"Are you willing to leave the matter to me, Helen?"

"What did I give you a retainer for?" demanded the girl from Sunset Ranch, smiling.

"True," he replied, his own eyes dancing; "but there is a saying among lawyers that the feminine client does not really come to a lawyer for advice; rather, she pays him to listen to her talk."

"Isn't that horrid of him?" cried Jess, unable to keep still any longer. "As though we girls talked any more than the men do. I should say not!"

But Helen agreed to let Dud govern her future course in trying to untangle the web of circumstance that had driven her father out of New York years before. As Dud said, somebody was guilty, and that somebody was the person they must find.

It encouraged Helen mightily to have someone talk this way about the matter. A solution of the problem seemed so imminent after she parted from the fledgling lawyer and his sister, that Helen determined to hasten to their conclusion certain plans she had made, before she returned to the West.

For Helen could not remain here. Her uncle's home was not the refined household that dear dad had thought, in which she would be sheltered and aided in improving herself.

"I might as well take board at the Zoo and live in the bear's den," declared Helen, perhaps a little harsh in her criticism. "There are no civilizing influences in that house. I'd never get a particle of 'culture' there. I'd rather associate with Sing, and Jo-Rab, and the boys, and Hen Billings."

Her experience in the great city had satisfied Helen that its life was not for her. Some things she had learned, it was true; but most of them were unpleasant things.

"I'd rather hire some lady to come out to Sunset and live with me and teach me how to act gracefully in society, and all that. There are a lot of 'poor, but proud' people who would be glad of the chance, I know."

But on this day—after she had left her riding habit at a tailor's to be brushed and pressed, and had made arrangements to make her changes there whenever she wished to ride in the morning—on this day Helen had something else to do beside thinking of her proper introduction to society. This was the first day it had been fit for her to go downtown since she and Sadie Goronsky had had their adventure with the old man whom Sadie called "Lurcher," but whom Fenwick Grimes had called "Jones."

Helen was deeply interested in the old man's case, and if he could be helped in any proper way, she wanted to do it. Also, there was Sadie herself. Helen believed that the Russian girl, with her business ability and racial sharpness, could help herself and her family much more than she now was doing, if she had the right kind of a chance.

"And I am going to give her the chance," Helen told herself, delightedly. "She has been, as unselfish and kind to me—a stranger to her and her people—as she could be. I am determined that Sadie Goronsky and her family shall always be glad that Sadie was kind to the 'greenie' who hunted for Uncle Starkweather's house on Madison Street instead of Madison Avenue."

After luncheon at the Starkweathers' Helen started downtown with plenty of money in her purse. She rode to Madison Street and was but a few minutes in reaching the Finkelstein store. To her surprise the front of the building was covered with big signs reading "Bankrupt Sale! Prices Cut in Half!"

Sadie was not in sight. Indeed, the store was full of excited people hauling over old Jacob Finkelstein's stock of goods, and no "puller-in" was needed to draw a crowd. The salespeople seemed to have their hands full.

Not seeing Sadie anywhere, Helen ventured to mount to the Goronsky flat. Mrs. Goronsky opened the door, recognized her visitor, and in shrill Yiddish and broken English bade her welcome.

"You gome py mein house to see mein Sarah? Sure! Gome in! Gome in! Sarah iss home to-day."

"Why, see who's here!" exclaimed Sadie, appearing with a partly-completed hat, of the very newest style, in her hand. "I thought the wet weather had drowned you out."

"It kept me in," said Helen, "for I had nothing fit to wear out in the rain."

"Well, business was so poor that Jacob had to fail. And that always gives me a few days' rest. I'm glad to get 'em, believe me!"

"Why—why, can a man fail more than once?" gasped Helen.

"He can in the clothing business," responded Sadie, laughing, and leading the way into the tiny parlor. "I bet there was a crowd in there when you come by?"

"Yes, indeed," agreed Helen.

"Sure! he'll get rid of all the 'stickers' he's got it in the shop, and when we open again next week for ordinary business, everything will be fresh and new."

"Oh, then, you're really not out of a job?" asked Helen, relieved for her friend's sake.

"No. I'm all right. And you?"

"I came down particularly to see about that poor old man's spectacles," Helen said.

"Then you didn't forget about him?"

"No, indeed. Did you see him? Has he got the prescription? Is it right about his eyes being the trouble?"

"Sure that's what the matter is. And he's dreadful poor, Helen. If he could see better he might find some work. He wore his eyes out, he told me, by writing in books. That's a business!"

"Then he has the prescription."

"Sure. I seen it. He's always hoping he'd get enough money to have the glasses. That's all he needs, the doctor told him. But they cost fourteen dollars."

"He shall have them!" declared Helen.

"You don't mean it, Helen?" cried the Russian girl. "You haven't got that much money for him?"

"Yes, I have. Will you go around there with me? We'll get the prescription and have it filled."

"Wait a bit," said Sadie. "I want to finish this hat. And lemme tell you—it's right in style. What do you think?"

"How wonderfully clever you are!" cried the Western girl. "It looks as though it had just come out of a shop."

"Sure it does. I could work in a hat shop. Only they wouldn't pay me anything at first, and they wouldn't let me trim. But I know a girl that ain't a year older nor me what gets sixteen dollars a week trimming in a millinery store on Grand Street. O' course, she ain't the madame; she's only assistant. But sixteen dollars is a good bunch of money to bring home on a Saturday night—believe me!"

"Is that what you'd like to do—keep a millinery shop?" asked Helen.

"Wouldn't I—just?" gasped Sadie. "Why, Helen—I dream about it nights!"

Helen became suddenly interested. "Would a little shop pay, Sadie? Could you earn your living in a little shop of your own—say, right around here somewhere?"

"Huh! I've had me eye on a place for months. But it ain't no use. You got to put up for the rent, and the wholesalers ain't goin' to let a girl like me have stock on credit. And there's the fixtures—Aw, well, what's the use? It's only a dream."

Helen was determined it should not remain "only a dream." But she said nothing further.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE HAT SHOP

"Them folks you're living with must have had a change of heart, Helen," said Sadie Goronsky, as the two girls sallied forth—Sadie with her new hat set jauntily on her sleek head.

"Why do you say that?"

"If they are willing to spend fourteen dollars on old Lurcher's eyes."

"Oh, it isn't a member of my uncle's family who is furnishing the money for this charity," Helen replied. Sadie asked no further questions, fortunately.

It was a very miserable house in which the old man lodged. Helen's heart ached as she beheld the poverty and misery so evident all about her. "Lurcher" lived on the top floor at the back—a squalid, badly-lighted room—and alone.

"But a man with eyes as bad as mine don't really need light, you see, young ladies," he whispered, when Sadie had ushered herself and Helen into the room.

He had tried to keep it neat; but his housekeeping arrangements were most primitive, and cold as the weather had now become, he had no stove save a one-wick oil stove on which he cooked his meals—such as they were.

"You see," Sadie told him, "this is my friend, Helen, and she seen you the other day when you—you lost that dollar, you know."

"Ah, yes, wonderful bright eyes you have, Miss, to find a dollar in the street."

"Ain't they?" cried Sadie, grinning broadly at Helen. "Chee, it ain't everybody that can pick up money in the streets of New York—though we all believed we could before we come over here from Russia. Sure!"

"You see," said Helen, softly, "I had seen you before, Mr.—er—Lurcher. I saw you over on the West Side that morning."

"You saw me over there?" asked the old man, yet still in a very low voice—a sort of a faded-out voice—and he seemed not a little startled. "You saw me over there, Miss? Where did you see me?"

"On—on Bleecker Street," responded Helen, which was quite true. She saw that the man evidently did not wish his visit to Fenwick Grimes to be known. Perhaps he had some unpleasant connection with the money-lender.

