Ten o'clock—why, on Patchin Place the morning was almost over at that hour, the streets about thundering with the work of the day. And here it was as still as night, or as—a church on a weekday, Robin thought.

Dressed, she opened the door of her room very quietly and peeped curiously out. And there in the wide hall, dusting an old highboy, was the girl with the dark hair.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Robin, delighted at the encounter.

The girl stared for a moment. She was tall and thin; her eyes so intensely blue as to look black and startling in their contrast to the whiteness of her skin. They were brooding, smoldering eyes and a too frequent scowl was making tiny lines between the straight black eyebrows.

"Isn't this the wonderfulest morning?" Robin advanced, stepping nearer. "What is your name? I'm Robin—I mean Gordon Forsyth."

"I know that. My name's Beryl but I guess it doesn't make much difference to you what I'm called. The man who came with you's waiting downstairs."

In spite of this rebuff Robin lingered for a moment, hopeful of a pleasanter word. But the girl Beryl shouldered her duster and marched off, head high.

"I'm going to find out more about her right off," determined Robin as she went in search of her guardian.

The big rooms below, like her own room, looked very different in the morning light, even cheery. Mr. Allendyce greeted her with a smile and Harkness' "Good-morning, Miss Gordon," had pleasant warmth. It was fun to sit in the high-backed chair before the shining silver and the flowers and to choose between grapefruit and frosted orange juice. So fascinated was Robin that she forgot for the time, her interest in the girl she had encountered upstairs.

"Well, what do you think of Gray Manor in daylight?" asked Mr. Allendyce as the two walked into the library.

"Oh, it's more like a great castle than ever. But it isn't—half as bad as I thought it was." When Robin caught the amused twinkle in her guardian's eye she added hastily: "I mean, it isn't gloomy and sad at all. It's so beautiful—and I love beautiful things."

Mr. Allendyce thought suddenly that it was the first time for a long time he had seen these rooms when they had not seemed overhung with melancholy. But he checked any expression of the thought; instead he took Robin on a tour through the library and drawing rooms, pointing out to her the treasures which had been brought from every corner of the world. There were rare tapestries and bronzes, and tiny ivory carvings and tables inlaid with bright jade and old crystal candelabra, and quaint chests and wonderful paintings and rare old books. As he told the story of each, Cornelius Allendyce marvelled at the girl's quick appreciation and intelligent interest. Her Jimmie had evidently gathered travelled people about him and Robin had been always a sharp listener.

Then Harkness interrupted their pleasant occupation by appealing to Robin for "his orders" with such a comical solemnity that Robin had difficulty suppressing a nervous giggle. Her guardian came to her rescue with the suggestion that they drive about the town and the mills, have an early tea and an early dinner and dispense with luncheon.

"Must I tell him every day just what I want?" thought Robin, in dismay.

The girl's active imagination could well picture the imposing motor which came to the door as a coach-and-four, resplendent with regal trappings. And, cuddled in the wolf-skin robes, flying over the frosty roads which wound through the hills, it was very easy to feel like a princess from one of her own stories.

Only the mills spoiled her lovely day. The evening before they had loomed obscurely and interestingly but in broad daylight they were ugly. The great chimneys belched black smoke into the beautiful blue of the sky; the monotonous drone of many machines jarred the hillside quiet. Everything was so dusty and dirty—even the tiny houses where the men lived. Robin, brought up though she had been in Patchin Place, turned in disgust from the dreary ugliness about her.

"Does it have to be like that?" she asked her guardian.

"Like what?"

"Oh—dirty. And so dreary. And noisy."

Her guardian laughed. "I'm afraid it does. Work is mostly always drab—like that. And you see it has grown like a giant. There—there's the giant for your fairy story, my dear. And giants are usually ugly, aren't they?"

"Yes, always." Robin spoke with conviction. As they rode on she looked back over her shoulder. "I'm glad we can't stop today. This ride has been so lovely that I'd hate to spoil it by—seeing the Giant up close."

"Giants are very powerful. And usually very rich." Cornelius Allendyce enjoyed the fancy.

"Yes—and they crush and kill, too."

"But didn't a Jack climb something or other and overcome one of them in his lair?"

At this Robin laughed and then forgot, for the time being, the mills and the dirty houses; when Mr. Allendyce hoped Mrs. Budge would give them a very big tea party, she realized she was hungrier than she had ever been before.

So full had been each moment of her first day at Gray Manor that it was not until she sat curled in the big divan before the library fire, a book of colored plates of Italian gardens across her lap that she thought of her determination to know more of the girl who had called herself Beryl.

Harkness stood at the long table putting it in order. Harkness seemed always moving things about just so as to put them back in place again.

"Mr. Harkness."

"Yes, Miss Gordon."

"Do I know everybody here?"

"Why—I'm sure—What do you mean, Miss Gordon?"

"I saw a young girl last night. And I met her in the hall today. Who's she?"

"That's a person from the village, Miss Gordon. I don't know as I've heard her name. Budge mostly calls her a piece. I don't think Budge is satisfied with her."

"You mean she works here?"

"Yes, Miss Gordon. At least now. She helps Budge. Budge is getting on, you see. I don't know as I've heard the miss' name. Is there anything more, Miss Gordon?"

Harkness had a warm heart under his faded livery and it went out now to Robin because she looked very small and very much alone in the big room. He had heard Mrs. Budge's hostile sputter and he knew the lawyer man was going the next day; little Miss Gordon would be quite without friends at Gray Manor. So he stepped closer to the divan and in a very human, friendly way he added: "Excuse me if I'm so bold as to say, you just count on old Harkness if you want anything, missy."

Robin caught the kindliness in the man's voice. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Harkness. I'll be so glad to have you for a friend. And won't you please call me Robin? You see everyone who's ever liked me real well called me that and it'll make me feel homey here."

"Well, just between us, Miss—Robin." And the old man went off with a mysterious smile that even Budge's sour face could not dispel.

The house was very still. Mr. Allendyce was in his room writing some letters. The early dinner had been over for sometime. Robin wondered what Beryl was doing now and where she was—probably upstairs somewhere.

"I'll go and find her!"

This was more easily said than done for Gray Manor had wiggly wings and corridors turning in every direction and little stairs here and there so that one first went up and then down and then up again. Robin had almost given up her search and had just about decided she was lost, for turn whichever way she might, nothing seemed familiar, when she heard the harsh, scraping strains of a violin, vibrant with stormy feeling.

"I'll find that and then maybe it'll be someone who can tell me how to get back to the library," she thought, laughing silently at the ridiculousness of being lost in a house, anyway.

She traced the music to a turning which led into a narrow hallway. At its end a door stood ajar and from it a light streamed. Robin approached the door on tip toe that she might not disturb the music, then stood still on its threshold in delighted amazement for the violin player was the girl for whom she was seeking.

At sight of Robin the girl flung the violin upon the bed.

"Oh, please don't stop. May I come in? I was hunting for you."

It was an absurdly small room as compared to the great rooms below, and very bare. There was one chair which Beryl, scowling, pushed forward, at the same time sitting upon the bed. Her eyes said plainly: "What do you want?"

Robin ignored her unfriendliness. She sat down on the edge of the bed, close to Beryl.

"I'm awfully glad I found you," she ventured. "You see you're the only other young person in this house. Though I never had any chums like most girls do, Jimmie always seemed young and the birds and the flowers and the Farri children made it—" Robin stopped suddenly, for Beryl was staring at her with rude amusement. "I—I thought it would be so nice if you—and I—could be—sort of chums," she managed to finish.

Beryl tossed her head as she moved away, shutting the violin in its case with an angry little slam.

"I guess it would be sort of," she mocked.

"What do you mean?" Poor Robin's heart beat furiously; it had taken all the courage she could muster to force her advance upon this girl and Beryl's rebuff hurt her deeply. She flushed at Beryl's scornful laugh.

"Why—we're as far apart as the poles," Beryl answered. "You're—Gordon Forsyth. And I'm just Beryl Lynch."

Robin's eyes were like a baby's in their lack of understanding.

"I don't see—" she began but Beryl would not let her go on. Beryl's whole soul went out in resentment at what she suspected was "patronizing." "Not me!" she cried in her heart. And aloud: "Oh, you just say you can't see. Why I'm like a servant here. Though I won't be that way long with that old crank as uncivil as she is. Mother didn't want me to do it. But I wanted the money. And I'm going to stick it out, much as I hate it—"

Robin watched the other girl's stormy face in an ecstasy of delight. Here was a creature different from anyone she had ever known; almost her own age, too, full of the fire and spirit and daring which she longed to possess and knew she did not; beautifully straight and tall.

"I asked old Budge for the place. I heard she wanted someone to help her and it was work anyone could do. Mother felt dreadfully—she said I'd hate it. I don't mind the work but I hate—oh, feeling I'm not as good as anyone here. When Mrs. Budge told me to put on a clean uniform—ugh, how I hate those uniforms—and go down to the hall to meet you, I told her I wouldn't. She 'most sent me off then and there."

