked up, delighted that he had used a line from a poem she loved. It made her feel as if he were an old friend.

"This is for a fairy tale that has just begun to hatch itself out in my mind, so you see it isn't all quite clear yet. There'll be lily pads in the fountain. Maybe you can hear what they are saying, or maybe the gold- fish will bring you a message, because you are a little mortal who has such a kind heart that you have been given the power to understand the speech of everything which creeps or swims or flies."

Georgina leaned over and looked into the imaginary fountain dubiously, forgetting in her interest of the moment that her companion was the great Milford Norris Locke. She was entering with him into the spirit of his game of "pretend" as if he were Richard.

"No, I'll tell you," she suggested. "Have it a frog instead of a fish that brings the message. He can jump right out of that lily pad on to the edge of the fountain where I am sitting, and then when you look at the picture you can see us talking together. No one could tell what I was doing if they saw me just looking down into the fountain, but they could tell right away if the frog was here and I was shaking my finger at him as if I were saying:

"'Now tell me the truth, Mr. Frog, or the Ogre of the Oozy Marsh shall eat you ere the day be done.'"

"Don't move. Don't move!" called Mr. Locke, excitedly. "Ah, that's perfect. That's exactly what I want. Hold that pose for a moment or two. Why, Georgina, you've given me exactly what I wanted and a splendid idea besides. It will give the fairy tale an entirely new turn. If you can only hold that position a bit longer, then you may rest."

His pencil flew with magical rapidity and as he sketched he kept on talking in order to hold the look of intense interest which showed in her glowing face.

"I dearly love stories like that," sighed Georgina when he came to the end and told her to lean back and rest a while.

"Barby—I mean my mother—and I act them all the time, and sometimes we make them up ourselves."

"Maybe you'll write them when you grow up," suggested Mr. Locke not losing a moment, but sketching her in the position she had taken of her own accord.

"Maybe I shall," exclaimed Georgina, thrilled by the thought. "My grandfather Shirley said I could write for his paper some day. You know he's an editor, down in Kentucky. I'd like to be the editor of a magazine that children would adore the way I do the St. Nicholas."

Tippy would have said that Georgina was "run-ning on." But Mr. Locke did not think so. Children always opened their hearts to him. He held the magic key. Georgina found it easier to tell him her inmost feelings than anybody else in the world but Barby.

"That's a beautiful game you and Dicky were playing this morning," he remarked presently, "tagging each other with rainbows. I believe I'll put it into this fairy tale, have the water-nixies do it as they slide over the water-fall."

"But it isn't half as nice as the game we play in earnest," she assured him. "In our Rainbow Club we have a sort of game of tag. We tag a person with a good time, or some kindness to make them happy, and we pretend that makes a little rainbow in the world. Do you think it does?"

"It makes a very real one, I am sure," was the serious answer. "Have you many members?"

"Just Richard and me and the bank president, Mr. Gates, so far, but—but you can belong—if you'd like to."

She hesitated a trifle over the last part of her invitation, having just remembered what a famous man she was talking to. He might think she was taking a liberty even to suggest that he might care to belong.

"I'd like it very much," he assured her gravely, "if you think I can live up to the requirements."

"Oh, you already have," she cried. "Think of all the happy hours you have made for people with your books and pictures—just swarms and bevies and flocks of rainbows! We would have put you on the list of honorary members anyhow. Those are the members who don't know they are members," she explained. "They're just like the prisms themselves. Prisms don't know they are prisms but everybody who looks at them sees the beautiful places they make in the world."

"Georgina," he said solemnly, "that is the very loveliest thing that was ever said to me in all my life. Make me club member number four and I'll play the game to my very best ability. I'll try to do some tagging really worth while."

He had been sketching constantly all the time he talked, and now, impelled by curiosity, Georgina got up from the stone bench and walked over to take a look at his work. He had laid aside the several outline studies he had made of her, and was now exercising his imagination in sketching a ship.

"This is to be the one that brings the Princess home, and in a minute I want you to pose for the Princess, for she is to have curls, long, golden ones, and she is to hold her head as you did a few moments ago when you were talking about looking off to sea."

Georgina brought her hands together in a quick gesture as she said imploringly, "Oh, do put Hope at the prow. Every time I pass the Figurehead House and see Hope sitting up on the portico roof I wish I could see how she looked when she was riding the waves on the prow of a gallant vessel. That's where she ought to be, I heard a man say. He said Hope squatting on a portico roof may look ridiculous, but Hope breasting the billows is superb."



Mr. Locke was no stranger in the town. He knew the story of the figurehead as the townspeople knew it, now he heard its message as Uncle Darcy knew it. He listened as intently to Georgina as she had listened to him. At the end he lifted his head, peering fixedly through half-closed eyes at nothing.

"You have made me see the most beautiful ship," he said, musingly. "It is a silver shallop coming across a sea of Dreams, its silken sails set wide, and at the prow is an angel. 'White-handed Hope, thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,'" he quoted. "Yes, I'll make it with golden wings sweeping back over the sides this way. See?"

His pencil flew over the paper again, showing her in a few swift strokes an outline of the vision she had given him. And now Tippy would have said not only that Georgina was "running on," but that she was "wound up," for with such a sympathetic and appreciative listener, she told him the many things she would have taken to Barby had she been at home. Especially, she talked about her difficulties in living up to the aim of the club. In stories there are always poor people whom one can benefit; patient sufferers at hospitals, pallid children of the slums. But in the range of Georgina's life there seemed to be so few opportunities and those few did not always turn out the way they should.

For instance, there was the time she tried to cheer Tippy up with her "line to live by," and her efforts were neither appreciated nor understood. And there was the time only yesterday when she stayed with Aunt Elspeth, and got into trouble with the eggs, and now had a debt on her conscience equal to eight eggs or twenty cents.

It showed how well Mr. Locke understood children when he did not laugh over the recital of that last calamity, although it sounded unspeakably funny to him as Georgina told it. In such congenial company the time flew so fast that Georgina was amazed when Mr. Milford drove up to take his distinguished guest away. Mr. Locke took with him what he had hoped to get, a number of sketches to fill in at his leisure.

"They're exactly what I wanted," he assured her gratefully as he shook hands at parting. "And that suggestion of yours for the ship will make the most fetching illustration of all. I'll send you a copy in oils when I get time for it, and I'll always think of you, my little friend, as Georgina of the Rainbows."

With a courtly bow he was gone, and Georgina went into the house to look for the little blank book in which she had started to keep her two lists of Club members, honorary and real. The name of Milford Norris Locke she wrote in both lists. If there had been a third list, she would have written him down in that as the very nicest gentleman she had ever met. Then she began a letter to Barby, telling all about her wonderful morning. But it seemed to her she had barely begun, when Mr. Milford's chauffeur came driving back with something for her in a paper bag. When she peeped inside she was so astonished she nearly dropped it.

"Eggs!" she exclaimed. Then in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Saggs, she added, "Can you beat that!"

One by one she took them out and counted them. There were exactly eight. Then she read the card which had dropped down to the bottom of the bag.

"Mr. Milford Norris Locke."

Above the name was a tiny rainbow done in water colors, and below was scribbled the words, "Last tag."