"Yes, yes!" said Lurcher, with relief. "I—I come through there frequently. But I have such difficulty in seeing my way about, that I follow a beaten path—yes! a beaten path."

Helen was very curious about the old man's acquaintance with Fenwick Grimes. The more she thought over her own interview with the money-lender and mine-owner, the deeper became her suspicion that her father's one-time partner was an untrustworthy man.

Anybody who seemed to know him better than she did, naturally interested Helen. Dud Stone had promised to find out all about Grimes, and Helen knew that she would wait impatiently for his report.

But she was interested in Lurcher for his own miserable sake, too. He had lived by himself in this wretched lodging for years. How he lived he did not say; but it was evident that his income was both infinitesimal and uncertain.

Nevertheless, he was not a mean-looking man, nor were his garments unclean. They were ragged. He admitted, apologetically, that he could not see to use a needle and so "had sort o' got run down."

"I'll come some day soon and mend you up," promised Helen, when the old man gave her the prescription he had received from the oculist at the Eye and Ear Hospital. "And you shall have these glasses just as soon as the lenses can be ground."

"God bless you, Miss!" said the old man, simply.

He had a quiet, "listening" face, and seldom spoke above a whisper. He was more the shadow of a man than the substance.

"Ain't that a terrible end to look forward to, Helen?" remarked Sadie, seriously, as they descended the stairs to the street. "He ain't got no friends, and no family, and no way to make a decent livin'. They wouldn't have the likes of him around in offices, writin' in books."

"Oh, you mean he is a bookkeeper?" cried Helen.

"Sure, I do. That's a business! My papa is going to be in business for himself again. And so will I—you see! That's the only way to get on, and lay up something for your old age. Work for yourself——"

"In a millinery store; eh?" suggested Helen, smiling.

"That's right!" declared Sadie, boldly.

"Where is the little store you spoke of? Do you suppose you can ever get it, Sadie?"

"Don't! You make me feel bad here," said Sadie, with her hand on her heart. "Say! I just ache to try what I can do makin' lids for the East Side Four Hundred. The wholesale houses let youse come there and work when they're makin' up the season's pattern hats, and then you can get all the new wrinkles. Oh, I wish I was goin' to start next season in me own store instead of pullin' greenies into Papa Yawcob's suit shop," and the East Side girl sighed dolefully.

"Let's go see the shop you want," suggested Helen.

"Oh, dear! It don't do no good," said Sadie. "But I often go out of my way to take a peek at it."

They went a little farther uptown and Helen was shown the tiny little store which Sadie had picked out as just the situation for a millinery shop.

"Ye see, there's other stores all around; but no millinery. Women come here to buy other things, and if I had that little winder full of tasty hats—Chee! wouldn't it pull 'em in?"

They stood there some minutes, while the young East Side girl, so wise in the ways of earning a living, so sharp of apprehension in most things, told her whole heart to the girl who had never had to worry about money matters at all—told it with no suspicion that My Lady Bountiful stood by her side.

She pointed out to Helen just where she would have her little counter, and the glass-fronted wall cases for the trimmed hats, and the deep drawers for "shapes," and the little case in which to show the flowers and buckles, and the chair and table and mirror for the particular customers to sit at while they were being fitted.

"And I'd take that hunchback girl—Rosie Seldt—away from the millinery store on my block—she hates to work on the sidewalk the way they make her—she could help me lots. Rosie is a smart girl with some ideas of her own. And I'd curtain off the end of the store down there for a workroom, and for stock—Chee, but I'd make this place look swell!"

Helen, who had noted the name and address of the rental agent on the card in the window, cut her visit with Sadie short, so afraid was she that she would be tempted to tell her friend of the good fortune that was going to overtake her. For the girl from Sunset Ranch knew just what she was going to do.

Dud Stone had given her the address of the law firm where he was to be found, and the very next morning she went to the offices of Larribee & Polk and saw Dud. In his hands she put a sum of money and told him what she wished done. But when Dud learned that the girl had the better part of eight hundred dollars in cash with her, he took her to a bank and made her open an account at once.

"Where do you think you are—still in the wild and woolly West where pretty near everybody you meet is honest?" demanded Dud. "You ought to be shaken! That money here in the big city is a temptation to half the people you pass on the street. Suppose one of the servants at your uncle's house should see it? You have no right to put temptation in people's way."

Helen accepted his scolding meekly as long as he did not refuse to carry out her plan for Sadie Goronsky. When Dud heard the full particulars of the Western girl's acquaintanceship with Sadie, he had no criticism to offer. That very day Dud engaged the store, paid three months' rent, and bought the furnishings. Sadie was not to be told until the store was ready for occupancy. There was still time enough. Helen knew that the millinery season did not open until February.

Meanwhile, although Helen's goings and comings were quite ignored by Uncle Starkweather and the girls, some incidents connected with Helen Morrell had begun to stir to its depth the fountain of the family's wrath against the girl from Sunset Ranch.

Twice May Van Ramsden had come to call on Helen. Once she had brought Ruth and Mercy De Vorne with her. And on each occasion she had demanded that Gregson take their cards to Helen.

Gregson had taken the cards up one flight and then had sent on the cards by Maggie to Helen's room. Gregson said below stairs that he would "give notice" if he were obliged to take cards to anybody who roomed in the attic.

May and her friends trooped up the stairs in the wake of their cards, however—for so it had been arranged with Helen, who expected them on both occasions.

The anger of the Starkweather family would have been greater had they known that these calls of their own most treasured social acquaintances were really upon the little old lady who had been shut away into the front attic suite, and whose existence even was not known to some of the servants in the Starkweather mansion.

May, as she had promised, was bringing, one or two at a time, her friends who, as children when Cornelius Starkweather was alive, had haunted this old house because they loved old Mary Boyle. And May was proving, too, to the Western girl, that all New York people of wealth were neither heartless or ungrateful. Yet the crime of forgetfulness these young women must plead to.

The visits delighted Mary Boyle. Helen knew that she slept better—after these little excitements of the calls—and did not go pattering up and down the halls with her crutch in the dead of night.

So the days passed, each one bringing so much of interest into the life of Helen Morrell that she forgot to be lonely, or to bewail her lot. She was still homesick for the ranch—when she stopped to think about it. But she was willing to wait a while longer before she flitted homeward to Big Hen and the boys.



CHAPTER XXV

THE MISSING LINK

Helen met Dud Stone and his sister on the bridle-path one morning by particular invitation. The message had come to the house for her late the evening before and had been put into the trusty hand of old Lawdor, the butler. Dud had learned the particulars of the old embezzlement charge against Prince Morrell.

"I've got here in typewriting the reports from three papers—everything they had to say about it for the several weeks that it was kept alive as a news story. It was not so great a crime that the metropolitan papers were likely to give much space to it," Dud said.

"You can read over the reports at your leisure, if you like. But the main points for us to know are these:

"In the two banks were, in the names of Morrell & Grimes, something over thirty-three thousand dollars. Either partner could draw the money. The missing bookkeeper could not draw the money.

"The checks came to the banks in the course of the day's business, and neither teller could swear that he actually remembered giving the money to Mr. Morrell; yet because the checks were signed in his name, and apparently in his handwriting, they both 'thought' it must have been Mr. Morrell who presented the checks.

"Now, mind you, Fenwick Grimes had gone off on a business trip of some duration, and Allen Chesterton had disappeared several days before the checks were drawn and the money removed from the banks.