"You did go, though. I saw you," Robin broke in.

"Oh, yes, I went but I wouldn't change my dress just to spite her. And I was curious to see the boy they were all making such a fuss about. You just ought to know how upset they were when you came! Why, old Budge talked as though it were a disgrace for a Forsyth to be a girl. I was glad—because it fooled her." Beryl realized suddenly that she was growing friendily confidential. She sharpened her tone. "You'd better go down before the old snoop catches you here."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," pleaded Robin.

"Like what?"

"Oh, as though we weren't—well just girls alike and couldn't be friends. We might have such good times—"

"You are a funny little kid, aren't you? And you certainly don't know how things are run in stiff houses like this. If old Budge could hear you! I don't mind telling you that the old cat keeps saying she's going to watch you to see if you act like a Forsyth. So you'd better not let her hear you asking to be friends with me."

Robin slowly rose to her feet, two bright spots of color flaming in her cheeks.

"Why, I'll—" Her anger died suddenly and a quaint little dignity fell upon her. She straightened her slender figure and held her head very high. "I am a Forsyth and I shall act just as I think a good Forsyth should and not as Mrs. Budge thinks. And please don't think I'm the least bit afraid of this Mrs. Budge."

Beryl laughed so gleefully at Robin's defiance that Robin joined in with her and the friendship for which she sought sprang into being—all because of an unspoken alliance against the hostile housekeeper.

"I'll go back now—if you'll show me the way."

"They ought to have signs at every turning."

"Oh, what a funny thought!" And giggling, the two tiptoed through the winding corridors and down the stairs which led to the second floor.

"I'll see you tomorrow," whispered Robin at parting.

"It won't do—you'll see it won't do!" warned Beryl. "I haven't been in this house two whole days without knowing what it's like!"



CHAPTER VIII

ROBIN ASSERTS HERSELF

The coming of Percival Tubbs to Gray Manor added the one sweet drop to poor Mrs. Budge's cup of bitterness. Though he brought vividly back heartbreaking memories of young Chistopher the Third's school days, when she had waited each day for the lad's boisterous charge upon the kitchen after the "bite" which was his and her little secret, she hoped to find in him an ally. He would see how ridiculous it was to have a Forsyth girl, anyway, and especially a girl who limped around the house like a scared rabbit, afraid to ask for a crumb. If this Gordon had been a boy, as they had planned, another comely, happy youth, why, she could have soon learned to love him. But a girl—how would she look sitting at Master Christopher's desk, in his chair! Something was all wrong somewhere, but Percival Tubbs would find out and say what's what.

With this hope strong in her breast she made excuse to go into the Chinese room, for the Chinese room was only separated from the library by heavy curtains through which voices could be easily overheard. And Harkness had said the lawyer and the tutor were talking in the library.

Robin's guardian had given much thought to this interview with the tutor. Robin's fate worried him not a little. He had, in the few days, grown very fond of Robin, and he hated to leave her with Harkness and Budge and this Percival Tubbs, a poor sort of companionship where a fifteen-year-old girl's happiness was concerned.

"I must make Tubbs see that the child is different—" he was thinking just as Mrs. Budge tiptoed into the Chinese room.

"Miss Gordon is not like other children and you'll have to plan your school work a little differently with her," he began, speaking slowly. "She's bright enough and knows much more about some things than most girls her age—and nothing at all about others. What I want you to do is to go easy; easy, that's it. I rather imagine she's always taken a lot on her own shoulders and I don't believe she's ever thought much of herself. If you can develop a little assertiveness in her—she'll need it, here—"

"Yes. She'll need it here," echoed the tutor, because he thought he ought to say something. He was a tall, lanky man whose shoulders sagged as though something about them had broken under the strain of being dignified; his face narrowed from an impressive dome of a forehead to a straggling Van Dyke beard which he always stroked with the fingers of his left hand. He was the old type of schoolmaster whom the rapid forward stride of education had left far behind. His summons to Gray Manor had come rather in the way of a life-saver and he did not intend to allow the fact that the Forsyth heir had turned out to be a girl, perturb him in the least. And so long as his rooms at the Manor were comfortable, his food good and his salary certain, he could adapt himself to any fool theory this lawyer guardian might care to advance.

Mr. Allendyce stared hard at the other, his face wrinkled in his effort to say the right thing.

"Oh, let her have her head," he finished finally. And he liked that idea so well that he repeated it. "Let her have her head. Do you understand me? Never mind what's in the old schoolbooks. If she'd rather take a walk than study Latin verbs, well, let her. I want her to be happy here—happy, that's most important. You've heard of flowers that bloom only in shelter and sunshine? This youngster isn't unlike—"

"Well, I never! No, I never!... I never!" Mrs. Budge's gasp, rising in a crescendo, almost betrayed her presence. She gave a pillow a mighty jab. As though it were not bad enough to bring the girl to the house in the first place without paying a man a fancy price to teach her to have her own way! "Flowers! Humph! Old fools—" Unable to endure another word in silence she stalked off to her own quarters.

In the butler's pantry she found Beryl arranging real flowers in a squatty Bristol glass bowl and humming gaily as she did so. Now Beryl should have beep upstairs marking the new linen and she should not be singing as though she owned the whole world. These two transgressions and the sight of the bright blossoms in the girl's hand brought the climax to the old woman's wrath. All Beryl's shortcomings tumbled off her tongue in an incoherent flow of ill-temper. A stormy scene resulted which left the old housekeeper spent and Beryl blazing with indignation.

Consequently, when poor Robin, depressed from her first hour with the tutor, trying not to feel that Gray Manor was going to be a prison instead of a castle, sought out her new friend she found her throwing her few possessions into a cheap suitcase that lay, opened, across her narrow bed.

"Oh, what are you doing?" cried Robin in alarm.

"I'm going—that's what. She fired me."

Robin's first thought upon awaking that morning had been of Beryl; she had suffered the keenest impatience all through the trying morning, longing to go in search of her new friend. She could not lose her now—for a hundred Budges.

"Oh, I won't let you go!"

"A lot you could do!" cried Beryl scornfully, tears very close. "I just can't please the old thing. But I hate to go home." She sat down, dolefully, on the edge of the bed. "I wanted to stay until I had earned two hundred dollars."

Two hundred dollars! That seemed such a very big amount of money to Robin that she sat silent, thinking about it.

Beryl, misinterpreting her quiet, tossed her head. "I s'pose that doesn't mean much to you. But it does to me—'specially when I have to earn it." Then, with a flash of temper: "What do you know about wanting some one thing with all your whole heart and knowing just where you can get it and not having the money?"

Beryl made her tragedy very real and pouring out her troubles always brought her a grain of comfort.

"I've never had a thing in my life that I wanted," she finished.

"Oh, Beryl, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry! Why, a lucky little thing like you are can't even know what I'm talking about. That's why I said we couldn't be friends. I've had to work at home like a slave ever since I can remember. Pop's sick all the time and cross, and poor mother looks so tired and tries to be so cheerful and brave that your heart aches for her. And even when you're poor, a girl wants things, pretty things and to do things like other girls—and work as hard as you can you can't ever seem to reach them. I get just sick of it. I thought—if I could get this money—"

"Did you want it for your mother?" broke in Robin, sympathetically.

Beryl's face flushed redder. "Well, not exactly. That's the way it always is in books, but in life, when you're poor, it's each fellow for himself and there's not any time for your grand sounding self-sacrifice. I wanted it to buy a violin. That thing I've got's nothing but a cheap old fiddle. And I can play—I know I can play, or could if I could get a good violin. I took lessons from an old Belgian who lived above us and I played once for Martini at the theatre and he said—but what's the use of caring? What's the use of thinking about it? All a girl like me can do is just want big things!"

"Oh, Beryl," breathed Robin, a tremble on her lips. She wanted very much to make Beryl understand that she was not the "lucky thing" Beryl thought her; that she knew, too, what it was to want something and not to have it, though perhaps she had not known it as cruelly as Beryl had, for Jimmie had always contrived to cover their bleak moments with a makeshift contentment. "Oh, Beryl, honestly I know just how you feel. I wish I could help you. Maybe I can. My allowance seems awfully big and I can't ever spend it all—"

"Well, I'm not a beggar and I'm not hinting for your money," flared Beryl.

"I didn't mean—" Robin began, then faltered. Beryl had spoken with such real anger that she was frightened. Beryl, turning back to her packing, gathered up an armful of clothing on top of which lay an oblong bundle. Its wrappings were old and loose so that as Beryl flounced her burden toward the suitcase, the content of the package slipped out and down to the floor. Robin stared in amazement for there lay a doll in faded satin finery.