It was a pity that the new member could not have seen her face at that instant, its expression was so eloquent of surprise, of pleasure and of relief that her trouble had thus been wiped out of existence.



Chapter XXIII

Light Dawns for Uncle Darcy



For some time the faint jangle of a bell had been sounding at intervals far down the street. Ordinarily it would have caught Georgina's attention long before this, but absorbed in the letter to which she had returned after putting the eggs down cellar, she did not hear the ringing until it was near enough for the Towncrier's message to be audible also. He was announcing the extra day of the Bazaar, and calling attention to the many new attractions it would have to offer on the morrow.

Instantly, Georgina dropped her pencil and flew out to meet him. Here was an opportunity to find out all about the Brewster trip. As he came towards her she saw the same look in his weather-beaten old face which she had wondered at the day before, when he was bending over Aunt Elspeth, patting her on the cheek. It was like the shining of a newly- lighted candle.

She was not the only one who had noticed it. All the way up the street glances had followed him. People turned for a second look, wondering what good fortune had befallen the old fellow. They had come to expect a cheery greeting from him. He always left a kindly glow behind him whenever he passed. But to-day the cheeriness was so intensified that he seemed to be brimming over with good will to everybody.

"Why, Uncle Darcy!" cried Georgina. "You look so happy!"

"Well, is it any wonder, lass, with such news from Danny? Him alive and well and sure to come back to me some of these days! I could hardly keep from shouting it out to everybody as I came along the street. I'm afraid it'll just naturally tell itself some day, in spite of my promise to Belle. I'm glad I can let off steam up here, you knowing the secret, too, for this old heart of mine is just about to burst with all the gladness that's inside of me."

Here was someone as anxious to tell as she was to hear; someone who could recall every word of the interview with the wild-cat woman. Georgina swung on to his arm which held the bell, and began to ask questions, and nothing loath, he let her lead him into the yard and to the rustic seat running around the trunk of the big willow tree. He was ready to rest, now that his route was traveled and his dollar earned.

Belle, back in the kitchen, preparing a light dinner for herself and Georgina, Tippy being away for the day, did not see him come in. She had not seen him since the day the old rifle gave up its secret, and she tried to put him out of her mind as much as possible, for she was miserable every time she thought of him. She would have been still more miserable could she have heard all that he was saying to Georgina.

"Jimmy Milford thought that the liniment folks calling the boy 'Dave,' proved that he wasn't the same as my Danny. But just one thing would have settled all doubts for me if I'd a had any. That was what he kept a calling in his fever when he was out of his head: 'Belle mustn't suffer. Belle must be spared, no matter what happens!'

"And that's the one thing that reconciles me to keeping still a while longer. It was his wish to spare her, and if he could sacrifice so much to do it, I can't make his sacrifice seem in vain. I lay awake last night till nearly daylight, thinking how I'd like to take this old bell of mine, and go from one end of the town to the other, ringing it till it cracked, crying out, 'Danny is innocent,' to the whole world. But the time hasn't come yet. I'll have to be patient a while longer and bear up the best I can."

Georgina, gazing fixedly ahead of her at nothing in particular, pondered seriously for a long, silent moment.

"If you did that," she said finally, "cried the good news through the town till everybody knew—then when people found out that it was Emmett Potter who was the thief and that he was too much of a coward to own up and take the blame—would they let the monument go on standing there, that they'd put up to show he was brave? It would serve him right if they took it down, wouldn't it!" she exclaimed with a savage little scowl drawing her brows together.

"No, no, child!" he said gently. "Give the lad his due. He was brave that one time. He saved all those lives as it is chiseled on his headstone. It is better he should be remembered for the best act in his life than for the worst one. A man's measure should be taken when he's stretched up to his full height, just as far as he can lift up his head; not when he's stooped to the lowest. It's only fair to judge either the living or the dead that way."

For some time after that nothing more was said. The harbor was full of boats this morning. It was a sight worth watching. One naturally drifted into day-dreams, following the sweep of the sails moving silently toward the far horizon. Georgina was busy picturing a home-coming scene that made the prodigal son's welcome seem mild in comparison, when Uncle Darcy startled her by exclaiming:

"Oh, it pays to bear up and steer right onward! S'pose I hadn't done that. S'pose I hadn't kept Hope at the prow. I believe I'd have been in my grave by this time with all the grief and worry. But now——"

He stopped and shook his head, unable to find words to express the emotion which was making his voice tremble and his face glow with that wonderful inner shining. Georgina finished the sentence for him, looking out on the sail-filled harbor and thinking of the day he had taken her out in his boat to tell her of his son.

"But now you'll be all ready and waiting when your ship comes home from sea with its precious cargo." They were his own words she was repeating.

"Danny'll weather the storms at last and come into port with all flags flying."

The picture her words suggested was too much for the old father. He put his hat up in front of his face, and his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Georgina laid a sympathetic little hand on the rough sleeve next her. Suddenly the sails in the harbor seemed to run together all blurry and queer. She drew her hand across her eyes and looked again at the heaving shoulders. A happiness so deep that it found its expression that way, filled her with awe. It must be the kind of happiness that people felt when they reached "the shining shore, the other side, of Jordan," and their loved ones came down to welcome them "into their desired haven."

That last phrase came to her lips like a bit of remembered music and unconsciously she repeated it aloud. Uncle Darcy heard it, and looked up. His cheeks were wet when he put down his hat, but it was the happiest face she had ever seen, and there was no shake in his voice now when he said solemnly:

"And nobody but the good Lord who's helped his poor sailors through shipwreck and storm, knows how mightily they've desired that haven, or what it means to them to be brought into it."

A delivery wagon from one of the fruit stores stopped in front of the gate, and the driver came in, carrying a basket. Uncle Darcy spoke to him as he passed the willow tree.

"Well, Joe, this looks like a chance for me to get a lift most of the way home."

"Sure," was the cordial reply. "Climb in. I'll be right back."

Georgina thought of something as he rose to go.

"Oh, wait just a minute, Uncle Darcy, I want to get something of yours that's down cellar."

When she came back there was no time or opportunity for an explanation. He and the driver were both in the wagon. She reached up and put the bag on the seat beside him.

"I—I did something to some of your eggs, yesterday," she stammered, "and these are to take the place of the ones I broke."

Uncle Darcy peered into the bag with a puzzled expression. He had not missed any eggs from the crock of bran. He didn't know what she was talking about. But before he could ask any questions the driver slapped the horse with the reins, and they were rattling off down street. Georgina stood looking after them a moment, then turned her head to listen. Somebody was calling her. It was Belle, who had come to the front door to say that dinner was ready.

Whenever Mrs. Triplett was at home, Belle made extra efforts to talk and appear interested in what was going on around her. She was afraid her keen-eyed Aunt Maria would see that she was unhappy. But alone with Georgina who shared her secret, she relapsed into a silence so deep it could be felt, responding only with a wan smile when the child's lively chatter seemed to force an answer of some kind. But to-day when Georgina came to the table she was strangely silent herself, so mute that Belle noticed it, and found that she was being furtively watched by the big brown eyes opposite her. Every time Belle looked up she caught Georgina's gaze fastened on her, and each time it was immediately transferred to her plate.