"It was hinted by one ingenious police reporter that the bookkeeper was really the guilty man. He even raked up some story of the man at his lodgings which intimated that Chesterton had some art as an actor. Parts of disguises were found abandoned at his empty rooms. This suggestion was made: That Chesterton was a forger and had disguised himself as Mr. Morrell so as to cash the checks without question. Then Fenwick Grimes returned and discovered that the bank balances were gone.

"At first your father was no more suspected than was Grimes himself. Then, one paper printed an article intimating that your father, the senior partner of the firm, might be the criminal. You see, the bank tellers had been interviewed. Before that the suggestion that by any possibility Mr. Morrell was guilty had been scouted. But the next day it was learned your father and mother had gone away. Immediately the bookkeeper was forgotten and the papers all seemed to agree that Prince Morrell had really stolen the money.

"Oddly enough the creditors made little trouble at first. Your Uncle Starkweather was mentioned as having been a silent partner in the concern and having lost heavily himself——"

"Poor dad was able to pay Uncle Starkweather first of all—years and years ago," interposed Helen.

"Ah! and Grimes? Do you know if he made any claim on your father at any time?"

"I think not. You see, he was freed of all debt almost at once through bankruptcy. Mr. Grimes really had a very small financial interest in the firm. Dad said he was more like a confidential clerk. Both he and Uncle Starkweather considered Grimes a very good asset to the firm, although he had no money to put into it. That is the way it was told to me."

"And very probable. This Grimes is notoriously sharp," said Dud, reflectively. "And right after he went through bankruptcy he began to do business as a money-lender. Supposedly he lent other people's money; but he is now worth a million, or more. Question is: Where did he get his start in business after the robbery and the failure of Grimes & Morrell?"

"Oh, Dud!"

"Don't you suspect him, too?" demanded the young man.

"I—I am prejudiced, I fear."

"So am I," agreed Dud, with a grim chuckle. "I'm going after that man Grimes. It's funny he should go into business with a mysterious capital right after the old firm was closed out, when before that he had had no money to invest in the firm of which he was a member."

"I feared as much," sighed Helen. "And he was so eager to throw suspicion on the lost bookkeeper, just to satisfy my curiosity and put me off the track. He's as bad as Uncle Starkweather. He doesn't want me to go ahead because of the possible scandal, and Mr. Grimes is afraid for his own sake, I very much fear. What a wicked man he must be!"

"Possibly," said Dud, eyeing the girl sharply. "Have you told me all your uncle has said to you about the affair?"

"I think so, Dud. Why?"

"Well, nothing much. Only, in hunting through the files of the newspapers for articles about the troubles of Grimes & Morrell I came across the statement that Mr. Starkweather was in financial difficulties about the same time. He settled with his creditors for forty cents on the dollar. This was before your uncle came into his uncle's fortune, of course, and went to live on Madison Avenue."

"Well—is that significant?" asked the girl, puzzled.

"I don't know that it is. But there is something you mentioned just now that is of importance."

"What is that, Dud?"

"Why, the bookkeeper—Allen Chesterton. He's the missing link. If we could get him I believe the truth would easily be learned. In one newspaper story of the Grimes & Morrell trouble, it was said that Grimes and Chesterton had been close friends at one time—had roomed together in the very house from which the bookkeeper seemed to have fled a couple of days before the embezzlement was discovered."

"Would detectives be able to pick up any clue to the missing man—and missing link?" asked Helen, thoughtfully.

"It's a cold trail," Dud observed, shaking his head.

"I don't mind spending some money. I can send to Big Hen for more——"

"Of course you can. I don't believe you realize how rich you are, Helen."

"I—I never had to think about it."

"No. But about hiring a detective. I hate to waste money. Wait a few days and see if I can get on the blind side of Mr. Grimes in some way."

So the matter rested; but it was Helen herself who made the first discovery which seemed to point to a weak place in Fenwick Grimes's armor.

Helen had been once to the poor lodging of Mr. Lurcher to "mend him up"; for she was a good little needlewoman and she knew she could make the old fellow look neater. He had got his glasses, and at first could only wear them a part of the day. The doctor at the hospital gave him an ointment for his eyelids, too, and he was on a fair road to recovery.

"I can cobble shoes pretty good, Miss," he said. "And there is work to be had at that industry in several shops in the neighborhood. Once I was a clerk; but all that is past, of course."

Helen did not propose to let the old fellow suffer; but just yet she did not wish to do anything further for him, or Sadie might suspect that her friend, Helen, was something different from the poor girl Sadie thought she was.

After the above interview with Dud, Helen went downtown to see Sadie again; and she ran around the corner to spend a few minutes with Mr. Lurcher. As she went up the stairs she passed a man coming down. It was dark, and she could not see the person clearly. Yet Helen realized that the individual eyed her sharply, and even stopped and came part way up the stairs again to see where she went.

When she came down to the street again she was startled by almost running into Mr. Grimes, who was passing the house.

"What! what! what!" he snapped, staring at her. "What brings you down in this neighborhood? A nice place for Mr. Willets Starkweather's niece to be seen in. I warrant he doesn't know where you are?"

"You are quite right, Mr. Grimes," Helen returned, quietly.

"What are you doing here?" asked Grimes, rather rudely.

"Visiting friends," replied Helen, without further explanation.

"You're still trying to rake up that old trouble of your father's?" demanded Grimes, scowling.

"Not down here," returned Helen, with a quiet smile. "That is sure. But I am doing what I can to learn all the particulars of the affair. Mr. Van Ramsden was a creditor and father's friend, and his daughter tells me that he will do all in his power to help me."

"Ha! Van Ramsden! Well, it's little you'll ever find out through him. Well! you'd much better have let me do as I suggested and cleared up the whole story in the newspapers," growled Grimes. "Now, now! Where's that clerk of mine, I wonder? He was to meet me here."

And he went muttering along the walk; but Helen stood still and gazed after him in some bewilderment. For it dawned on the girl that the man who had passed her as she went up to see old Mr. Lurcher, or "Jones," was Leggett, Fenwick Grimes's confidential man.



CHAPTER XXVI

THEIR EYES ARE OPENED

As her cousins were not at all interested in what became of Helen during the day, neither was Helen interested in how the three Starkweather girls occupied their time. But on this particular afternoon, while Helen was visiting Lurcher, and chatting with Sadie Goronsky on the sidewalk in front of the Finkelstein shop, she would have been deeply interested in what interested the Starkweather girls.

All three chanced to be in the drawing-room when Gregson came past the door in his stiffest manner, holding the tray with a single card on it.

"Who is it, Gregson?" asked Belle. "I heard the bell ring. Somebody to see me?"

"No, mem, it his not," declared the footman.

"Me?" said Hortense, holding out her hand. "Who is it, I wonder?"

"Nor is hit for you, mem," repeated Gregson.

"It can't be for me?" cried Flossie.

But before the footman could speak again, Belle rose majestically and crossed the room.

"I believe I know what it is," she said, angrily. "And it is going to stop. You were going to take the card upstairs, Gregson?"

"No, mem!" said Gregson, somewhat heated. "Hi do not carry cards above the second floor."

"It's somebody to see Helen!" cried Flossie, clapping her hands softly and enjoying her older sister's rage.

"Give it to me!" exclaimed Belle, snatching the card from the tray. She turned toward her sisters to read it. But when her eye lit upon the name she was for the moment surprised out of speech.

"Goodness me! who is it?" gasped Hortense.

"Jessie Stone—'Miss Jessie Dolliver Stone.' Goodness me!" whispered Belle.

"Not the Stones of Riverside Drive—the Stones?" from Hortense.

"Dud Stone's sister?" exclaimed Flossie.

"And Dud Stone is the very nicest boy I ever met," quoth Hortense, clasping her hands.

"I know Miss Jessie. Jess, they all call her. I saw her on the Westchester Links only last week and she never said a word about this."