With a short, ashamed laugh, Beryl picked it up. "That old thing," she exclaimed, in half-apology.

Robin caught her arm. "Wait—oh, wait—let me see it!"

"It's just an old doll I've kept."

"It—it looks like my Cynthia. Oh, please just let me look at it. It's like a doll—I lost, once, ever so long ago." She examined the pretty clothing.

Now Beryl stared at Robin as though to find in her face a likeness to the little girl who had deserted her doll.

"Lost? And I found it in Sheridan Square. A little girl went off and left it. I waited awhile, then I took the doll home."

"Oh, how funny! How funny! It was me, Beryl. I'd been playing and Mr. Tony called to me to hurry and I forgot—and you found it. Why, I cried myself to sleep night after night thinking poor Cynthia was unhappy somewhere."

"And I called her my orphan doll and loved her because I thought she missed her real mother—"

"She was the loveliest dolly I ever had!"

"She was the loveliest dolly I ever saw!"

Both girls burst into a peal of laughter. They sat on the edge of the bed, the doll between them, the packing forgotten.

Robin clapped her hands. "And to think we find each other now. It's like a story. I went back to the park all alone that evening and would have been lost if it hadn't been for my—" she broke off short and flushed. She was going to tell Beryl about her play-prince but then, Beryl might laugh and she did not want that.

Beryl's face suddenly grew grave as she smoothed out a fold of the doll-garment.

"I always kept the doll put away. I never played with it because—" She hesitated a moment. "That night that I found the doll was a dreadful night. I wasn't quite six but I'll always remember it. At first mother and I were so happy, over finding the doll and because Pop had just gotten a raise. It seemed as though everything were going to be wonderful and we felt as rich as could be. We called the doll a lucky doll. And mother dressed me up in her green beads that Father Murphy, back in Ireland, had given her when she told him she was going to marry Pop. And we had dumplings—ugh, I've hated dumplings ever since. And then—"

"What happened?"

"They came for Mom, some man from the hospital. Pop had been terribly hurt. And, well—nothing's been lucky since. It's just as I said; mother's had to work and Dale's had to work and Pop just sits in a chair and scolds and—well, I never wanted to take the doll out when mother could see it—after all that."

Robin made no effort to conceal how deeply Beryl's story had moved her. "Oh, Beryl, I'm so sorry. But maybe things will change. They'll have to—Jimmie always said, it's a long lane that has no turning. I'm so glad it was you who found my Cynthia. It might have been some one who wouldn't have loved her at all."

"I s'pose you ought to have her now."

"Oh, no, no. She's yours. Anyway, that doesn't matter," and Robin added triumphantly, "because we're really truly friends now, no matter what you say. Cynthia has brought us together."

Beryl shook her head.

"That old crank—" she began.

Robin stamped her foot in impatience. "I don't care a bit about Mrs. Budge. My guardian told me that I could have anything I wanted here just for the asking and he's made me the silliest big allowance that three girls couldn't spend. Oh, I've a plan! Ought not a girl like me have a companion? Don't they most always in books? You shall stay here at Gray Manor as my—chum."

Beryl still looked doubtful. "I'm too young—"

"That's just why I want you. Oh, I just can't bear to think of my guardian going away and leaving me here alone. You see I promised myself that I'd be happy while Jimmie's having his chance—that's why I came, you know. But this house is so big and so old and Mr. Harkness and Mrs. Budge are so old that I know it's going to be hard not to think of Jimmie and our lovely home and the birds. But if you'd stay it would be easier. Oh, say you will, say you will."

Beryl stared at Robin with a suspicious scrutiny. She firmly believed that rich people never did anything except for themselves and Robin, no doubt, was like all the others. Yet she was such a queer little thing that perhaps she was trying to be "nice" to her and make a soft place for her. And Beryl would not allow that for a moment.

"You can study with me, too. That Mr. Tubbs isn't so very bad. And we'll read together out of all those books in the library. And play—I never had a real chum because Jimmie thought the girls and boys who went to the school I did, might make fun of my being lame. Poor Jimmie, he always minded my being lame much more than I did because he's an artist and shivers when anything isn't perfect. You shall have a bed in my room—there's ever so much space. Oh, say you will."

Beryl frowned, uncertainly. "I don't want a penny I don't earn. But if I can really do things for you—"

"Oh, of course you can, lots of things. But you shan't wear those uniforms—for then you wouldn't be a girl like me. Oh, we'll have such fun. Let's take this stuff right down."

It took the girls only a very little time to transfer Beryl's belongings and to establish them in Robin's room, Beryl working mechanically, unable to believe her good fortune. Then, at Robin's command, she followed her while she went in search of her guardian.

Cornelius Allendyce and Percival Tubbs, sitting in a blue cloud of cigar smoke, were pleasantly discussing the pros and cons of the tariff question upon which they agreed, when Robin interrupted them.

"Please excuse me, but this is very important." Her breathlessness startled the two men. "I've engaged Beryl to be my chum. I—I thought I might be lonely here at Gray Manor. I want her to study with me, too. And do everything. This is she."

Cornelius Allendyce's mouth had dropped open from sheer amazement; suddenly it broadened into a grin. Here was Miss Gordon taking her "head" at once, without so much as one lesson. He glanced at Percival Tubbs but that good gentleman was stroking his silky beard quite indifferently.

"I'd rather have Beryl than anyone else, 'cause she's almost my own age and we like each other. Shall I tell Mrs. Budge or—"

"Without so much as a by-your-leave!" murmured the guardian. He surveyed Beryl; she seemed like a wholesome, spirited sort and the idea of a little companion for Miss Gordon was not a bad one, not at all—strange he hadn't thought of it.

"Perhaps, Miss Gordon, you'd better tell her yourself. You must begin—holding your own, my dear. Don't forget—ever, that you are a Forsyth, and that name has great power over Hannah Budge."

Robin did not stop to ponder what he meant or why a twinkle shone in his eyes. She rang the bell as her guardian indicated, then waited with a resolute squaring of her small chin, for Harkness' coming.

"Please, Mr. Harkness, will you bring Mrs. Budge here? There's something I want to tell you both."

Mrs. Budge, as she hunted out a clean apron, grumbled at the unusual summons.

"The girl herself, you say?" she asked, as she followed Harkness to the library.

Her astonishment changed to white wrath when Robin, standing by her guardian's chair, spoke.

"I wanted to tell you that Beryl Lynch is going to stay here as my companion. I'm going to give her half of my room so that I won't be lonely and please set a place for her next to me at the table."

Once again Cornelius Allendyce caught the twinkle in the butler's eye which should not be in a Forsyth butler's eye at all. But there was no twinkle about Mrs. Budge; her cheeks puffed in her effort to speak without strangling.

"If that piece—" she began, but she was quickly interrupted from every side. Both Harkness and Cornelius Allendyce cried out, the one pleadingly, the other in warning: "Careful, Mrs. Budge." Then Robin stepped forward and slipped her hand through Beryl's arm.

"Please, Mrs. Budge, I have made Beryl promise to stay. She didn't want to but I begged her. And if anyone is unkind to her it's just the same as being—unkind to me. That is all," she finished grandly, with an imperious little motion of her hand that waved the irate woman from the room before she knew she was moving.

"Now you can't say as that wasn't like a Forsyth," asserted Harkness, proudly, belowstairs. "If Missy wants a young lydy for a companion, well, she's a right to the kind of young lydy she wants." But Budge had escaped the reach of his voice.

In the library Cornelius Allendyce was patting Robin on the head.

"Well, you've won out in the first skirmish, my dear. But keep your weapons at hand."



CHAPTER IX

THE LYNCHS

The only thing that made the Lynch's cottage any different from the two hundred others at the mills, was that it stood at the end of a dreary row and therefore had a window on the side of its living room which overlooked the hills and the river.

This window was Moira Lynch's delight. Her poor, big Danny could sit in it all day long. And from it she herself could watch the setting sun flame over the crest of the hills and the narrow river shake off its workaday dress and go racing into the shadows of the woods. Poor Moira, years of heartbreaking work and worry had not changed her very much from the girl who had liked to lie in the deep sweet grass of her dear Ireland and let her fancy follow the winging birds into a land of dreams.

The other window of the tiny living room looked out directly upon the muddy road, across to the freight tracks.

It was to this window that Moira Lynch ran now, peering as far up the road as she could see.

"Beryl's late today," she said, with an anxious note.

"Well, what if she is? Things don't run by the clock," Danny Lynch answered testily. "You're always fussing. If it isn't the girl it's over Dale."

Mrs. Moira ignored the edge of crossness in her Danny's voice. She went to him, smoothed the spotless cushion at his back and put a fresh magazine on his table.

"It's a silly, worryin' hen I am," she laughed. (But, oh, her laugh was a tragic thing, for while her lips curved in a smile her eyes shadowed at their mockery).