"What's the matter, Georgina?" she asked finally. "Why do you keep staring at me?"

Georgina flushed guiltily. "Nothing," was the embarrassed answer. "I was just wondering whether to tell you or not. I thought maybe you'd like to know, and maybe you ought to know, but I wasn't sure whether you'd want me to talk to you about it or not."

Belle put down her tea-cup. It was her turn to stare.

"For goodness' sake! What are you beating around the bush about?"

"About the news from Danny," answered Georgina. "About the letter he wrote to the wild-cat woman and that got buried in the dunes too deep ever to be dug up again."

As this was the first Belle had heard of either the letter or the woman, her expression of astonishment was all that Georgina could desire. Her news had made a sensation. Belle showed plainly that she was startled, and as eager to hear as Georgina was to tell. So she began at the beginning, from the time of the opening of the pouch on the Green Stairs, to the last word of the wild-cat woman's conversation which Uncle Darcy had repeated to her only a few moments before under the willow.

Instinctively, she gave the recital a dramatic touch which made Belle feel almost like an eye witness as she listened. And it was with Uncle Darcy's own gestures and manner that she repeated his final statement.

"Jimmy Milford thought the liniment folks calling the boy Dave proved he wasn't the same as my Danny. But just one thing would have settled all doubts for me if I'd had any. That was what he kept a calling in his fever when he was out of his head: 'Belle mustn't suffer. Belle must be spared no matter what happens.'"

At the bringing of her own name into the story Belle gave a perceptible start and a tinge of red crept into her pale cheeks.

"Did he say that, Georgina?" she demanded, leaning forward and looking at her intently. "Are you sure those are his exact words?"

"His very-own-exactly-the-same words," declared Georgina solemnly. "I cross my heart and body they're just as Uncle Darcy told them to me."

Rising from the table, Belle walked over to the window and stood with her back to Georgina, looking out into the garden.

"Well, and what next?" she demanded in a queer, breathless sort of way.

"And then Uncle Darcy said that his saying that was the one thing that made him feel willing to keep still a while longer about—you know—what was in the rifle. 'Cause if Danny cared enough about sparing you to give up home and his good name and everything else in life he couldn't spoil it all by telling now. But Uncle Darcy said he lay awake nearly all last night thinking how he'd love to take that old bell of his and go ringing it through the town till it cracked, calling out to the world, 'My boy is innocent.'

"And when I said something about it's all coming out all right some day, and that Danny would weather the storms and come into port with all flags flying——" Here Georgina lowered her voice and went on slowly as if she hesitated to speak of what happened next—"he just put his old hat over his face and cried. And I felt so sorry——"

Georgina's voice choked. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke of the scene.

"Don't!" groaned Belle, her back still turned.

The note of distress in Belle's voice stilled Georgina's lively tongue a few seconds, but there was one more thing in her mind to be said, and with the persistence of a mosquito she returned to the subject to give that final stab, quite unconscious of how deeply it would sting. She was only wondering aloud, something which she had often wondered to herself.

"I should think that when anybody had suffered as long as Danny has to spare you, it would make you want to spare him. Doesn't it? I should think that you'd want to do something to sort of make up to him for it all. Don't you?"

"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Belle again, sharply this time. Then to Georgina's utter amazement she buried her face in her apron, stood sobbing by the window a moment, and ran out of the room. She did not come downstairs again until nearly supper time.

Georgina sat at the table, not knowing what to do next. She felt that she had muddled things dreadfully. Instead of making Belle feel better as she hoped to do, she realized she had hurt her in some unintentional way. Presently, she slowly drew herself up from her chair and began to clear the table, piling the few dishes they had used, under the dish-pan in the sink. The house stood open to the summer breeze. It seemed so desolate and deserted with Belle upstairs, drawn in alone with her troubles and Tippy away, that she couldn't bear to stay in the silent rooms. She wandered out into the yard and climbed up into the willow to look across the water.

Somewhere out there on those shining waves, Richard was sailing along, in the party given for Mr. Locke, and to-morrow he would be going away on the yacht. If he were at home she wouldn't be up in the willow wondering what to do next. Well, as long as she couldn't have a good time herself she'd think of someone else she could make happy. For several minutes she sent her thoughts wandering over the list of all the people she knew, but it seemed as if her friends were capable of making their own good times, all except poor Belle. Probably she never would be happy again, no matter what anybody did to try to brighten her life. It was so discouraging when one was trying to play the game of "Rainbow Tag," for there to be no one to tag. She wished she knew some needy person, some unfortunate soul who would be glad of her efforts to make them happy.

Once she thought of slipping off down street to the library. Miss Tupman always let her go in where the shelves were and choose her own book. Miss Tupman was always so interesting, too, more than any of the books when she had time to talk. But that grim old word Duty rose up in front of her, telling her that she ought not to run away and leave the house all open with Belle locked in her room upstairs. Somebody ought to be within hearing if the telephone rang or anyone came. She went into the house for a book which she had read many times but which never failed to interest her, and curled up in a big rocking chair on the front porch.

Late in the afternoon she smelled burning pine chips and smoke from the kitchen chimney which told that a fire was being started in the stove. After a while she went around the house to the kitchen door and peeped in, apprehensively. Belle was piling the dinner dishes into the pan, preparatory to washing them while supper was cooking. Her eyes were red and she did not look up when Georgina came in, but there was an air of silent determination about her as forcible as her Aunt Maria's. Picking up the tea-kettle, she filled the dishpan and carried the kettle back to the stove, setting it down hard before she spoke. Then she said:

"Nobody'll ever know what I've been through with, fighting this thing out with myself. I can't go all the way yet. I can't say the word that'll let the blow fall on poor old Father Potter. But I don't seem to care about my part of it any more. I see things differently from what I did that first day—you know. Even Emmett don't seem the same any more."

For several minutes there was a rattling of dishes, but no further speech from Belle. Georgina, not knowing what to say or do, stood poised uncertainly on the door-sill. Then Belle spoke again.

"I'm willing it should be told if only it could be kept from getting back to Father Potter, for the way Dan's done does make me want to set him square with the world. I would like to make up to him in some way for all he's suffered on my account. I can't get over it that it was him that had all the bravery and the nobleness that I was fairly worshiping in Emmett all these years. Seems like the whole world has turned upside down."

Georgina waited a long time, but Belle seemed to have said all that she intended to say, so presently she walked over and stood beside the sink.

"Belle," she said slowly, "does what you said mean that you're really willing I should tell Barby? Right away?"

Belle waited an instant before replying, then taking a deep breath as if about to make a desperate plunge into a chasm on whose brink she had long been poised, said:

"Yes. Uncle Dan'l would rather have her know than anybody else. He sets such store by her good opinion. But oh, do make it plain it mustn't be talked about outside, so's it'll get back to Father Potter."

The next instant Georgina's arms were around her in a silent but joyful squeeze, and she ran upstairs to write to Barby before the sun should go down or Tippy get back from the Bazaar.



Chapter XXIV

A Contrast in Fathers



Georgina was having a beautiful day. It was the first time she had ever taken part in a Bazaar, and so important was the role assigned her that she was in a booth all by herself. Moreover, the little mahogany chair in which she sat was on a high platform inside the booth, so that all might behold her. Dressed in a quaint old costume borrowed from the chests in the Figurehead House, she represented "A Little Girl of Long Ago."