"About coming to see Helen—it isn't possible!" cried Hortense. "Gregson, you have made a mistake."

"Hi beg your pardon—no, mem. She asked for Miss Helen. I left 'er in the reception parlor, mem——"

"She thinks one of us is named Helen!" cried Belle, suddenly. "Show her up, Gregson."

Gregson might have told her different; but he saw it would only involve him in more explanation; therefore he turned on his heel and in his usual stately manner went to lead Dud Stone's sister into the presence of the three excited girls.

Jessie by no means understood the situation at the Starkweather house between Helen and her cousins. It had never entered Miss Stone's head, in fact, that anybody could be unkind to, or dislike, "such a nice little thing as Helen Morrell."

So she greeted the Starkweather girls in her very frankest manner.

"I really am delighted to see you again, Miss Starkweather," Jess said, being met by Belle at the door. "And are these your sisters? I'm charmed, I am sure."

Hortense and Flossie were introduced. The girls sat down.

"You don't mean to say Helen isn't here?" demanded Jess. "I came particularly to invite her to dinner to-morrow night. We're going to have a little celebration and Dud and I are determined to have her with us."

"Helen?" gasped Belle.

"Not Helen Morrell?" demanded Hortense.

"Why, yes—of course—your Cousin Helen. How funny! Of course she's here? She lives with you; doesn't she?"

"Why—er—we have a—a distant relative of poor mamma's by that name," said Belle, haughtily. "She—she came here quite unexpectedly—er quite uninvited, I may say. Pa is so-o easy, you know; he won't send her away——"

"Send her away! Send Helen Morrell away?" gasped Jess Stone. "Are—are we talking about the same girl, I wonder? Why, Helen is a most charming girl—and pretty as a picture. And brave no end!

"Why, it was she who saved my brother's life when he was away out West——"

"Mr. Stone never went to Montana?" cried Flossie. "He never met Helen at Sunset Ranch?"

"Be still, Floss!" commanded Belle; but Miss Stone turned to answer the younger girl.

"Of course. Dud stopped at the ranch some days, too. He had to, for he hurt his foot. That's when Helen saved his life. He was flung from the back of a horse over the edge of a cliff and fortunately landed in the top of a tree.

"But the tree was very tall and he could not have gotten out of it safely with his wounded foot had not Helen ridden up to the brink of the precipice, thrown him a rope, and swung him out of the tree upon a ledge of rock. Then he worked his way down the side of the cliff while Helen caught his horse. But his foot hurt him so that he could never have got into the saddle alone; and Helen put him on her own pony and led the pony to the ranch house."

"Bully for Helen!" ejaculated Flossie, under her breath. Even Hortense was flushed a bit over the story. But Belle could see nothing to admire in her cousin from the West, and she only said, harshly:

"Very likely, Miss Stone. Helen seems to be a veritable hoyden. These ranch girls are so unfortunate in their bringing up and their environment. In the wilds I presume Helen may be passable; but she is quite, quite impossible here in the city——"

"I don't know what you mean by being 'impossible,'" interrupted Jess Stone. "She is a lovely girl."

"You haven't met her?" cried Belle. "It's only Mr. Stone's talk."

"I certainly have met her, Miss Starkweather. Certainly I know her—and know her well. Had I known when she was coming to New York I would have begged her to come to us. It is plain that her own relatives do not care much for Helen Morrell," said the very frank young lady.

"Well—we—er——"

"Why, Helen has been meeting me in the bridle-path almost every morning. And she rides wonderfully."

"Riding in Central Park!" cried Hortense.

"Why—why, the child has nothing decent to wear," declared Belle. "How could she get a riding habit—or hire a horse? I do not understand this, Miss Stone, but I can tell you right now, that Helen has nothing fit to wear to your dinner party. She came here a little pauper—with nothing fit to wear in her trunk. Pa did find money enough for a new street dress and hat for her; but he did not feel that he could support in luxury every pauper who came here and claimed relationship with him."

Miss Stone's mouth fairly hung open, and her eyes were as round as eyes could be, with wonder and surprise.

"What is this you tell me?" she murmured. "Helen Morrell a pauper?"

"I presume those people out there in Montana wanted to get the girl off their hands," said Belle, coldly, "and merely shipped her East, hoping that Pa would make provision for her. She has been a great source of annoyance to us, I do assure you."

"A source of annoyance?" repeated the caller.

"And why not? Without a rag decent to wear. With no money. Scarcely education enough to make herself intelligibly understood——"

Flossie began to giggle. But Jessie Stone rose to her feet. This volatile, talkative girl could be very dignified when she was aroused.

"You are speaking of my friend, Helen Morrell," she interrupted Belle's flow of angry language, sternly. "Whether she is your cousin, or not, she is my friend, and I will not listen to you talk about her in that way. Besides, you must be crazy if you believe your own words! Helen Morrell poor! Helen Morrell uneducated!

"Why, Helen was four years in one of the best preparatory schools of the West—in Denver. Let me tell you that Denver is some city, too. And as for being poor and having nothing to wear—Why, whatever can you mean? She owns one of the few big ranches left in the West, with thousands upon thousands of cattle and horses upon it. And her father left her all that, and perhaps a quarter of a million in cash or investments beside."

"Not Helen?" shrieked Belle, sitting down very suddenly.

"Little Helen—rich?" murmured Hortense.

"Does Helen really own Sunset Ranch?" cried Flossie, eagerly.

"She certainly does—every acre of it. Why, Dud knows all about her and all about her affairs. If you consider that girl poor and uneducated you have fooled yourselves nicely."

"I'm glad of it! I'm glad of it!" exclaimed Flossie, clapping her hands and pirouetting about the room. "Serves you right, Belle! I found out she knew a whole lot more than I did, long ago. She's been helping me with my lessons."

"And she is a nice little thing," joined in Hortense, "I don't care what you say to the contrary, Belle. She was the only one in this house that showed me any real sympathy when I was sick——"

Belle only looked at her sisters, but could say nothing.

"And if Helen hasn't anything fit to wear to your party to-morrow night, I will lend her something," declared Hortense.

"You need not bother," said Jess, scornfully. "If Helen came in the plainest and most miserable frock to be found she would be welcome. Good-day to you, Miss Starkweather—and Miss Hortense—and Miss Flossie."

She swept out of the room and did not even need the gorgeous Gregson to show her to the door.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE PARTY

Helen chanced that evening to be entering the area door just as Mr. Starkweather himself was mounting the steps of the mansion. Her uncle recognized the girl and scowled over the balustrade at her.

"Come to the den at once; I wish to speak to you Helen—Ahem!" he said in his most severe tones.

"Yes, sir," responded the girl respectfully, and she passed up the back stairway while Mr. Starkweather went directly to his library. Therefore he did not chance to meet either of his daughters and so was not warned of what had occurred in the house that afternoon.

"Helen," said Uncle Starkweather, viewing her with the same stern look when she approached his desk. "I must know how you have been using your time while outside of my house? Something has reached my ear which greatly—ahem!—displeases me."

"Why—I—I——" The girl was really at a loss what to say. She did not know what he was driving at and she doubted the advisability of telling Uncle Starkweather everything that she had done while here in the city as his guest.

"I was told this afternoon—not an hour ago—that you have been seen lurking about the most disreputable parts of the city. That you are a frequenter of low tenement houses; that you associate with foreigners and the most disgusting of beggars——"

"I wish you would stop, Uncle," said Helen, quickly, her face flushing now and her eyes sparkling. "Sadie Goronsky is a nice girl, and her family is respectable. And poor old Mr. Lurcher is only unfortunate and half-blind. He will not harm me."

"Beggars! Yiddish shoestring pedlars! A girl like you! Where—ahem!—where did you ever get such low tastes, girl?"