"But things seem a bit different, today," she added, apologetically.

And just as Danny Lynch's retort of derision died away Beryl burst upon them.

Her mother needed only to give her one look to know that something was different.

"And what is it, my darlin'? It's that hungry I was getting to set my eyes on you. Two hours late you are, Beryl."

Beryl welcomed this reproach as it gave her an opportunity to impart her good news in an impressive way.

"I couldn't get away a minute sooner. I've a new position." She was going to say "job" but it did not seem fitting.

"What? Without so much as a word to your father and mother? And did the likes of that old housekeeper fire you?"

Beryl had no intention of telling of her ignominious fray with Mrs. Budge.

"I'm engaged to be a companion to Gordon Forsyth!" she answered, grandly.

At this Moira Lynch dropped a spoon with a loud clatter.

"A companion to—that new boy who's come to the Manor?"

Beryl, recognizing that her story needed detailed explanation, slipped off her outer wraps, threw them into a chair, kissed her father lightly on his cheek, perched herself on the old sofa and proceeded to tell the story of Gordon Forsyth's coming to Gray Manor while her mother listened with breathless interest.

"And it's a girl she is—a little lame girl!"

"The queerest kid you ever saw. Not a bit snippy or rich acting. She doesn't get at all excited over her new clothes and bossing those old fogeys around and ordering her motor any minute she wants it. She thinks the little place she lived in in New York is lots nicer than Gray Manor. When you look at her you think she's a baby and then when she talks, why—she seems older than I am! But she's funny like you, Mom; she's always pretending things are different from what they are and giving them names. She calls old Budge the wicked woman who wanted to eat the two children," Beryl giggled. "And she calls the Mills a Giant."

Moira Lynch's face beamed with joyous understanding. Here was a fellow-soul, "funny" like herself, Beryl described her; Beryl, for whom black was always and invariably black, and a spade a spade.

"Why, she even wanted to come down here with me," Beryl finished.

There were so many questions trembling on Moira's tongue that, for the moment, supper was neglected. Not long, however; the striking of the clock reminded her that in a very few minutes Dale would be home, hungry. Her mission in life, next to tending her big Danny, was feeding her two children. For tonight she had made Beryl's favorite dessert, a bread pudding, the eggs for which she had carefully hoarded during several days' denial. Beryl, keeping up a running fire of talk, spread the cloth on the centre table and brought the dishes from the cupboard.

"By'n by, you'll be too fine for the rest of us," broke in big Danny upon their chatter, the usual discordant tone in his voice.

"Well, I guess it won't be your fault if I am," Beryl flared. "Everything that I've gotten I've gotten for myself and I don't know of anyone ever trying to help me."

Like a flash the little mother was between the two, a soothing hand on the father's shoulder.

"Now don't you two be a-spoiling this night," she laughed a bit hysterically. "Of course our girl's going to be too fine for anyone, but it's always a-loving she'll be to her Dad and her Mommy." She declared it with an ardent triumph. This mother who had once dreamed things for herself dreamed them now for her boy and girl. From Beryl's infancy she had taught her to want "fine things." And Beryl wanted them with all her heart and, with youth's selfishness, wanted them for herself, alone.

After her father's taunt, Beryl, with sullen resentment, locked her lips on her other pleasant experiences. Nor would she tell now how Robin had written to her guardian to send down a real violin for her to practice upon, or what fun it was to study with Mr. Percival Tubbs, whose ears were distractingly like Brussels sprouts. And that she learned much, much faster than Robin did! Poor Robin was always wondering the why of everything.

Her mother suddenly exclaimed: "It's Father Murphy's beads you shall wear this night, my girl. Didn't the good soul, God rest him, give them with his blessing? Watch the potatoes while I get them."

Moira's beads had always played a significant part in her life. They marked what she called her "blessings." Without doubt the rare bright spots in her life shone like blessings for the dark of their background. Years ago, when her Danny had had his accident and her world had seemed to turn upside down until it rested, full-weight, upon her poor shoulders, her "blessing" had been Miss Lewis at the settlement. Miss Lewis had given her work so that she could earn money to feed her family; Miss Lewis had sent the chair to Danny; Miss Lewis had found cheaper lodgings and had helped her make them homelike. Another blessing had been Jacques Henri, the old Belgian who lived above them and whose violin had attracted Beryl as the magnet draws the iron. A lonely soul, he had found sweet company in the child and had gladly helped the eager fingers. Later he had come down to supper with them and Beryl had played a "piece" for her Pop, wearing the beads in honor of the occasion. When Beryl had graduated from the graded school she had stood as class prophet before an assemblage of fond relatives, among them Dale and herself—wearing the green beads. Moira had wished Father Murphy were there to see her girl.

She clasped them around the girl's neck now with fingers that trembled and eyes bright with the tears which were always close to them. During the little ceremony Dale burst in like a gust of strong, sweet air.

"Hullo, everybody! M'm'm, something smells good! What's for tonight, Mom? Salt pork and thick gravy? Fried potatoes? Good! Hullo, Sis. How goes it, Pop?" His greeting embraced everything and everyone in a rush, from the savory supper to the invalid father whose face had brightened at his coming.

"What're you getting all dolled up for, Sis?"

Beryl and her mother tried to tell the story at the same time. Dale did not seem at all impressed and Beryl was disappointed. He said he had heard in the mills that the newcomer at the Manor was a girl, and lame, too. He didn't know what difference it made to any of them, anyway. He scowled a little as he said it.

Dale had his father's strong body and his mother's face of a dreamer; his eyes were brooding like Beryl's but his mouth was wide and tender and might have seemed weak but for the strength in the square cut jaw.

Since that time, ten years back, when he had resolutely put behind him his precious ambitions and had taken the first job he could find, he had been the recognized head of the family. As such he turned to Beryl now.

"I suppose you'll let this rich little girl wipe her feet on you and you'll love it," he said with such scorn that Beryl turned hot and cold in speechless anger.

"Now, sonny, now, sonny. Let's wait until we know the poor little thing," begged his mother.

But for Beryl, except for the fun of wearing the beads, all joy for the moment had fled. She had particularly wanted to impress Dale with her good fortune. She had often, of course, heard Dale speak scathingly and bitterly of the "classes" and the "privileged few" and the unfairness of things in general, but she had paid little attention to it and could not, anyway, connect it with unassuming Robin. When he met Robin, he'd understand—and while Dale ate ravenously and talked to his father between mouthfuls, she planned how she would bring Robin to supper the very next time she came home, despite her vow that she would never let Robin see how humble and small her home was.

After supper Beryl helped her mother clear away and Dale brought out his "plaything" which was what he laughingly called the contrivance of strings and spools and little wooden wheels he had made and which he and his father "played with" each evening. Beryl had often wondered why Dale seemed to care so much about it; why he spent hours and hours drawing and figuring on bits of paper. Of course it amused the father, who, during the day, cut the spools into tiny wheels, with a sharp jack-knife; but it must be stupid for Dale to spend all of his evenings over the silly thing. Beryl often lounged on the back of his chair and listened to discover whether there was any part of the game she might like.

Tonight Dale's interest seemed forced.

"If I could just find out what's needed here—" he growled, touching the delicate contrivance. "That's the way! While I'm racking my poor old nut, some other fellow's going to make the whole thing out!"

Danny Lynch's big hand trembled where it lay on the table. "If I had had the learning—" he began. "I could help, mebbe."

Dale hastened to comfort him. "You don't get that stuff from books, exactly, Pop. It comes here," touching his head. "If I only had the money to have the thing made in metal. Oh, well, what's the use of talking. The thing's got my goat, though. I'm thinking about it all the time. Say, Mom, can I bring Adam Kraus over to supper some night? He said he'd like to meet Pop and he's a good sort."

This Adam Kraus had only recently come to the Mills. He had at first impressed the neighborhood somewhat unfavorably, for he encouraged a suggestion of mystery, lived at the Inn, kept aloof from everyone, and seemed to have no family. Moira's own quick thought of him when Dale had pointed him out on the road in front of the Mill store was that "he looked too white for a working man." But he seemed to have singled Dale out for his advances; Dale thought he was a good sort and had met him more than half-way; Dale who had had to work too hard by day and study at night to make any close friendships. Whether she liked him or not, he should have the best she could offer.

"I'm going to bring Robin—I mean, Miss Forsyth, down here the next time I come," broke in Beryl.

"And of course you can. And Dale shall bring his friend, too."

"And you can wear your fine beads, Sis," finished Dale, teasingly.

"And it's a nice pot roast and cabbage salad we'll have, too. And a bit of the fruit cake with real butter sauce." Wasn't she going to get her check soon from the store to which she sent her lace?

So Beryl forgot her vexation and Dale his problem with his wooden toy in pleasant anticipation of the "dinner party," as Mrs. Moira grandly called it, out of respect to the pot roast and the fruit cake which Miss Lewis had sent them and which was hidden away in a huge crock in the shed.