On a table beside her stood other borrowed treasures from the Figurehead House—a doll bedstead made by an old sea captain on one of his voyages. Each of its high posts was tipped with a white point, carved from the bone of a whale. Wonderful little patchwork quilts, a feather bed and tiny pillows made especially for the bed, were objects of interest to everyone who crowded around the booth. So were the toys and dishes brought home from other long cruises by the same old sea captain, who evidently was an indulgent father and thought often of the little daughter left behind in the home port. A row of dolls dressed in fashions half a century old were also on exhibition.

With unfailing politeness Georgina explained to the curious summer people who thronged around her, that they all belonged in the house where the figurehead of Hope sat on the portico roof, and were not for sale at any price.

Until to-day Georgina had been unconscious that she possessed any unusual personal charms, except her curls. Her attention had been called to them from the time she was old enough to understand remarks people made about them as she passed along the street. Their beauty would have been a great pleasure to her if Tippy had not impressed upon her the fact that looking in the mirror makes one vain, and it's wicked to be vain. One way in which Tippy guarded her against the sin of vanity was to mention some of her bad points, such as her mouth being a trifle too large, or her nose not quite so shapely as her mother's, each time anyone unwisely called attention to her "glorious hair."

Another way was to repeat a poem from a book called "Songs for the Little Ones at Home," the same book which had furnished the "Landing of the Pilgrims" and "Try, Try Again." It began:

"What! Looking in the glass again? Why's my silly child so vain?"_

The disgust, the surprise, the scorn of Tippy's voice when she repeated that was enough to make one hurry past a mirror in shame-faced embarrassment.

"Beauty soon will fade away. Your rosy cheeks must soon decay. There's nothing lasting you will find, But the treasures of the mind."

Rosy cheeks might not be lasting, but it was certainly pleasant to Georgina to hear them complimented so continually by passers-by. Sometimes the remarks were addressed directly to her.

"My dear," said one enthusiastic admirer, "if I could only buy you and put you in a gold frame, I'd have a prettier picture than any artist in town can paint." Then she turned to a companion to add: "Isn't she a love in that little poke bonnet with the row of rose-buds inside the rim? I never saw such exquisite coloring or such gorgeous eyes."

Georgina blushed and looked confused as she smoothed the long lace mitts over her arms. But by the time the day was over she had heard the sentiment repeated so many times that she began to expect it and to feel vaguely disappointed if it were not forthcoming from each new group which approached her.

Another thing gave her a new sense of pleasure and enriched her day. On the table beside her, under a glass case, to protect it from careless handling, was a little blank book which contained the records of the first sewing circle in Provincetown. The book lay open, displaying a page of the minutes, and a column of names of members, written in an exquisitely fine and beautiful hand. The name of Georgina's great-great grandmother was in that column. It gave her a feeling of being well born and distinguished to be able to point it out.

The little book seemed to reinforce and emphasize the claims of the monument and the silver porringer. She felt it was so nice to be beautiful and to belong; to have belonged from the beginning both to a first family and a first sewing circle.

Still another thing added to her contentment whenever the recollection of it came to her. There was no longer any secret looming up between her and Barby like a dreadful wall. The letter telling all about the wonderful and exciting things which had happened in her absence was already on its way to Kentucky. It was not a letter to be proud of. It was scrawled as fast as she could write it with a pencil, and she knew perfectly well that a dozen or more words were misspelled, but she couldn't take time to correct them, or to think of easy words to put in their places. But Barby wouldn't care. She would be so happy for Uncle Darcy's sake and so interested in knowing that her own little daughter had had an important part in finding the good news that she wouldn't notice the spelling or the scraggly writing.

As the day wore on, Georgina, growing more and more satisfied with herself and her lot, felt that there was no one in the whole world with whom she would change places. Towards the last of the afternoon a group of people came in whom Georgina recognized as a family from the Gray Inn. They had been at the Inn several days, and she had noticed them each time she passed them, because the children seemed on such surprisingly intimate terms with their father. That he was a naval officer she knew from the way he dressed, and that he was on a long furlough she knew from some remark which she overheard.

He had a grave, stern face, and when he came into the room he gave a searching glance from left to right as if to take notice of every object in it. His manner made Georgina think of "Casabianca," another poem of Tippy's teaching:

"He stood As born to rule the storm. A creature of heroic blood, A brave though ....... form."

"Childlike" was the word she left out because it did not fit in this case. "A brave and manlike form" would be better. She repeated the verse to herself with this alteration.

When he spoke to his little daughter or she spoke to him his expression changed so wonderfully that Georgina watched him with deep interest. The oldest boy was with them. He was about fourteen and as tall as his mother. He was walking beside her but every few steps he turned to say something to the others, and they seemed to be enjoying some joke together. Somebody who knew them came up as they reached the booth of "The Little Girl of Long Ago," and introduced them to Georgina, so she found out their names. It was Burrell. He was a Captain, and the children were Peggy and Bailey.

As Georgina looked down at Peggy from the little platform where she sat in the old mahogany chair, she thought with a throb of satisfaction that she was glad she didn't have to change places with that homely little thing. Evidently, Peggy was just up from a severe illness. Her hair had been cut so short one could scarcely tell the color of it. She was so thin and white that her eyes looked too large for her face and her neck too slender for her head, and the freckles which would scarcely have shown had she been her usual rosy self, stood out like big brown spotches on her pallid little face. She limped a trifle too, as she walked.

With a satisfied consciousness of her own rose leaf complexion, Georgina was almost patronizing as she bent over the table to say graciously once more after countless number of times, "no, that is not for sale."

The next instant Peggy was swinging on her father's arm exclaiming, "Oh, Dad-o'-my-heart! See that cunning doll bathing suit. Please get it for me." Almost in the same breath Bailey, jogging the Captain's elbow on the other side, exclaimed, "Look, Partner, that's a relic worth having."

Georgina listened, fascinated. To think of calling one's father "Dad-o'- my-heart" or "Partner!" And they looked up at him as if they adored him, even that big boy, nearly grown. And a sort of laugh come into the Captain's eyes each time they spoke to him, as if he thought everything they said and did was perfect.

A wave of loneliness swept over Georgina as she listened. There was an empty spot in her heart that ached with longing—not for Barby, but for the father whom she had never known in this sweet intimate way. She knew now how if felt to be an orphan. What satisfaction was there in having beautiful curls if no big, kind hand ever passed over them in a fatherly caress such as was passing over Peggy Burrell's closely-clipped head? What pleasure was there in having people praise you if they said behind your back:

"Oh, that's Justin Huntingdon's daughter. Don't you think a man would want to come home once or twice in a lifetime to such a lovely child as that?"

Georgina had heard that very remark earlier in the day, also the answer given with a significant shrug of the shoulders:

"Oh, he has other fish to fry."

The remarks had not annoyed her especially at the time, but they rankled now as she recalled them. They hurt until they took all the pleasure and satisfaction out of her beautiful day, just as the sun, going under a cloud, leaves the world bereft of all its shine and sparkle. She looked around, wishing it were time to go home.