"Don't blame yourself, Uncle," said Helen, with some bitterness. "I certainly did not learn to be kind to poor people from your example. And I am sure I have gained no harm from being with them once in a while—only good. To help them a little has helped me—I assure you!"

But Mr. Starkweather listened not at all to this. "Where did you find these low companions?" he demanded.

"I met Sadie the night I arrived here in the city. The taxicab driver carried me to Madison Street instead of Madison Avenue. Sadie was kind to me. As for old Mr. Lurcher, I saw him first in Mr. Grimes's office."

Uncle Starkweather suddenly lost his color and fell back in his chair. For a moment or two he seemed unable to speak at all. Then he stammered:

"In Fenwick Grimes's office?"

"Yes, sir."

"What—what was this—ahem!—this beggar doing there?"

"If he is a beggar, perhaps he was begging. At least, Mr. Grimes seemed very anxious to get rid of him, and gave him a dollar to go away."

"And you followed him?" gasped Mr. Starkweather.

"No. I went to see Sadie, and it seems Mr. Lurcher lives right in that neighborhood. I found he needed spectacles and was half-blind and I——"

"Tell me nothing more about it! Nothing more about it!" commanded her uncle, holding up a warning hand. "I will not—ahem!—listen. This has gone too far. I gave you shelter—an act of charity, girl! And you have abused my confidence by consorting with low company, and spending your time in a mean part of the town."

"You are wrong, sir. I have done nothing of the kind," said Helen, firmly, but growing angry herself, now. "My friends are decent people, and a poor part of the city does not necessarily mean a criminal part."

"Hush! How dare you contradict me?" demanded her uncle. "You shall go home. You shall go back to the West at once! Ahem! At once. I could not assume the responsibility of your presence here in my house any longer."

"Then I will find a position and support myself, Uncle Starkweather. I have told you I could do that before."

"No, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Starkweather, at once. "I will not allow it. You are not to be trusted in this city. I shall send you back to that place you came from—ahem!—Sunset Ranch, is it? That is the place for a girl like you."

"But, Uncle——"

"No more! I will listen to nothing else from you," he declared, harshly. "I shall purchase your ticket through to-morrow, and the next day you must go. Ahem! Remember that I will be obeyed."

Helen looked at him with tear-dimmed eyes for fully a minute. But he said no more and his stern countenance, as well as his unkind words and tone, repelled her. She put out her hand once, as though to speak, but he turned away, scornfully.

It was her last attempt to soften him toward her. He might then, had he not been so selfish and haughty, have made his peace with the girl and saved himself much trouble and misery in the end. But he ignored her, and Helen, crying softly, left the room and stole up to her own place in the attic.

She could not see anybody that evening, and so did not go down to dinner. Later, to her amazement, Maggie came to her door with a tray piled high with good things—a very elaborate repast, indeed. But Helen was too heartsick to eat much, although she did not refuse the attention—which she laid to the kindness of Lawdor, the butler.

But for once she was mistaken. The tray of food did not come from Lawdor. Nor was it the outward semblance of anybody's kindness. The tray delivered at Helen's door was the first result of a great fright!

At dinner the girls could not wait for their father to be seated before they began to tell him of the amazing thing that had been revealed to them that afternoon by Jessie Stone.

"Where's Cousin Helen, Gregson?" asked Belle, before seating herself. "See that she is called. She may not have heard the gong."

If Gregson's face could display surprise, it displayed it then.

"Of course, dear Helen has returned; hasn't she?" added Hortense.

"I'll go up myself and see if she's here," Flossie suggested.

"Ahem!" said the surprised Mr. Starkweather.

"I listened sharply for her, but I did not hear her pass my door," said Hortense.

"I must ask her to come back to that spare room on the lower floor," sighed Belle. "She is too far away from the rest of the family."

"Girls!" gasped Mr. Starkweather, at length finding speech.

"Oh, you needn't explode, Pa!" ejaculated Belle. "We are aware of something about Helen that changes the complexion of affairs entirely."

"What does this mean?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, blankly. "Something about Helen?"

"Yes, indeed, Pa," said Flossie, spiritedly. "Who do you suppose owns that Sunset Ranch she talks about?"

"And who do you suppose is worth a quarter of a million dollars—more than you are worth, Pa, I declare?" cried Hortense.

"Girls!" exclaimed Belle. "That is very low. If we have made a mistake regarding Cousin Helen, of course it can be adjusted. But we need not be vulgar enough to say why we change toward her."

Mr. Starkweather thumped upon the table with the handle of his knife.

"Girls!" he commanded. "I will have this explained. What do you mean?"

Out it came then—in a torrent. Three girls can do a great deal of talking in a few minutes—especially if they all talk at once.

But Mr. Starkweather got the gist of it. He understood what it all meant, and he realized what it meant to him, as well, better than his daughters could.

Prince Morrell, whom he had always considered a bit of a fool, and therefore had not even inquired about after he left for the West, had died a rich man. He had left this only daughter, who was an heiress to great wealth. And he, Willets Starkweather, had allowed the chance of a lifetime to slip through his fingers!

If he had only made inquiries about the girl and her circumstances! He might have done that when he learned that Mr. Morrell was dead. When Helen had told him her father wished her to be in the care of her mother's relatives, Mr. Starkweather could have then taken warning and learned the girl's true circumstances. He had not even accepted her confidences. Why, he might have been made the guardian of the girl, and handled all her fortune!

These thoughts and a thousand others raced through the scheming brain of the man. Could he correct his fault at this late date? If he had only known of this that his daughters had learned from Jess Stone, before he had taken Helen to task as he had that very evening!

Fenwick Grimes had telephoned to him at his office. Something Mr. Grimes had said—and he had not seen Mr. Grimes nor talked personally with him for years—had put Mr. Starkweather into a great fright. He had decided that the only safe place for Helen Morrell was back in the West—he supposed with the poor and ignorant people on the ranch where her father had worked.

Where Prince Morrell had worked! Why, if Morrell had owned Sunset Ranch, Helen was one of the wealthiest heiresses in the whole Western country. Mr. Starkweather had asked a few questions about Sunset Ranch of men who knew. But, as the owner had never given himself any publicity, the name of Morrell was never connected with it.

While the three girls chattered over the details of the story Mr. Starkweather merely played with his food, and sat staring into a corner of the room. He was trying to scheme his way out of the difficulty—the dangerous difficulty, indeed—in which he found himself.

So, his first move was characteristic. He sent the tray upstairs to Helen. But none of the family saw Helen again that night.

However, there was another caller. This was May Van Ramsden. She did not ask for Helen, however, but for Mr. Starkweather himself, and that gentleman came graciously into the room where May was sitting with the three much excited sisters.

Belle and Hortense and Flossie were bubbling over with the desire to ask Miss Van Ramsden if she knew that Helen was a rich girl and not a poor one. But there was no opportunity. The caller broached the reason for her visit at once, when she saw Mr. Starkweather.

"We are going to ask a great favor of you, sir," she said, shaking hands. "And it does seem like a very great impudence on our part. But please remember that, as children, we were all very much attached to her. You see," pursued Miss Van Ramsden, "there are the De Vorne girls, and Jo and Nat Paisley, and Adeline Schenk, and some of the Blutcher boys and girls—although the younger ones were born in Europe—and Sue Livingstone, and Crayton Ballou. Oh! there really is a score or more."

"Ahem!" said Mr. Starkweather, not only solemnly, but reverently. These were names he worshipped. He could have refused such young people nothing—nothing!—and would have told Miss Van Ramsden so had what she said next not stricken him dumb for the time.