"Mom, can't I take the beads back with me? They're so pretty and I haven't a thing that's nice," begged Beryl as the moment for her to return to the Manor came.

"The Princess and the Beggar-maid!" laughed Dale.

"My fine lady must have her jewels!" added big Danny.

Beryl flushed under their teasing but held her tongue, for didn't she always have that picture blazed in her heart of the moment when with her violin she would hold enthralled her unappreciative family and thousands of others? Then they would not laugh at her!

"I'll be ever so careful of them and only wear them once in a while," she promised.

Though Mrs. Moira would, of course, have given her children anything they wanted that was hers, she hesitated now, not from reluctance to part with her one "pretty" but because suddenly out of the silent past came the old father's words: "They are only beads. But they'll remind you of this day." She had been seventeen then—a slip of a girl. Beryl was almost sixteen now.

"The shame to me! Sure, it's only beads they are!" she laughed, with a little catch in her voice. "Of course you shall take them."



CHAPTER X

THE LADY OF THE RUSHING WATERS

"What'll we do today?"

Beryl asked the question, turning from her post between the curtains of Robin's sitting-room. Not in a tone of complaint did she speak, rather as though weighing which pastime would be most worthy of the unexpected holiday.

For poor Percival Tubbs had "neuralgy" and could not leave his room; Harkness had told them when he carried in their breakfast.

"This is just the kind of a day you'd like something to happen," Beryl went on, permitting a sigh to convey how much she would welcome that something. "It's all gray and mysterious. The hills look awfully far away. It's lonesomey."

Robin looked anxiously to her companion. She did not feel lonesome at all. This room, where they ate their breakfast each morning at Harkness' suggestion, was cosy and full of inviting books and pretty pictures and comfy chairs; Harkness was ever so nice and concerned as to their comfort, they were as secure from Mrs. Budge's hostility as thick walls and Harkness' vigilance could make them and—best of all, a letter from her Jimmie, full of Mr. Tony's plans and their contemplated sailing, lay close to her heart.

"What would you like most to do, Beryl?"

"Oh, let's ask Williams to take us for a long ride—I adore going like the wind," answered Beryl promptly.

This suggestion appealed to Robin, who, although she didn't like to "go like the wind," never tired of riding among the hills. She went immediately with Beryl to find Williams, the chauffeur. Williams, like the others around the Manor, with the exception of Mrs. Budge, had fallen under Robin's spell and was enjoying the stir that her coming brought to the old house. So he declared, now, that it would be a "nice day for a run" and they could take the Cornwall road, because there was a fellow in Cornwall he ought to see.

Before the holiday fun could begin Beryl had her "duties" to perform. These were tasks which she had set for herself so that she might not feel for one moment that she was living on Robin's charity and were most of them quite unnecessary and little things that Robin would really like to do herself. However Beryl was too proudly intent upon saving her pride to realize this and Robin, instinctively understanding, let her have her way.

Finally started, the girls snuggled close together in the car, holding hands under the big robe. And, as they sped over the smooth road, each let her thoughts take wings. Beryl's, with the honest self-centredness that was characteristic of her, fluttered about herself. How she looked in this peachy car—how she'd love to steer it and just step on the gas and fly; some day, when she was famous, she'd have a car like this only much bigger and painted yellow and she'd take Mom and Pop out and go through the Mill neighborhood so that that gossipy Mrs. Whaley who had called her "stuck-up" could see her. What she'd do in Robin's shoes, anyway! Why, Robin didn't know what money meant, probably because Robin had never wanted any one big thing, like she did.

Robin, beside her, sat in cosy contentment—mainly because of her precious letter. She drew a mental picture of her Jimmie, sailing away. Then her thoughts came back to the gray hills and she wished her father might see them at that moment, so as to paint them. He would love Wassumsic, she knew—but, oh, he would hate the Mills. He would think, as she did, that it was too bad they had built the Mill cottages between the dingy buildings and the freight yards when they might have built them where each window could have overlooked the climbing fields and woods, where the children could have played in sweet grass the livelong day and built beautiful snow forts when it was winter.

Beryl suddenly broke the silence by a gleeful "Isn't this fun?" as Williams coasted down a long grade with a breath-catching acceleration of speed.

The wind had whipped a fine color into the girls' cheeks, the changing scenes about them were of untiring interest; they exclaimed delightedly over each curve and hill in the road, each tiny hamlet through which they passed. All too soon, they reached Cornwall and started on the homeward way.

At the top of a steep hill Williams slowed down to slip the gear into second. In the valley below them was a collection of unpainted houses, leaning towards one another as though for protection against the growing things about them.

"The Forgotten Village!" cried Robin. "Don't you feel just as though we might tumble over into it?"

"A good place to drive right through," Williams answered with a scornful laugh.

Alas, poor Williams—he brought the car skilfully and safely down the difficult hill only to have it stop, with a reproachful snort, in the very heart of the little village.

"What's the matter?" asked the girls in one breath as Williams, with an explosive exclamation, jumped from his seat.

There was a moment of investigation, before the man replied.

"No gas!".

"Is that all?"

"All! I'll say that's enough—here. Don't look as though anyone'd know what gas is in these parts. You sit in the car while I ask someone, Miss Forsyth."

"You wanted something to happen, Beryl," laughed Robin, as Williams walked away.

"Pooh! This isn't much of an adventure. And I'm awfully hungry."

Poor Williams returned with the word that he'd have to walk on to the next town—unless he was lucky enough to meet someone who'd help him out. He advised the girls waiting in the store.

"There isn't even a telephone in this dump," he grumbled resentfully, quite forgetting that he had only his own carelessness to blame for the whole thing.

Neither Robin nor Beryl had the slightest intention of waiting in the funny little store where the crackers and tea and coffee looked as old as the old man who came out from behind the counter at their approach. They waited until Williams had disappeared, then went forth to explore the Forgotten Village. Unabashed, they stared at the weather-beaten houses, at the old woman, a faded shawl tied around her head, washing clothes at a pump, at the hideous square of dingy brick which served as school house and church, its window frames stuffed here and there with rags, a pathetic sign upon which was printed "library," hanging crazily by one nail.

Beyond the church stood an old mill, its roof tumbled in. Exploring it the girls heard the sound of tumbling water and discovered a stream breaking its way through thick undergrowth. A lane, marked by two wagon ruts, edged the course of the stream.

"Let's see where this goes," suggested Beryl.

Robin limped willingly after her. It was an alluring lane, even in November, for the ghostly gray branches of old trees met and interlocked close overhead, fir trees, mingling with the silver white trunks of slender birches, walled it either side, a whirring of invisible wings added to its apartness and the little stream, tumbling its way, sounded like laughter.

"Isn't this the loveliest spot? Wherever do you suppose it comes out?" For the lane twisted and turned as it climbed.

"Robin, there's a house!"

Ahead of them the girls could see through the trees the outlines of a low square house. And as they drew nearer, walking stealthily, they stared in amazement. For, unlike its neighbors in the village below, this house was as white as fresh white paint could make it, at the windows hung crisply white curtains, a brass knocker dignified its broad door.

Robin, always imaginative, clutched Beryl's arm with a breathless giggle. "Beryl, it's like the house of bread and cake with the window panes of sugar. Do you suppose someone will call out: 'Tip-tap, tip-tap, who raps on my door'?"

"Sh-h! I'm hungry enough to eat the roof. Let's ask for a drink of water so's to see the inside."

Robin did not think it was just nice to deliberately intrude upon the privacy of this shut-away house but Beryl, not waiting for her approval, knocked boldly on the heavy old door.

When the door swung open, however, and a beaked-nosed woman, absurdly like the witch of the fairy story, confronted the girls, Beryl stood tongue-tied and Robin had to come to the rescue.

"Can we—if you please, we had an accident—I mean, we went for a walk—oh, may we have a drink of water?" she floundered, fairly blinking before the sharply piercing eyes of the woman in the door.

"Who is it, Brina?" came from within, whereupon the woman answered in rapid German, her head turned backward over her shoulder, her hand still on the doorknob.

"Shame on you, Brina. They are two children—lost, perhaps. Let them come in."

The room was disappointingly like any other old country-house living room; scrupulously clean and shining, a wide fireplace aglow with a wood fire that cast bright splotches of color over the low walls, the faded rag rugs, the piece-work cushions on the old wooden settle.

Close to its warmth sat a white-haired woman, one long thin hand supporting her head in such a way as to keep her face in a shadow.



Robin explained their presence in the lane, incoherently, for there was something frightening about the silent, composed figure and the intentness with which those shadowed eyes scrutinized her. While Robin talked, Beryl swiftly surveyed the room and its occupants, not least of which was a great St. Bernard dog, that, after one "gr'f'f" leaned against his mistress' chair and regarded the intruders with watchful eyes as though to reserve advances, friendly or hostile.