Presently, Captain Burrell, having made the rounds of the room, came back to Georgina. He smiled at her so warmly that she wondered that she could have thought his face was stern.

"They tell me that you are Doctor Huntingdon's little girl," he said with a smile that went straight to her heart. "So I've come back to ask you all about him. Where is he now and how is he? You see I have an especial interest in your distinguished father. He pulled me through a fever in the Philippines that all but ended me. I have reason to remember him for his many, many kindnesses to me at that time."

The flush that rose to Georgina's face might naturally have been taken for one of pride or pleasure, but it was only miserable embarrassment at not being able to answer the Captain's questions. She could not bear to confess that she knew nothing of her father's whereabouts except the vague fact that he was somewhere in the interior of China, and that there had been no letter from him for months and that she had not seen him for nearly four years.

"He—he was well the last time we heard from him," she managed to stammer. "But I haven't heard anything lately. You know my mother isn't home now. She went to Kentucky because my grandfather Shirley was hurt in an accident."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," was the answer in a cordial, sympathetic voice. "I hoped to have the pleasure of meeting her and I wanted Mrs. Burrell to know her, too. But I hope you'll come over to the Inn and play with Peggy sometimes. We'll be here another week."

Georgina thanked him in her prettiest manner, but she was relieved when he passed on, and she was freed from the fear of any more embarrassing questions about her father. Yet her hand still tingled with the friendliness of his good-bye clasp, and she wished that she could know him better. As she watched him pass out of the door with Peggy holding his hand and swinging it as they walked, she thought hungrily:

"How good it must seem to have a father like that."

Mrs. Triplett came up to her soon after. It was time to close the Bazaar. The last probable customer had gone, and the ladies in charge of the booths were beginning to dismantle them. Someone's chauffeur was waiting to take Georgina's costume back to the Figurehead House.

She followed Mrs. Triplett obediently into an improvised dressing-room in the corner, behind a tall screen, and in a very few minutes was about to emerge clad in her own clothes, when Mrs. Triplett exclaimed:

"For pity sakes! Those gold beads!"

Georgina's hand went up to the string of gold beads still around her neck. They also were borrowed from Mrs. Tupman of the Figurehead House.

"I was going to ask Mrs. Tupman to take them home herself," said Mrs. Triplett, "but she left earlier than I thought she would, and I had no chance to say anything about them. We oughtn't to trust anything as valuable as gold beads that are an heirloom to any outsider, no matter how honest. They might be lost. Suppose you just wear them home to her. Do you feel like doing that? And keep them on your neck till she unclasps them with her own hands. Don't leave them with a servant."

Georgina, tired of sitting all day in the booth, was glad of an excuse for a long walk. It was almost six o'clock, but the sun was still high. As she went along, jostled off the narrow sidewalk and back on to it again every few steps by the good-natured crowd which swarmed the streets at this hour, she could smell supper cooking in the houses along the way. It would be delayed in many homes because the tide was in and people were running down the beach from the various cottages for a dip into the sea. Some carried their bathing suits in bundles, some wore them under raincoats or dressing gowns, and some walked boldly along bare-armed and bare-legged in the suits themselves.

It was a gay scene, with touches of color in every direction. Vivid green grass in all the door-yards, masses of roses and hollyhocks and clematis against the clean white of the houses. Color of every shade in the caps and sweaters and bathing suits and floating motor veils and parasols, jolly laughter everywhere, and friendly voices calling back and forth across the street. It was a holiday town full of happy holiday people.

Georgina, skipping along through the midst of it, added another pretty touch of color to the scene, with her blue ribbons and hat with the forget-me-nots around it, but if her thoughts could have been seen, they would have showed a sober drab. The meeting with Captain Burrell had left her depressed and unhappy. The thought uppermost in her mind was why should there be such a difference in fathers? Why should Peggy Burrell have such an adorable one, and she be left to feel like an orphan?

When she reached the Figurehead House she was told that Mrs. Tupman had stepped out to a neighbor's for a few minutes but would be right back. She could have left the beads with a member of the family, but having been told to deliver them into the hands of the owner only, she sat down in the swing in the yard to wait.

From where she sat she could look up at the figurehead over the portico. It was the best opportunity she had ever had for studying it closely. Always before she had been limited to the few seconds that were hers in walking or driving by. Now she could sit and gaze at it intently as she pleased.

The fact that it was weather-stained and dark as an Indian with the paint worn off its face in patches, only enhanced its interest in her eyes. It seemed to bear the scars of one who has suffered and come up through great tribulation. No matter how battered this Lady of Mystery was in appearance, to Georgina she still stood for "Hope," clinging to her wreath, still facing the future with head held high, the symbol of all those, who having ships at sea, watch and wait for their home-coming with proud, undaunted courage.

Only an old wooden image, but out of a past of shipwreck and storm its message survived and in some subtle manner found its way into the heart of Georgina.

"And I'll do it, too," she resolved valiantly, looking up at it. "I'm going to hope so hard that he'll be the way I want him to be, that he'll just have to. And if he isn't—then I'll just steer straight onward as if I didn't mind it, so Barby'll never know how disappointed I am. Barby must never know that."

A few minutes later, the gold beads being delivered into Mrs. Tupman's own hands, Georgina took her way homeward, considerably lighter of heart, for those moments of reflection in the swing. As she passed the antique shop a great gray cat on the door-step, rose and stretched itself.

"Nice kitty!" she said, stopping to smooth the thick fur which stood up as he arched his back.

It was "Grandpa," to whose taste for fish she owed her prism and the bit of philosophy which was to brighten not only her own life but all those which touched hers. But she passed on, unconscious of her debt to him.

When she reached the Gray Inn she walked more slowly, for on the beach back of it she saw several people whom she recognized. Captain Burrell was in the water with Peggy and Bailey and half a dozen other children from the Inn. They were all splashing and laughing. They seemed to be having some sort of a game. She stood a moment wishing that she had on her bathing suit and was down in the water with them. She could swim better than any of the children there. But she hadn't been in the sea since Barby left. That was one of the things she promised in their dark hour of parting, not to go in while Barby was gone.

While she stood there, Mrs. Burrell came out on the piazza of the Inn, followed by the colored nurse with the baby who was just learning to walk. The Captain, seeing them, threw up his hand to signal them. Mrs. Burrell fluttered her handkerchief in reply.

Georgina watched the group in the water a moment longer, then turned and walked slowly on. She felt that if she could do it without having to give up Barby, she'd be willing to change places with Peggy Burrell. She'd take her homely little pale, freckled face, straight hair and—yes, even her limp, for the right to cling to that strong protecting shoulder as Peggy was doing there in the water, and to whisper in his ear, "Dad-o-my- heart."



Chapter XXV

A Letter to Hong-Kong



There are some subjects one hesitates to discuss with one's family. It is easier to seek information from strangers or servants, who do not feel free to come back at you with the disconcerting question, "But why do you ask?"

It was with the half-formed resolution of leading up to a certain one of these difficult subjects if she could, that Georgina wandered down the beach next morning to a little pavilion near the Gray Inn. It was occupied by Peggy Burrell, her baby brother and the colored nurse Melindy.