"You see, some of us have called on Nurse Boyle, and found her so bright and so delighted with our coming, that we want to give her a little tea-party to-morrow afternoon. It would be so delightful to have her greet the girls and boys who used to be such friends of hers in the time of Mr. Cornelius, right up there in those cunning rooms of hers.

"We always used to see her in the nursery suite, and there are the same furniture, and hangings, and pictures, and all. And Nurse Boyle herself is just the same—only a bit older—Ah! girls!" she added, turning suddenly to the three sisters, "you don't know what it means to have been cared for, and rocked, and sung to, when you were ill, perhaps, by Mary Boyle! You missed a great deal in not having a Mary Boyle in your family."

"Mary Boyle!" gasped Mr. Starkweather.

"Yes. Can we all come to see her to-morrow afternoon? I am sure if you tell Mrs. Olstrom, your housekeeper will attend to all the arrangements. Helen knows about it, and she'll help pour the tea. Mary thinks there is nobody quite like Helen."

These shocks were coming too fast for Mr. Starkweather. Had anything further occurred that evening to torment him it is doubtful if he would have got through it as gracefully as he did through this call. May Van Ramsden went away assured that no obstacle would be placed in the way of Mary Boyle's party in the attic. But neither Mr. Starkweather, nor his three daughters, could really look straight into each other's faces for the remainder of that evening. And they were all four remarkably silent, despite the exciting things that had so recently occurred to disturb them.

In the morning Helen got an invitation from Jess Stone to dinner that evening. She said "come just as you are"; but she did not tell Helen that she had innocently betrayed her true condition to the Starkweathers. Helen wrote a long reply and sent it by special messenger through old Lawdor, the butler. Then she prepared for the tea in Mary Boyle's rooms.

At breakfast time Helen met the family for the first time since the explosion. Self-consciousness troubled the countenances and likewise the manner of Mr. Starkweather and his three daughters.

"Ahem! A very fine morning, Helen. Have you been out for your usual ramble, my dear?"

"How-do, Helen? Hope you're feeling quite fit."

"Dear me, Helen! How pretty your hair is, child. You must show me how you do it in that simple way."

But Flossie was more honest. She only nodded to Helen at first. Then, when Gregson was out of the room, she jumped up, went around the table swiftly, and caught the Western girl about the neck.

"Helen! I'm just as ashamed of myself as I can be!" she cried, her tears flowing copiously. "I treated you so mean all the time, and you have been so very, very decent about helping me in my lessons. Forgive me; will you? Oh, please say you will!"

Helen kissed her warmly. "Nothing to forgive, Floss," she said, a little bruskly, perhaps. "Don't let's speak about it."

She merely bowed and said a word in reply to the others. Nor could Mr. Starkweather's unctuous conversation arouse her interest.

"You have a part in the very worthy effort to liven up old Nurse Boyle, I understand?" said Mr. Starkweather, graciously. "Is there anything needed that I can have sent in, Helen?"

"Oh, no, sir. I am only helping Miss Van Ramsden," Helen replied, timidly.

"I think May Van Ramsden should have told me of her plans," said Belle, tossing her head.

"Or, me," rejoined Hortense.

"Pah!" snapped Flossie. "None of us ever cared a straw for the old woman. Queer old thing. I thought she was more than a little cracked."

"Flossie!" ejaculated Mr. Starkweather, angrily, "unless you can speak with more respect for—ahem!—for a faithful old servitor of the Starkweather family, I shall have to—ahem!—ask you to leave the table."

"You won't have to ask me—I'm going!" exclaimed Flossie, flirting out of her chair and picking up her books. "But I want to say one thing while I'm on my way," observed the slangy youngster: "You're all just as tiresome as you can be! Why don't you own up that you'd never have given the old woman a thought if it wasn't for May Van Ramsden and her friends—and Helen?" and she beat a retreat in quick order.

It was an unpleasant breakfast for Helen, and she retired from the table as soon as she could. She felt that this attitude of the Starkweathers toward her was really more unhappy than their former treatment. For she somehow suspected that this overpowering kindness was founded upon a sudden discovery that she was a rich girl instead of an object of charity. How well-founded this suspicion was she learned when she and Jess met.

Hortense brought her up two very elaborate frocks that forenoon, one for her to wear when she poured tea in Mary Boyle's rooms, and the other for her to put on for the Stones' dinner party.

"They will just about fit you. I'm a mite taller, but that won't matter," said the languid Hortense. "And really, Helen, I am just as sorry as I can be for the mean way you have been treated while you have been here. You have been so good-natured, too, in helping a chap. Hope you won't hold it against me—and do wear the dresses, dear."

"I will put on this one for the afternoon," said Helen, smiling. "But I do not need the evening dress. I never wore one quite—quite like that, you see," as she noted the straps over the shoulders and the low corsage. "But I thank you just the same."

Later Belle said to her airily: "Dear Cousin Helen! I have spoken to Gustaf about taking you to the Stones' in the limousine to-night. And he will call for you at any hour you say."

"I cannot avail myself of that privilege, Belle," responded Helen, quietly. "Jess will send for me at half-past six. She has already arranged to do so. Thank you."

There was so much going on above stairs that day that Helen was able to escape most of the oppressive attentions of her cousins. Great baskets of flowers were sent in by some of the young people who remembered and loved Mary Boyle, and Helen helped to arrange them in the little old lady's rooms.

Tea things for a score of people came in, too. And cookies and cakes from the caterer's. At three o'clock, or a little after, the callers began to arrive. Belle, and Hortense, and Flossie received them in the reception hall, had them remove their cloaks below stairs, and otherwise tried to make it appear that the function was really of their own planning.

But nobody invited either of the Starkweather girls upstairs to Mary Boyle's rooms. Perhaps it was an oversight. But it certainly did look as though they had been forgotten.

But the party on the attic floor was certainly a success. How pretty the little old lady looked, sitting in state with all the young and blooming faces about her! Here were growing up into womanhood and manhood (for some of the boys had not been ashamed to come) the children whom she had tended and played with and sung to.

And she sung to them again—verses of forgotten songs, lullabies she had crooned over some of their cradles when they were ill, little broken chants that had sent many of them, many times, to sleep.

Altogether it was a most enjoyable afternoon, and Nurse Boyle was promised that it should not be the last tea-party she would have. "If you are 'way up here in the top of the house, you shall no more be forgotten," they told her.

Helen was the object next in interest to Nurse Boyle. May Van Ramsden had told about the Starkweathers' little "Cinderella Cousin"; and although none of these girls and boys who had gathered knew the truth about Helen's wealth and her position in life, they all treated her cordially.

When they trooped away and left the little old lady to lie down to recuperate after the excitement, Helen went to her own room, and remained closely shut up for the rest of the day.

At half-past six she came downstairs, bag in hand. She descended the servants' staircase, told Mr. Lawdor that her trunk, packed and locked, was ready for the expressman when he came, and so stole out of the area door. She escaped any interview with her uncle, or with the girls. She could not bid them good-by, yet she was determined not to go back to Sunset Ranch on the morrow, nor would she remain another night under her uncle's roof.



CHAPTER XXVIII

A STATEMENT OF FACT

Dud Stone had that very day seen the fixtures put into the little millinery store downtown, and it was ready for Sadie Goronsky to take charge; there being a fund of two hundred dollars to Sadie's credit at a nearby bank, with which she could buy stock and pay her running expenses for the first few weeks.

Yet Sadie didn't know a thing about it.

This last was the reason Helen went downtown early in the morning following the little dinner party at the Stones'. At that party Helen had met the uncle, aunt, and cousins of Dud and Jess Stone, with whom the orphaned brother and sister lived, and she had found them a most charming family.