Her account finished, Robin smiled bravely back into the grave face, with that enchanting tenderness which had won Cornelius Allendyce and enticed him to strange deeds.

The smile worked its spell at least on the dog for he moved slowly over to her, lifted a big paw and placed it gravely upon her shoulder.

"Caesar declares you a friend," said the woman in a slow, low-pitched voice. "He does not welcome many into our seclusion. Please sit down. Brina, bring these young ladies a pitcher of milk and some cookies."

Brina swung out of the room at her mistress' bidding. Robin, uncomfortable but immensely curious and excited, sat on the edge of the settle and chattered, while Beryl, well behind their silent hostess, made mysterious signs with fingers and lips and eyes.

"We think this is the loveliest spot—the old town and the mill and this lane—and all. No one would ever dream from the road that this house was here. Has it a name? First I called it the House of Bread and Cake and Sugar—like the fairy story, but it ought to be called the House of Rushing Waters, hadn't it?"

"That will do—very nicely. No, no one would know from the road that the house stands here."

But when Robin ventured: "Aren't you ever lonely?" there was a perceptible tightening of the lips that made her sorry she had asked it.

"Robin, there's something funny about that whole place," declared Beryl, half-an-hour later as they went back down the lane. "I was doing some thinking while you were talking."

"She's a dear old lady, Beryl. I feel sorry for her."

"Oh, yes, dear enough. I thought she was stand-offish. But you don't think for a moment she belongs 'round here, in the same town with that old cheese down at the store?"

Robin admitted that everything about her House of Rushing Waters was very different from the Forgotten Village.

"Wasn't that Brina just like a witch with her parrot nose and sharp eyes?"

But Beryl had no patience just now with Robin's beloved fairy lore. Two little lines wrinkled her brow.

"There's something queer about that place or my name isn't Beryl Lynch. And I like to know what's what. Wouldn't it be fun to find out what it is? Whether she's hiding there on account of something or someone's keeping her a prisoner? Maybe—" Beryl lowered her voice, "maybe she's crazy."

"Oh, Beryl, she didn't act a bit crazy. Just very sad. She was nice. I thought the room was lovely, too—and the lunch and that darling dog." Robin had thoroughly enjoyed the simple hospitality and meant to defend it.

"Of course the room was nice," Beryl felt that she showed much patience with Robin's obtuseness, "but didn't you see anything different in that room? Books and magazines! Country people don't sit and read magazines and knit on rose wool in the middle of the afternoon! Robin, that woman's a lady! And you notice she didn't tell us who she was. And a woman with her talking some foreign jibberish."

"Beryl, you're wonderful to notice all these things. I'd never have noticed half of them."

Beryl tossed her head with pride. "Nothing much escapes me," she boasted. "And I think it was a good thing we didn't tell her just who we were. But let's not let a soul know about our finding this place until we unravel the mystery."

Robin hesitated. "She was so nice to us and it's really none of our business why she's there or who she is—" she argued so staunchly that Beryl put in hastily: "Well, let's just have it a secret because secrets are such fun." And to that Robin agreed gladly, for secrets are fun and are always a strengthening bond in true friendship.

"I won't tell a soul!" she promised.

They found Williams waiting for them at the store, worried at their disappearance and annoyed at the delay. He had walked many miles in payment for his carelessness.

As they rushed homeward, both girls thought of the house they had left and its lonely occupant.

"Wouldn't wonder a bit if she might be some royalty person hiding here from anarchists," whispered Beryl, with a burst of imagination, amazing for her, tinged by a novel she had recently read.

"Would we dare go again to see her?"

"Of course we're going. Even if you don't, I want to find out who she is and all about her."

"I'd just like to see her again and that darling dog. If she doesn't want to tell us who she is I don't want her to! It's more fun to pretend that her house is made of bread and cake and sugar."

"Pooh!" was Beryl's impatient answer.

And that evening, as though in defense of her suspicions she thrust a newspaper under Robin's nose with an expressive "There, read that!" at the same time pointing to an inconspicuous paragraph.

The paragraph told of the mysterious disappearance of its Dowager Queen from the little warring Balkan kingdom of Altruria.

"She could be in this country as well as not. I read a book once where a Duke hid for five years right in the heart of New York and then met his heir face to face on Broadway. Wouldn't it be fun if that old woman was this Dowager Queen?"

"But, Beryl, she talked English. Wouldn't she talk—some other language?"

Beryl was not to be discouraged. "Dowagers don't. They talk ever so many tongues. English as good as any. I'll bet anything you say. You just wait."



CHAPTER XI

POT ROAST AND CABBAGE SALAD

The following Wednesday had been set for Mrs. Lynch's dinner of "pot roast and cabbage salad."

"You'll think we're awfully poor, Robin, when you see that mean old cottage," Beryl complained as the girls were dressing for the dinner.

Robin, hesitating between a Madonna blue and a yellow dress, turned quickly at the tone in Beryl's voice.

"Oh, Beryl, what difference does your house make! I want to know your mother and your father and—Dale."

"Well, there's no use your dressing up—it'll just make everything else there look absurdly shabby."

Robin laid the garment she held down upon the bed. A puzzled look darkened the glow in her eyes. There were a great many times when she found it difficult to understand Beryl's changing moods. She herself was too indifferent to clothes to know that it was the two pretty gowns she had brought out from her wardrobe that had now sent Beryl into the dumps.

"I won't dress up, Beryl. I just thought your mother would like to have me—out of respect to her party. I didn't think you wouldn't like it. But if you think I'm going down there to stare around at the things in the house and pick to pieces the dishes and the food—you're wrong, Beryl. I think your mother must be a wonderful woman and I am just crazy to meet her and I know I'm going to love your father and I never talked to a boy in my whole life except in school when I had to! There!" Robin stopped for very lack of breath.

This unexpected show of spirit, so unlike Robin's usual gentleness, took Beryl back. Fond as she was of her mother she had never thought of her as exactly "wonderful" or of anyone wanting to know her, or her poor, crippled father, or Dale. She laughed a little shamefacedly.

"Oh, wear what you want to, Robin. I suppose I'm jealous because I haven't anything except that old gray thing that's just tottering with age. What a joke to call Dale a boy! Why, he's never been a boy, because he's worked so hard for everything."

"Well, I'm glad I'm going to meet him, anyway." Robin spoke with excitement. It did not matter at all what she wore—without a moment's hesitation she put away the blue and the yellow dress and brought forth the mouse colored jersey she had worn when she arrived at Gray Manor—she was going to meet Beryl's family. Robin, who had never had any family except "Jimmie," imagined beautiful things of family life, mostly colored by books she had read and pictures she had seen. Brothers were always big strong fellows who sometimes teased their younger sisters but were always ready with a helping hand; fathers—well, she knew about fathers, having had Jimmie, but Beryl's father must be very different because of his accident. It was "Mom" that she most wanted to know. She hoped Beryl's mother would kiss her. At the thought her heart gave a quick little beat.

When Percival Tubbs, to whom Harkness, uncertain as to the propriety of a Forsyth dining at one of the Mill cottages had appealed, had mildly endeavored to point out to Robin that this dinner-party was not exactly "fitting," Robin had simply not been able to understand and had answered so honestly: "Why, just because I'm a Forsyth doesn't make me a bit better than those people who work in the Mills, does it?" That Mr. Tubbs had abandoned his point with a mental reservation not unlike Mrs. Budge's beloved: "Things are going to sixes and sevens."

And below stairs the loyal Harkness, putting off his own doubt, had met Mrs. Budge's scorn of the whole "goings-on" with a grand defense of his little mistress: "Some lydies in 'igh places distribute their bounty in baskets but if Miss Gordon sees fit to carry 'ers in her pretty little 'eart, I don't say it's for us to be a thinking it isn't the 'appier way," and Budge knew he was very much in earnest because he forgot his h's, a little trick of speech he had long ago overcome.

For a finishing touch to her despised "best" dress, Beryl brought forth her green beads. Robin exclaimed over them, taking them out of Beryl's hand to hold them to the light.

"Oh, they are lovely, Beryl, see the deep glow! They're like the sea. You ought to be proud of them."

"They're just some beads an old priest gave mother when she was a girl," Beryl explained, making her voice indifferent. She loved Robin's enthusiasm but half-suspected it might be "put on" in order to make up to her for the things she did not have. "They do look nice on this dress, though, don't they?" She laid them against her neck and stared with satisfaction at the reflection in the long mirror.

The Lynch cottage, in honor of the occasion, sparkled with orderliness. Mrs. Moira looked very gay in a pretty foulard she had made over from two of Miss Lewis' old dresses; her fluttering hands alone betrayed her nervousness and her fears that though the most tempting smells came from the stove her dinner might not be "just right" for little Miss Forsyth and for Dale's new friend, too.