Georgina, sorely wanting companionship now that Richard and Captain Kidd were off on their yachting trip, was thankful that Mrs. Triplett had met Captain Burrell the day before at the Bazaar, and had agreed with him that Georgina and Peggy ought to be friends because their fathers were. Otherwise, the occupants of the pavilion would have been counted as undesirable playmates being outside the pale of her acquaintance.

Peggy welcomed her joyfully. She wasn't strong enough yet to go off on a whole morning's fishing trip with brother and Daddy, she told Georgina, and her mother was playing bridge on the hotel piazza. Peggy was a little thing, only eight, and Georgina not knowing what to do to entertain her, resurrected an old play that she had not thought of for several summers. She built Grandfather Shirley's house in the sand.

It took so long to find the right kind of shells with which to make the lanterns for the gate-posts, and to gather the twigs of bayberry and beach plum for the avenues (she had to go into the dunes for them), that the question she was intending to ask Melindy slipped from her mind for a while. It came back to her, however, as she scooped a place in the wall of pebbles and wet sand which stood for the fence.

"Here's the place where the postman drops the mail."

Then she looked up at Melindy, the question on the tip of her tongue. But Peggy, on her knees, was watching her so intently that she seemed to be looking straight into her mouth every time it opened, and her courage failed her. Instead of saying what she had started to say, she exclaimed:

"Here's the hole in the fence where the little pigs squeezed through." Then she told the story that went with this part of the game. When it was time to put in the bee-hives, however, and Peggy volunteered to look up and down the beach for the right kind of a pebble to set the bee-hives on, Georgina took advantage of the moment alone with Melindy. There wasn't time to lead up to the question properly. There wasn't even time to frame the question in such a way that it would seem a casual, matter- of-course one. Georgina was conscious that the blood was surging up into her cheeks until they must seem as red as fire. She leaned forward toward the sand-pile she was shaping till her curls fell over her face. Then she blurted out:

"How often do husbands write to wives?"

Melindy either did not hear or did not understand, and Georgina had the mortifying experience of repeating the question. It was harder to give utterance to it the second time than the first. She was relieved when Melindy answered without showing any surprise.

"Why, most every week I reckon, when they loves 'em. Leastways white folks do. It comes easy to them to write. An' I lived in one place where the lady got a lettah every othah day."

"But I mean when the husband's gone for a long, long time, off to sea or to another country, and is dreadfully busy, like Captain Burrell is when he's on his ship."

Melindy gave a short laugh. "Huh! Let me tell you, honey, when a man wants to write he's gwine to write, busy or no busy."

Later, Georgina went home pondering Melindy's answer. "Most every week when they love's 'em. Sometimes every other day." And Barby had had no letter for over four months.

Something happened that afternoon which had never happened before in all Georgina's experience. She was taken to the Gray Inn to call. Mrs. Triplett, dressed in her new black summer silk, took her.

"As long as Barbara isn't here to pay some attention to that Mrs. Burrell," Tippy said to Belle, "it seems to me it's my place as next of kin. The Captain couldn't get done saying nice things about Justin."

Evidently, she approved of both Mrs. Burrell and Peggy, for when each begged that Georgina be allowed to stay to supper she graciously gave permission.

"Peggy has taken the wildest fancy to you, dear," Mrs. Burrell said in an aside to Georgina. "You gave her a beautiful morning on the beach. The poor little thing has suffered so much with her lame knee, that we are grateful to anyone who makes her forget all that she has gone through. It's only last week that she could have the brace taken off. She hasn't been able to run and play like other children for two years, but we're hoping she may outgrow the trouble in time."

The dining-room of the Gray Inn overlooked thel sea, and was so close to the water one had the feeling of being in a boat, when looking out of its windows. There were two South American transports in the harbor. Some of the officers had come ashore and were dining with friends at the Gray Inn. Afterwards they stayed to dance a while in the long parlor with the young ladies of the party. Peggy and Georgina sat on the piazza just outside one of the long French windows, where they could watch the gay scene inside. It seemed almost as gay outside, when one turned to look across the harbor filled with moving lights. Captain and Mrs. Burrell were outside also. They sat farther down the piazza, near the railing, talking to one of the officers who was not dancing. Once when the music stopped, Peggy turned to Georgina to say:

"Do you hear Daddy speaking Spanish to that officer from South America? Doesn't he do it well? I can understand a little of what they say because we lived in South America a while last year. We join him whenever he is stationed at a port where officers can take their families. He says that children of the navy have to learn to be regular gypsies. I love going to new places. How many languages can your father speak?"

Georgina, thus suddenly questioned, felt that she would rather die than acknowledge that she knew so little of her father that she could not answer. She was saved the mortification of confessing it, however, by the music striking up again at that moment.

"Oh, I can play that!" she exclaimed. "That's the dance of the tarantula. Isn't it a weird sort of thing?"

The air of absorbed interest with which Georgioa turned to listen to the music made Peggy forget her question, and listen in the same way. She wanted to do everything in the same way that Georgina did it, and from that moment that piece of music held special charm for her because Georgina called it weird.

The next time Georgina glanced down the piazza Mrs. Burrell was alone. In her dimly-lighted corner, she looked like one of the pretty summer girls one sees sometimes on a magazine cover. She was all in white with a pale blue wrap of some kind about her that was so soft and fleecy it looked like a pale blue cloud. Georgina found herself looking down that way often, with admiring glances. She happened to have her eyes turned that way when the Captain came back and stood beside her chair. The blue wrap had slipped from her shoulders without her notice, and he stooped and picked it up. Then he drew the soft, warm thing up around her, and bending over, laid his cheek for just an instant against hers.

It was such a fleeting little caress that no one saw but Georgina, and she turned her eyes away instantly, feeling that she had no right to look, yet glad that she had seen, because of the warm glow it sent through her. She couldn't tell why, but somehow the world seemed a happier sort of place for everybody because such things happened in it.

"I wonder," she thought wistfully, as her eyes followed the graceful steps of the foreign dancers and her thoughts stayed with what she had just witnessed, "I wonder if that had been Barby and my father, would he?"——

But she did not finish even to herself the question which rose up to worry her. It came back every time she recalled the little scene.

On the morning after her visit to the Gray Inn she climbed up on the piano stool when she had finished practising her scales. She wanted a closer view of the portrait which hung over it. It was an oil painting of her father at the age of five. He wore kilts and little socks with plaid tops, and he carried a white rabbit in his arms. Georgina knew every inch of the canvas, having admired it from the time she was first held up to it in someone's arms to "see the pretty bunny." Now she looked at it long and searchingly.

Then she opened the book-case and took out an old photograph album. There were several pictures of her father in that. One taken with his High School class, and one with a group of young medical students, and one in the white service dress of an assistant surgeon of the navy. None of them corresponded with her dim memory of him.

Then she went upstairs to Barby's room, and stood before the bureau, studying the picture upon it in a large silver frame. It was taken in a standing position and had been carefully colored, so that she knew accurately every detail of the dress uniform of a naval surgeon from the stripes of gold lace and maroon velvet on the sleeves, to the eagle on the belt buckle and the sword knot dangling over the scabbard. There were various medals pinned on his breast which had always interested her.