Jess had invited Helen to bring her trunk and remain with her as long as she contemplated staying in New York, and this Helen was determined to do. Even if the Starkweathers would not let the expressman have her trunk, she was prepared to blossom out now in a butterfly outfit, and take the place in society that was rightfully hers.

But Helen hadn't time to go shopping as yet. She was too eager to tell Sadie of her good fortune. Sadie was to be found—cold as the day was—pacing the walk before Finkelstein's shop, on the sharp lookout for a customer. But there were a few flakes of snow in the air, the wind from the river was very raw, and it did seem to Helen as though the Russian girl was endangering her health.

"But what can poor folks do?" demanded Sadie, hoarsely, for she already had a heavy cold. "There is nothing for me to do inside the store. If I catch a customer I make somet'ings yet. Well, we must all work!"

"Some other kind of work would be easier," suggested Helen.

"But not so much money, maybe."

"If you only had your millinery store."

"Don't make me laugh! Me lip's cracked," grumbled Sadie. "Have a heart, Helen! I ain't never goin' to git a store like I showed you."

Sadie was evidently short of hope on this cold day. Helen seized her arm. "Let's go up and look at that store again," she urged.

"Have a heart, I tell ye!" exclaimed Sadie Goronsky. "Whaddeyer wanter rub it in for?"

"Anyway, if we run it will help warm you."

"All ri'. Come on," said Sadie, with deep disgust, but she started on a heavy trot towards the block on which her heart had been set. And when they rounded the corner and came before the little shop window, Sadie stopped with a gasp of amazement.

Freshly varnished cases, and counter, and drawers, and all were in the store just as she had dreamed of them. There were mirrors, too, and in the window little forms on which to set up the trimmed hats and one big, pink-cheeked, dolly-looking wax bust, with a great mass of tow-colored hair piled high in the very latest mode, on which was to be set the very finest hat to be evolved in that particular East Side shop.

"Wha—wha—what——"

"Let's go in and look at it," said Helen, eagerly, seizing her friend's arm again.

"No, no, no!" gasped Sadie. "We can't. It ain't open. Oh, oh, oh! Somebody's got my shop!"

Helen produced the key and opened the door. She fairly pushed the amazed Russian girl inside, and then closed the door. It was nice and warm. There were chairs. There was a half-length partition at the rear to separate the workroom from the showroom. And behind that partition were low sewing chairs to work in, and a long work-table.

Helen led the dazed Sadie into this rear room and sat her down in one of the chairs. Then she took one facing her and said:

"Now, you sit right there and make up in your mind the very prettiest hat for me that you can possibly invent. The first hat you trim in this store must be for me."

"Helen! Helen!" cried Sadie, almost wildly. "You're crazy yet—or is it me? I don't know what you mean——"

"Yes, you do, dear," replied Helen, putting her arms about the other girl's neck. "You were kind to me when I was lost in this city. You were kind to me just for nothing—when I appeared poor and forlorn and—and a greenie! Now, I am sorry that it seemed best for me to let your mistake stand. I did not tell my uncle and cousins either, that I was not as poor and helpless as I appeared."

"And you're rich?" shrieked Sadie. "You're doing this yourself? This is your store?"

"No, it is your store," returned Helen, firmly. "Of course, by and by, when you are established and are making lots of money, if you can ever afford to pay me back, you may do so. The money is yours without interest until that time."

"I got to cry, Helen! I got to cry!" sobbed Sadie Goronsky. "If an angel right down out of heaven had done it like you done it, I'd worship him on my knees. And you're a rich girl—not a poor one?"

Helen then told her all about herself, and all about her adventures since coming alone to New York. But after that Sadie wanted to keep telling her how thankful she was for the store, and that Helen must come home and see mommer, and that mommer must be brought to see the shop, too. So Helen ran away. She could not bear any more gratitude from Sadie. Her heart was too full.

She went over to poor Lurcher's lodgings and climbed the dark stairs to his rooms. She had something to tell him, as well.

The purblind old man knew her step, although she had been there but a few times.

"Come in, Miss. Yours are angel's visits, although they are more frequent than angel's visits are supposed to be," he cried.

"I do hope you are keeping off the street this weather, Mr. Lurcher," she said. "If you can mend shoes I have heard of a place where they will send work to you, and call for it, and you can afford to have a warmer and lighter room than this one."

"Ah, my dear Miss! that is good of you—that is good of you," mumbled the old man. "And why you should take such an interest in me——?"

"I feel sure that you would be interested in me, if I were poor and unhappy and you were rich and able to get about. Isn't that so?" she said, laughing.

"Aye. Truly. And you are rich, my dear Miss?"

"Very rich, indeed. Father was one of the big cattle kings of Montana, and Prince Morrell's Sunset Ranch, they tell me, is one of the great properties of the West."

The old man turned to look at her with some eagerness. "That name?" he whispered. "Who did you say?"

"Why—my father, Prince Morrell."

"Your father? Prince Morrell your father?" gasped the old man, and sat down suddenly, shaking in every limb.

The girl instantly became excited, too. She stepped quickly to him and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"Did you ever know my father?" she asked him.

"I—I once knew a Mr. Prince Morrell."

"Was it here in New York you knew him?"

"Yes. It was years ago. He—he was a good man. I—I had not heard of him for years. I was away from the city myself for ten years—in New Orleans. I went there suddenly to take the position of head bookkeeper in a shipping firm. Then the firm failed, my health was broken by the climate, and I returned here."

Helen was staring at him in wonder and almost in alarm. She backed away from him a bit toward the door.

"Tell me your real name!" she cried. "It's not Lurcher. Nor is it Jones. No! don't tell me. I know—I know! You are Allen Chesterton, who was once bookkeeper for the firm of Grimes & Morrell!"



CHAPTER XXIX

"THE WHIP HAND"

An hour later Helen and the old man hurried out of the lodging house and Helen led him across town to the office where Dudley Stone worked. At first the old man peered all about, on the watch for Fenwick Grimes or his clerk.

"They have been after me every few days to agree to leave New York. I did not know what for, but I knew Fenwick was up to some game. He always was up to some game, even when we were young fellows together.

"Now he is rich, and he might have found me better lodgings and something to do. But after I came back from the South and was unfit to do clerical work because of my eyes, he only threw me a dollar now and then—like throwing a bone to a starving dog."

That explained how Helen had chanced to see the old man at Fenwick Grimes's door on the occasion of her visit to her father's old partner. And later, in the presence of Dudley Stone—who was almost as eager as Helen herself—the old man related the facts that served to explain the whole mystery surrounding the trouble that had darkened Prince Morrell's life for so long.

Briefly, Allen Chesterton and Fenwick Grimes had grown up together in the same town, as boys had come to New York, and had kept in touch with each other for years. Neither had married and for years they had roomed together.

But Chesterton was a plodding bookkeeper and would never be anything else. Grimes was mad for money, but he was always complaining that he never had a chance.

His chance came through Willets Starkweather, when the latter's brother-in-law was looking for a working partner—a man right in Grimes's line, and who was a good salesman. Grimes got into the firm on very limited capital, yet he was a trusted member and Prince Morrell depended on his judgment in most things.

Allen Chesterton had been brought into the firm's office to keep the books through Grimes's influence, of course. By and by it seemed to Chesterton that his old comrade was running pretty close to the wind. The bookkeeper feared that he might be involved in some dubious enterprise.

There was flung in Chesterton's way (perhaps that was by the influence of Grimes, too) a chance to go to New Orleans to be bookkeeper in a shipping firm. He could get passage upon a vessel belonging to the firm.

He had this to decide between the time of leaving the office one afternoon and early the next morning. He took the place and bundled his things aboard, leaving a letter for Fenwick Grimes. That letter, it is needless to say, Grimes never made public. And by the time the slow craft Chesterton was on reached her destination, the firm of Grimes & Morrell had gone to smash, Morrell was a fugitive, and the papers had ceased to talk about the matter.