However, when Robin came into the room with Beryl she looked so appealingly small that Mrs. Lynch promptly forgot she was a Forsyth and that the dinner might not be good enough and put her arms around her and kissed her. And Robin with an impulsive movement snuggled closer to the warm embrace.

"Why, it's a mite of a thing you are," cried Mrs. Moira with the singing note in her voice that always came when she was deeply moved. "And hungry, I hope. Well, Dale will be here in a moment and then we'll dish up."

Then everything was just like Robin had hoped it would be. Beryl's mother called them "children" and let them help her with the finishing touches of the dinner. Beryl's father smiled at her and patted her hand. She did not see the little room with Beryl's eyes, its limited space into which so much had to be crowded, the cracked shade on the lamp, the dingy carpeting that held together through some kind miracle, she only thought it cosy and homey; she liked the queer old clock and the blue bowl filled with artificial jonquils and the crocheted "tidies" with dogs designed in intricate stitches.

"Here's Dale!" whispered Beryl. "I'm crazy to meet his friend. I'm going to sit next to him at the table, see if I don't."

In the excitement of Dale's arrival and of introducing the strange "Mr. Kraus" no one noticed Robin for a moment, or that she stared at Dale with round, puzzled eyes. Had she ever seen him before? When Beryl turned suddenly and said: "Dale, this is Gordon Forsyth," she hoped he would say: "Why, I know her." However, he merely mumbled "How do you do," stiffly, and turned away, to Beryl's indignation and Robin's vague disappointment.

The pot roast and the cabbage salad were as delicious as Mrs. Moira's loving pains could make them; Dale's friend talked mostly to big Danny and Mrs. Moira listened and Dale occasionally put in a word. Over her plate Robin watched first one and then another, her eyes invariably coming back to Dale's face. Beryl, annoyed that no one noticed her and Robin and treated them "as though they were just children," ate ravenously, in dignified silence.

The talk centered about the Mills. Adam Kraus freely ridiculed the Forsyth methods. "They're miles behind the times," he declared and compared them glibly with other similar industries. "Old Norris belongs to the has-beens. Look at the machinery he uses—all right in its day, of course. But if a fellow went to him with some new kind of a loom, would he look at it? Not he! The old's good enough."

"Hear that, Pop?" put in Dale, exchanging a meaning glance with his father.

"And look at the way they house the mill hands here, putting a fellow like Dale with his cleanness and his brains and his possibilities, into a dump like this. They don't recognize the human element in industries of this sort or what it's worth to them. Why, there's no argument any more as to the increased efficiency from giving better living conditions—but I'll bet Norris hasn't heard of it."

"We haven't been here long enough to know—" Mrs. Lynch began gently but Dale interrupted her, his voice rough.

"It isn't Norris alone, Adam. You've got to go further up—it's the House of Forsyth. They're feudal lords—or like to think they are. Do you suppose it mattered much up there, when the little Castle girl had her arm crushed in that old wheel last month and died because her body wasn't nourished enough to stand under the amputation? A lot they cared—just one bit of machinery gone for a day—another—"

"Dale—" cried Mrs. Lynch, in distressed embarrassment, and suddenly everyone looked at Robin.

Robin had been listening to Adam Kraus and Dale with deep interest. It was not until Mrs. Lynch exclaimed and all eyes turned in her direction that she connected what they were saying with her own self. Under Dale's sudden scrutiny she flushed.

"I forgot you were here, little Miss Forsyth." But this was so far from an apology that Mrs. Lynch looked more distressed than before and Beryl glared at her brother.

"Oh, please don't mind me," begged Robin. She was glad Dale did not say he was sorry for what he had been saying; she wanted to know more. She wanted to tell them that she called the Mills a Giant and that she hated them and that Cornelius Allendyce had told her she should look for a Jack who could climb the Bean Stalk, only she was afraid of the stranger and a little of Dale, too. "Won't you tell me all about the—the Castle girl?"

"There isn't much to tell about her that's different from ninety-nine other cases. She was supporting a younger brother and sister. The brother's only twelve years old but he had to go to work—said he was sixteen. The kid sister helps the grandmother as much as she can."

"Do they live in one of these houses?"

"In the old village. They're cheaper, you see. The boy can't earn as much as Sarah Castle did and they had to move up the river."

"Could I go to see them—sometime?"

Mrs. Lynch answered for Dale. "Of course you can, dearie. And I'll go with you. It's from my own county they say the grandmother comes and likely she'll know some of the old people."

"Oh, will you?" Robin's eyes shone like two deep pools reflecting starlight. "I'd like to know everyone here in the village and what they do. Perhaps the—the other Forsyths wanted to really know the Mill people, too, only they—they've been so unhappy. But I'm different, you see—I'm a girl and so sort of—little."

"Bless the warm little heart of her—defending her own," thought Mrs. Lynch, and Dale, his face softening until it was boyish, smiled and said: "You are a little thing, aren't you?"

At his smile, a wave of memory rushed over Robin with such suddenness that a breathless "oh" escaped her parted lips. A dark night and lonely streets, a chill wind cutting her face, an iron fence enclosing a deserted triangle of dead grass and filthy papers—a kind voice telling her not to cry—of course, her Prince! She peeped almost fearfully at Dale who was joking with Beryl. He did not know—he had forgotten, of course. He had been a big boy, then, and he had not gone on playing the little game the way she had. How wonderful, how very wonderful, to find him. And Beryl's brother! She did not mind at all what he had said about the Forsyth's. If he said it, it must be true. She would find out.

Mrs. Lynch, beaming over her simple dinner, little knew that Destiny sat at her board, shaping, moulding, gathering and weaving the threads of life, golden and drab.

To Beryl's disgust, after the meal Dale brought forth his "toy." But Adam Kraus, instead of showing the boredom which Beryl expected, studied it with absorbed keenness, quickly grasping what Dale wanted to do.

"Have you ever shown this to Morris?" he asked Dale.

Dale shook his head. "No use to do it now—until I've worked the thing out to perfection. And I can't do that—without money."

Robin, wiping plates for Mrs. Lynch, caught Dale's words and Adam Kraus' answer.

"I wonder if Norris would see what an invention like that—if you can make it do what you say you can—would be worth to these mills. It would lift them out of the boneyard of antiquity and put them fifty years ahead of their competitors. Why, I'll bet Granger's would give you a cool twenty thousand for that just as it stands. It would serve Norris right, too."

Dale's face flushed with excitement. "Do you really think all that, Adam? Pop and I've gotten so down in the dumps trying to work the thing out that we've lost our sense of values."

"Inventors never have any," laughed Kraus, with a change in his voice. And he commenced hastily to talk of other things, to Dale's disappointment.

Robin pulled timidly at Dale's arm.

"Who's Grangers?"

"Grangers? Don't you know the big mills up at South Falls?"

"Would they—if they took—that—you'd go there—" She tried desperately to voice the fear that had shaped in her heart; Grangers taking this funny wooden thing that Mr. Kraus said was worth so much, and Dale going away from Wassumsic, and Dale's mother—and Beryl.

"You just bet I would," and Dale laughed. "But don't worry, we won't be going for a while."

Robin had so much to think about that night that she could not go to sleep. She did not want to go to sleep. Up to this day she had been just little Robin Forsyth, "Red-Robin," at Gray Manor to let Jimmie have his chance; happy, because Jimmie was having his chance and Beryl was with her and Beryl was unfailingly interesting.

Now she realized that a Forsyth couldn't be just "anything." A Forsyth ought to care about those awful Mills, that were in some sort of a "boneyard," and about the people who worked in them—especially poor Sarah Castle's brother and sister. And there were probably many other boys and girls. She'd ask Mrs. Lynch—or Dale.

Beryl stirred and Robin ventured to speak.

"Beryl, are you awake? If Mr. Norris bought that invention of your brother's, would it make things easier for—the Mill people?"

Beryl jerked herself up on her elbow.

"Red-Robin Forsyth, are you crazy? Fussing over that absurd toy of Dale's at this hour? Why should you care?" Beryl sank back into her pillows and stretched. "Didn't Mr. Kraus have the most glorious eyes?"

Robin answered with amazing positiveness. "No, I hated his eyes. They were not true eyes. But—I like Dale—lots." And just here, for the second time, she locked her lips on her precious secret for Dale must never know that she remembered him; all that belonged to her childhood. Beryl might laugh, too, as she often did at her "fancies," and call her "funny."

Thinking of Dale brought her thoughts back to the Mills so that while Beryl snuggled her sleepy head back into her pillow, she stared at the thin shaft of light that shone under the door and wished she was big instead of "a little bit of a thing" and very wise so that she would know what to do to show these people in Wassumsic that she—a Forsyth, did care.