But this morning it was not the uniform or the decorations which claimed her attention. It was the face itself. She was looking for something in the depths of those serious dark eyes, that she had seen in Captain Burrell's when he looked at Peggy; something more than a smile, something that made his whole face light up till you felt warm and happy just to look at him. She wondered if the closely-set lips she was studying could curve into a welcoming smile if anybody ran to meet him with happy outstretched arms. But the picture was baffling and disappointing, because it was a profile view.

Presently, she picked it up and carried it to her own room, placing it on the table where she always sat to write. She had screwed up her courage at last, to the point of writing the letter which long ago she had decided ought to be written by somebody.

Once Barby said, "When you can't think of anything to put in a letter, look at the person's picture, and pretend you're talking to it." Georgina followed that advice now. But one cannot talk enthusiastically to a listener who continues to show you only his profile.

Suddenly, her resentment flamed hot against this handsome, averted face which was all she knew of a father. She thought bitterly that he had no business to be such a stranger to her that she didn't even know what he looked like when he smiled. Something of the sternness of her old Pilgrim forbears crept into her soul as she sat there judging him and biting the end of her pen. She glanced down at the sheet of paper on which she had painstakingly written "Dear Father." Then she scratched out the words, feeling she could not honestly call him that when he was such a stranger. Taking a clean sheet of paper, she wrote even more painstakingly:

"Dear Sir: There are two reesons——"

Then she looked up in doubt about the spelling of that last word. She might have gone downstairs and consulted the dictionary but her experience had proved that a dictionary is an unsatisfactory book when one does not know how to spell a word. It is by mere chance that what one is looking for can be found. After thinking a moment she put her head out of the window and called softly down to Belle, who was sewing on the side porch. She called softly so that Tippy could not hear and answer and maybe add the remark, "But why do you ask? Are you writing to your mother?"

Belle spelled the word for her, and taking another sheet of paper Georgina made a fresh start. This time she did not hesitate over the spelling, but scribbled recklessly on until all that was crowding up to be said was on the paper.

"Dear Sir: There are two reasons for writing this. One is about your wife. Cousin Mehitable says something is eating her heart out, and I thought you ought to know. Maybe as you can cure so many strange diseeses you can do something for her. The other is to ask you to send us another picture of yourself. The only ones we have of you are looking off sideways, and I can't feel as well acquainted with you as if I could look into your eyes.

"There is a lovely father staying at the Gray Inn. He is Peggy Burrell's. He is a naval officer, too. It makes me feel like an orfan when I see him going down the street holding her hand. He asked me to tell him all about where you are and what you are doing, because you cured him once on a hospital ship, and I was ashamed to tell him that I didn't know because Barby has not had a letter from you for over four months. Please don't let on to her that I wrote this. She doesn't know that I was under the bed when Cousin Mehitable was talking about you, and saying that everybody thinks it is queer you never come home. If you can do only one of the things I asked, please do the first one. Yours truly, Georgina Huntingdon."

Having blotted the letter, Georgina read it over carefully, finding two words that did not look quite right, although she did not know what was the matter with them. So she called softly out of the window again to Belle:

"How do you spell diseases?"

Belle told her but added the question, "Why do you ask a word like that? Whose diseases can you be writing about?"

Georgina drew in her head without answering. She could not seek help in that quarter again, especially for such a word as "orfan." After studying over it a moment she remembered there was a poem in "Songs for the Little Ones at Home," called "The Orphan Nosegay Girl."

A trip downstairs for the tattered volume gave her the word she wanted, and soon the misspelled one was scratched out and rewritten. There were now three unsightly blots on the letter and she hovered over them a moment, her pride demanding that she should make a clean, fair copy. But it seemed such an endless task to rewrite it from beginning to end, that she finally decided to send it as it stood.

Addressed, stamped and sealed, it was ready at last and she dropped it into the mail-box. Then she had a moment of panic. It was actually started on its way to Hong-Kong and nothing in her power could stop it or bring it back. She wondered if she hadn't done exactly the wrong thing, and made a bad matter worse.



Chapter XXVI

Peggy Joins the Rainbow-Makers



Only one more thing happened before Barby's return that is worth recording. Georgina went to spend the way at the Gray Inn. Captain Burrell, himself, came to ask her. Peggy had to be put back into her brace again he said. He was afraid it had been taken off too soon. She was very uncomfortable and unhappy on account of it. They would be leaving in the morning, much earlier than they had intended, because it was necessary for her physician to see her at once, and quite probable that she would have to go back to the sanitarium for a while. She didn't want to leave Provincetown, because she did not want to go away from Georgina.

"You have no idea how she admires you," the Captain added, "or how she tries to copy you. Her dream of perfect happiness is to look and act just like you. Yesterday she made her mother tie a big pink bow on her poor little cropped head because you passed by wearing one on your curls. You can cheer her up more than anyone else in the world."

So Georgina, touched both by the Captain's evident distress over Peggy's returning lameness, and Peggy's fondness for her, went gladly. The knowledge that everything she said and did was admired, made it easy for her to entertain the child, and the pity that welled up in her heart every time she watched the thin little body move around in the tiresome brace, made her long to do something that would really ease the burden of such a misfortune.

Mrs. Burrell was busy packing all morning, and in the afternoon went down the street to do some shopping that their hurried departure made necessary. Peggy brought out her post-card album, in which to fasten all the postals she had added to her collection while on the Cape. Among them was one of the Figurehead House, showing "Hope" perched over the portico.

"Bailey says that's a sea-cook," Peggy explained gravely. "A sea-cook who was such a wooden-head that when he made doughnuts they turned green. He's got one in his hand that he's about to heave into the sea."

"Oh, horrors! No!" exclaimed Georgina, as scandalized as if some false report had been circulated about one of her family.

"That is Hope with a wreath in her hand, looking up with her head held high, just as she did when she was on the prow of a gallant ship. Whenever I have any trouble or disappointment I think of her, and she helps me to bear up and be brave, and go on as if nothing had happened."

"How?" asked Peggy, gazing with wondering eyes at the picture of the figurehead, which was too small on the postal to be very distinct. Anything that Georgina respected and admired so deeply, Peggy wanted to respect and admire in the same way, but it was puzzling to understand just what it was that Georgina saw in that wooden figure to make her feel so. Accustomed to thinking of it in Bailey's way, as a sea-cook with a doughnut, it was hard to switch around to a point of view that showed it as Hope with a wreath, or to understand how it could help one to be brave about anything.

Something of her bewilderment crept into the wondering "why," and Georgina hesitated, a bit puzzled herself. It was hard to explain to a child two years younger what had been taught to her by the old Towncrier.

"You wait till I run home and get my prism," she answered. "Then I can show you right away, and we can play a new kind of tag game with it."

Before Peggy could protest that she would rather have her question unanswered than be left alone, Georgina was off and running up the beach as fast as her little white shoes could carry her. Her cheeks were as red as the coral necklace she wore, when she came back breathless from her flying trip.

There followed a few moments of rapture for Peggy, when the beautiful crystal pendant was placed in her own hands, and she looked through it into a world transformed by the magic of its coloring. She saw the room changed in a twinkling, as when a fairy wand transforms a mantle of homespun to cloth-of-gold. Through the open window she saw an enchanted harbor filled with a fleet of rainbows. Every sail was outlined with one, every mast edged with lines of red and gold and blue. And while she looked, and at the same time listened, Georgina's explanation caught some of the same glamor, and sank deep into her tender little heart.

That was the way that she could change the world for people she loved—put a rainbow around their troubles by being so cheery and hopeful that everything would be brighter just because she was there. To keep Hope at the prow simply meant that she mustn't get discouraged about her knee. No matter how much it hurt her or the brace bothered her, she must bear up and steer right on. To do that bravely, without any fretting, was the surest way in the world to put a rainbow around her father's troubles.

Thus Georgina mixed her "line to live by" and her prism philosophy, but it was clear enough to the child who listened with heart as well as ears. And clear enough to the man who sat just outside the open window on the upper porch, with his pipe, listening also as he gazed off to sea.

"The poor little lamb," he said to himself. "To think of that baby trying to bear up and be brave on my account! It breaks me all up."

A few minutes later as he started across the hall, Peggy, seeing him pass her door, called to him. "Oh, Daddy! Come look through this wonderful fairy glass. You'll think the whole world is bewitched."

She was lying back in a long steamer chair, and impatient to reach him, she started to climb out as he entered the room. But she had not grown accustomed to the brace again, and she stumbled clumsily on account of it. He caught her just in time to save her from falling, but the prism, the shining crystal pendant, dropped from her hands and struck the rocker of a chair in its fall to the floor.

She gave a frightened cry, and stood holding her breath while Georgina stooped and picked it up. It was in two pieces now. The long, radiant point, cut in many facets like a diamond, was broken off.

Georgina, pale and trembling at this sudden destruction of her greatest treasure, turned her back, and for one horrible moment it was all she could do to keep from bursting out crying. Peggy, seeing her turn away and realizing all that her awkwardness was costing Georgina, buried her face on her father's shoulder and went into such a wild paroxysm of sobbing and crying that all his comforting failed to comfort her.

"Oh, I wish I'd died first," she wailed. "She'll never love me again. She said it was her most precious treasure, and now I've broken it——"

"There, there, there," soothed the Captain, patting the thin little arm reached up to cling around his neck. "Georgina knows it was an accident. She's going to forgive my poor little Peggykins for what she couldn't help. She doesn't mind its being broken as much as you think."

He looked across at Georgina, appealingly, helplessly. Peggy's grief was so uncontrollable he was growing alarmed. Georgina wanted to cry out:

"Oh, I do mind! How can you say that? I can't stand it to have my beautiful, beautiful prism ruined!"

She was only a little girl herself, with no comforting shoulder to run to. But something came to her help just then. She remembered the old silver porringer with its tall, slim-looped letters. She remembered there were some things she could not do. She had to be brave now, because her name had been written around that shining rim through so many brave generations. She could not deepen the hurt of this poor little thing already nearly frantic over what she had done. Tippy's early lessons carried her gallantly through now. She ran across the room to where Peggy sat on her father's knee, and put an arm around her.

"Listen, Peggy," she said brightly. "There's a piece of prism for each of us now. Isn't that nice? You take one and I'll keep the other, and that will make you a member of our club. We call it the Rainbow Club, and we're running a race seeing who can make the most bright spots in the world, by making people happy. There's just four members in it so far; Richard and me and the president of the bank and Mr. Locke, the artist, who made the pictures in your blue and gold fairy-tale book. And you can be the fifth. But you'll have to begin this minute by stopping your crying, or you can't belong. What did I tell you about fretting?"

And Peggy stopped. Not instantly, she couldn't do that after such a hard spell. The big sobs kept jerking her for a few minutes no matter how hard she tried to stiffle them; but she sat up and let her father wipe her face on his big handkerchief, and she smiled her bravest, to show that she was worthy of membership in the new club.

The Captain suddenly drew Georgina to his other knee and kissed her.

"You blessed little rainbow maker!" he exclaimed. "I'd like to join your club myself. What a happy world this would be if everybody belonged to it."

Peggy clasped her hands together beseechingly.

"Oh, please let him belong, Georgina. I'll lend him my piece of prism half the time."

"Of course he can," consented Georgina. "But he can belong without having a prism. Grown people don't need anything to help them remember about making good times in the world."

"I wonder," said the Captain, as if he were talking to himself. Georgina, looking at him shyly from the corner of her eye, wondered what it was he wondered.

It was almost supper time when she went home. She had kept the upper half of the prism which had the hole in it, and it dangled from her neck on the pink ribbon as she walked.

"If only Barby could have seen it first," she mourned. "I wouldn't mind it so much. But she'll never know how beautiful it was."

But every time that thought came to her it was followed by a recollection which made her tingle with happiness. It was the Captain's deep voice saying tenderly, "You blessed little rainbow-maker!"



Chapter XXVII

A Modern "St. George and the Dragon"



Barby was at home again. Georgina, hearing the jangle of a bell, ran down the street to meet the old Towncrier with the news. She knew now, he felt when he wanted to go through the town ringing his bell and calling out the good tidings about his Danny to all the world. That's the way she felt her mother's home-coming ought to be proclaimed. It was such a joyful thing to have her back again.

And Grandfather Shirley wasn't going to be blind, Georgina confided in her next breath. The sight of both eyes would be all right in time. They were so thankful about that. And Barby had brought her the darlingest little pink silk parasol ever made or dreamed of, all the way from Louisville, and some beaten biscuit and a comb of honey from the beehives in her old home garden.

It was wonderful how much news Georgina managed to crowd into the short time that it took to walk back to the gate. The Burrells had left town and Belle had gone home, and Richard had sent her a postal card from Bar Harbor with a snapshot of himself and Captain Kidd on it. And—she lowered her voice almost to a whisper as she told the next item:

"Barby knows about Danny! Belle said I might tell her if she'd promise not to let it get back to Mr. Potter."

They had reached the house by this time, and Georgina led him in to Barby who rose to welcome him with both hands outstretched.

"Oh, Uncle Darcy," she exclaimed. "I know—and I'm so glad. And Justin will be, too. I sent Georgina's letter to him the very day it came. I knew he'd be so interested, and it can do no harm for him to know, away off there in the interior of China."

Georgina was startled, remembering the letter which she had sent to the interior of China. Surely her father wouldn't send that back to Barby! Such a panic seized her at the bare possibility of such a thing, that she did not hear Uncle Darcy's reply. She wondered what Barby would say if it should come back to her. Then she recalled what had happened the first few moments of Barby's return and wondered what made her think of it.

Barby's first act on coming into the house, was to walk over to the old secretary where the mail was always laid, and look to see if any letters were waiting there for her. And that was before she had even stopped to take off her veil or gloves. There were three which had arrived that morning, but she only glanced at them and tossed them aside. The one she wanted wasn't there. Georgina had turned away and pretended that she wasn't watching but she was, and for a moment she felt that the sun had gone behind a cloud, Barby looked so disappointed.

But it was only for a moment, for Barby immediately began to tell about an amusing experience she had on her way home, and started upstairs to take off her hat, with Georgina tagging after to ask a thousand questions, just as she had been tagging ever since.