CHAPTER XII

ROBIN WRITES A LETTER

Cornelius Allendyce had returned to New York from Gray Manor with his mind pleasantly at ease so far as Gordon Forsyth was concerned. His associates noticed a certain smugness and satisfaction about him and they often caught him smiling at inappropriate moments and then pulling himself together as though his thoughts had been wandering far from fields of law.

Cornelius Allendyce did feel pleased with himself. How many men would have dared put this thing through the way he had? And how well it had all turned out; Madame somewhere seeking her "rest," living in her past, her mind undisturbed, Jimmie sailing away to get inspiration, and little Robin happy in the shelter of Gray Manor. Indeed, it had all turned out so surprisingly well that he could tuck it away, figuratively speaking, in the steel box in his safe, marked "Forsyth." Only he did not want to—he liked to think it all over.

Up to the time of finding Robin, girls were a species of the human race of which the lawyer knew little. He supposed that they were all alike—pretty, fun-loving, timid, giggly, prone to curl themselves like kittens, impulsive, and pardonably vain. He knew absolutely nothing of the fearless, honest, open-air girls, with hearts and souls as straight and clean as their healthy young bodies or that there were legions like little Robin and Beryl who, because they had been cheated of much that went to the making of these others, stood as a type apart. He only thought—as he went over the whole thing—that Robin's Jimmie was to blame for her being "different," leaving her alone so much and letting her take responsibilities way over her head; now she would enjoy the girlish pleasures that were her due. His sister Effie had supplied her with everything in the way of clothes and knick-knacks she could want; Harkness would keep old Mrs. Budge in line, Tubbs would go light with the school work—he had certainly made a point of that, and, when he could run up to Wassumsic again, he'd look over this little companion Robin had adopted. If she were not all that she ought to be (Miss Effie had somewhat disturbed him on this point) why, a change could be made; someone a little older and more cultured (Miss Effie's word) could be sent up from New York.

Upon this train of pleasant contemplation, enjoyed at intervals in his work, Robin's letter, written a few days after her dinner at Mrs. Lynch's, fell like a bomb.

"DEAR GUARDIAN," she had begun,

I am ever so sorry I haven't written for so long, but I haven't had a minute, really, truly. There are so many things to look at and to do. I am beginning to really love Gray Manor—it is so always and always beautiful. Mr. Harkness is a dear and is very good and tells me what to do many times when I am stupid and do not see for myself—like the finger-bowls. Jimmie and I never used finger-bowls. I don't mind the school work, though I simply can't keep up with Beryl. When you come up, I will tell you how wonderful Beryl is and all about her family. Her mother had a lovely dinner one night and Beryl took me. Beryl is going to be a great violinist, you know, and she is saving money to buy a real violin that will be all her own and take lessons. She will not let me do a thing to help her, which is splendid—I mean, for her to be so proud and brave, though I wish she would let me do just a little.

We have some very good times together, mostly taking lovely rides back in the hills to places Harkness tells us about and once we took our lunch and Mr. Tubbs and Harkness went, though Mr. Tubbs had dreadful neuralgia afterwards. Beryl and I read every evening. I love the books. I think I've been hungry for them all my life and didn't know it. We're playing a game to see which of us can read the most. We can play forever because one day we counted the books in the library and there are one thousand and seventy four and Harkness says there are more in Christopher the Third's room. Harkness has been telling us all about him and he showed us his picture—you know, the one in the Dragon's sitting-room (I apologize, in Aunt Mathilde's room) and he looked like a young prince, didn't he? How will Aunt Mathilde ever reconcile herself to a little insignificant, lame thing like me when she sees me?

Oh, I wish I could really truly meet my good Fairy somewhere—the one who forgot to attend my birth—and she'd give me one wish, I'd just ask for one. And that wish would be to G-R-O-W. I never cared before but now I want to be BIG. Oh, and wise! Mr. Tubbs will tell you how stupid I am. A Forsyth ought to be big and wise. You see, before this I have never thought of myself as a real true Forsyth—I've always just been Jimmie's daughter. But lately I've been thinking a lot about what a Forsyth ought to be and there are about a million questions I'd like to ask:

1. Ought Mr. Norris to let the Mills sink into a boneyard of antiquity?

2. What is the very most money I could spend all in one lump and can I spend it without telling anyone about it beforehand?

3. There's an empty cottage just below where the Manor road crosses the river and Williams says the Forsyths own it. Can Beryl and I use it for a club?

Thinking of the questions makes me forget the other nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety seven, (I did that on paper) but please come to Gray Manor soon so that I can ask the rest.

Your loving Red-Robin.

P.S. The violin came and thanks ever and ever so much though Beryl says she will not call it hers for one little minute. But she most cried over it she loves it so and she makes the most beautiful music with it. I am dreadfully jealous because she won't even listen to a word I say now. She says she's living in the clouds. It's wonderful to have a big dream, isn't it? But I am starting one which I'll tell you when it's big enough."

Mr. Allendyce read the letter three times, stopping at intervals to polish his glasses as though they must be at fault. "What does this mean?" he exclaimed over and over. "What's up?"

Why on earth was Robin worrying her little head over the Mills and talking so absurdly about a boneyard? And why did she want more money? And who were these people with whom she had dined? And what did she and Beryl want with a club when they had all Gray Manor to play in?

Not able to answer any of these disturbing questions the poor man sought out Miss Effie—who, having been a girl, once, herself, ought to know something of the vagaries of a girl's mind.

Miss Effie felt very proud that her brother cared anything for her opinion. She nodded wisely and smiled reassuringly.

"Girl notions—that's all. Don't worry over the foibles of growing girls. It's one thing today and something else tomorrow."

The guardian was not so easily reassured. "But Robin isn't like other girls—" he began, with a disturbing recollection of Robin's highhandedness in engaging a companion.

"Tush! Bosh!" Miss Effie would not let him go on. "Girls are all alike under their skins. This poor kiddie's been starved for nice things and her sudden good fortune's gone to her head. She doesn't know the value of money, either; what'd seem big to her would be carfare for you. Give her more to do. And she ought to know some young folks."

Now Cornelius Allendyce beamed fondly upon his sister. She had comforted him. Of course, Robin's subconscious self was reaching out to touch the lives of others. In spite of their uncertain living she and Jimmie were of a sociable sort—he ought not to have expected that she would be content in Gray Manor with no outside interests.

"Couldn't that tutor get up a party?"

"That's a good idea, sister. I'll write to Tubbs. Probably the county's expecting something of the sort, anyway. I suppose it ought to be rather simple—she's so young and Madame Forsyth being away. I'll raise the child's allowance, too—let her spend it if she can, bless her heart."

His mind once more quite at ease, Cornelius Allendyce put Robin's letter into his pocket. He would write to her the next day and to Percival Tubbs. He ought to have consulted his sister sooner. Well, a guardian learned something new every day, he told himself, with a smile.

* * * * *

No one had suspected the torment of thought that racked poor Robin's head for the few days following the dinner-party. She had arisen that next morning with the firm resolve to "be" a Forsyth, but she did not know just what she ought to do first and there was no one to tell her. Beryl was no more sympathetic than she had been the night before and had answered her persistent questioning absentmindedly. However, unknowingly, she did give two helpful hints, upon which Robin seized gratefully.

"Mother says that what Wassumsic ought to have is a clubhouse like Miss Lewis' place in New York. Mother took care of that, you know. Miss Lewis is a wonder. She always declared children need fun just the way they need milk and she fixed it so that they got both."

"Oh, yes, there are ever so many boys and girls in Wassumsic only they're mostly working in the Mills. I'd have to work there myself only I've made Dale believe that I can do something—else. If I ever started in the old Mills I'd be like the others. That's the way—you begin and then you never know how to do anything different."

"I'm glad you're not there. I'm like—Dale. I know you'll be a wonderful violinist some day!" Robin never failed to say what Beryl wanted.

Beryl tossed her head. "I could have just settled down into a drudge, working all day and too tired at night to care what I did and saving just enough out of my pay envelope to buy me a hair-net but I wouldn't begin! I wouldn't! They can all call me proud and lazy but I'll show them—old Henri Jacques and Martini himself said I would! But I've had to fight to make people believe me—and I s'pose I'll have to go on fighting." To the egotism of sixteen years these words sounded very grand; it stirred Beryl to think she had fought for every advantage that was hers, to read the admiration in Robin's eyes. She had no thought of disloyalty in claiming the credit that really belonged to the little mother who had dreamed the dream first for her girl and then, through years of work and self-denial, had lived for that dream to come true.

After the arrival of the violin Beryl promptly lost herself in a trance of rapture that left Robin to her own pursuits. Only once the quite human thought flashed to her mind that Beryl might be a little bit interested in what she wanted to do but she put it away as unworthy for, she told herself, Beryl, destined one day to stand on a pedestal, could not be expected to bother with such every-day things as planning "fun" for the Mill children.