The true explanation of the mystery was now plain. Chesterton said that it was not himself, but Grimes, who had been successful as an amateur actor. Grimes had often disguised himself so well as different people that he might have made something by the art in a "protean turn" on the vaudeville stage.

Chesterton had known all about the thirty-three thousand dollars belonging to Morrell & Grimes in the banks. Grimes had hinted to his friend how easy it would be to sequestrate this money without Morrell knowing it. At first, evidently, Grimes had wished to use the bookkeeper as a tool.

Then he improved upon his plan. He had gotten rid of Chesterton by getting him the position at a distance. His going out of town himself had been merely a blind. He had imitated Prince Morrell so perfectly—after forging the checks in his partner's handwriting—that the tellers of the two banks had thought Morrell really guilty as charged.

"So Fenwick Grimes got thirty-three thousand dollars with which to begin business on, after the bankruptcy proceedings had freed him of all debts," said Dud Stone, reflectively. "Yet there must have been one other person who knew, or suspected, his crime."

"Who could that be?" cried Helen. "Surely Mr. Chesterton is guiltless."

"Personally I would have taken the old man's statement without his swearing to it. That is the confidence I have in him. I only wished it to be put into affidavit form that it might be presented to the courts—if necessary."

"If necessary?" repeated Helen, faintly.

"You see, my dear girl, you now have the whip hand," said Dud. "You can make the man—or men—who ill-used your father suffer for the crime——"

"But, is there more than Grimes? Are you sure?"

"I believe that there is another who knew. Either legally, or morally, he is guilty. In either case he was and is a despicable man!" exclaimed Dud, hotly.

"You mean my uncle," observed Helen, quietly. "I know you do. How do you think he benefited by this crime?"

"I believe he had a share of the money. He held Grimes up, undoubtedly. Grimes is the bigger criminal in a legal sense. But Starkweather benefited, I believe, after the fact. And he let your father remain in ignorance——"

"And let poor dad pay him back the money he was supposed to have lost in the smashing of the firm?" murmured Helen. "Do—do you think he was paid twice—that he got money from both Grimes and father?"

"We'll prove that by Grimes," said the fledgling lawyer who, in time, was likely to prove himself a successful one indeed.

He sent for Mr. Grimes to come to see him on important business. When the money-lender arrived, Dud got him into a corner immediately, showed the affidavit, and hinted that Starkweather had divulged something.

Immediately Grimes accused Helen's uncle of exactly the part in the crime Dud had suspected him of committing. After the affair blew over and Grimes had set up in business, Starkweather had come to him and threatened to tell certain things which he knew, and others that he suspected, unless he was given the money he had originally invested in the firm of Grimes & Morrell.

"I shut his mouth. That's all he took—his rightful share; but I've got his receipts, and I can make it look bad for him. And I will make it look bad for that old stiff-and-starched hypocrite if he lets me be driven to the wall."

This defiance of Fenwick Grimes closed the case as far as any legal proceedings were concerned. The matter of recovering the money from Grimes would have to be tried in the civil courts. All the creditors of the firm were satisfied. To get Grimes indicted for his old crime would be a difficult matter in New York County.

"But you have the whip hand," Dud Stone told the girl from Sunset Ranch again. "If you want satisfaction, you can spread the story broadcast by means of the newspapers, and you will involve Starkweather in it just as much as you will Grimes. And between you and me, Helen, I think Willets Starkweather richly deserves just that punishment."



CHAPTER XXX

HEADED WEST

Just at this time Helen Morrell wasn't thinking at all about wreaking vengeance upon those who might have ill-treated her when she was alone in the great city. Instead, her heart was made very tender by the delightful things that were being done for her by those who loved and admired the sturdy little girl from Sunset Ranch.

In the first place, Jess and Dud Stone, and their cousins, gave Helen every chance possible to see the pleasanter side of city life. She had gone shopping with the girls and bought frocks and hats galore. Indeed, she had had to telegraph to Big Hen for more money. She got the money; but likewise she received the following letter:

"Dear Snuggy:—

"We lets colts get inter the alfalfa an' kick up their heels for a while; but they got to steady down and come home some time. Ain't you kicked up your heels sufficient in that lonesome city? And it looks like somebody was getting money away from you—or have you learnt to spend it down East there? Come on home, Snuggy! The hull endurin' ranch is jest a-honin' for you. Sing's that despondint I expects to see him cut off his pigtail. Jo-Rab has gone back on his rice-and-curry rations, the Greasers don't plunk their mandolins no more, and the punchers are as sorry lookin' as winter-kept steers. Come back, Snuggy, and liven up the old place, is the sincere wish of, yours warmly,

"Henry Billings."

Helen only waited to see some few matters cleared up before she left for the West. As it happened, Dud Stone obtained a chance to represent a big corporation for some months, in Elberon and Helena. His smattering of legal knowledge was sufficient to enable him to accept the job. It was a good chance for Jess to go out, too, and try the climate and the life, over both of which her brother was so enthusiastic.

But she would go to Sunset Ranch to remain for some time if Helen went West with them and—of course—Helen was only too glad to agree to such a proposition.

Meanwhile the Western girl was taken to museums, and parks, and theaters, and all kinds of show places, and thoroughly enjoyed herself. May Van Ramsden and others of those who had attended Mary Boyle's tea party in the attic of the Starkweather house hunted Helen out, too, in the home of her friends on Riverside Drive, and the last few weeks of Helen's stay were as wonderful and exciting as the first few weeks had been lonely and sad.

Dud had insisted upon publishing the facts of the old trouble which had come upon the firm of Grimes & Morrell, in pamphlet form, including Allen Chesterton's affidavit, and this pamphlet was mailed to the creditors of the old firm and to all of Prince Morrel's old friends in New York. But nothing was said in the printed matter about Willets Starkweather.

Fenwick Grimes took a long trip out of town, and made no attempt to put in an answer to the case. But Mr. Starkweather was a very much frightened man.

Dud came home one afternoon and advised Helen to go and see her uncle. Since her departure from the Starkweather mansion she had seen neither the girls nor Uncle Starkweather himself.

"He doesn't know what you are going to do with him. He brought the money he received from your father to my office; but, of course, I would not accept it. You've got the whip hand, Helen——"

"But I do not propose to crack the whip, Dud," declared the Western girl, quickly.

"You're a good chap, Snuggy!" exclaimed Dud, warmly, and Helen smiled and forgave him for using the intimate nickname.

But Helen went across town the very next day and called upon her uncle. This time she mounted the broad stone steps, instead of descending to the basement door.

Gregson opened the door and, by his manner, showed that even with the servants the girl from Sunset Ranch was upon a different footing in her uncle's house. Mr. Starkweather was in his den and Helen was ushered into the room without crossing the path of any other member of the family.

"Helen!" he ejaculated, when he saw her, and to tell the truth the girl was shocked by his changed appearance. Mr. Starkweather was quite broken down. The cloud of scandal that seemed to be menacing him had worn his pomposity to a thread, and his dignified "Ahem!" had quite disappeared.

Indeed, to see this once proud and selfish man fairly groveling before the daughter of the man he had helped injure in the old times, was not a pleasant sight. Helen cut the interview as short as she could.

She managed to assure Uncle Starkweather that he need have no apprehension. That he had known all the time Grimes was guilty, and that he had benefited from that knowledge, was the sum and substance of Willets Starkweather's connection with the old crime. At that time he had been, as Dud Stone learned, in serious financial difficulties. He used the money received from Grimes's ill-gotten gains, to put himself on his feet.

Then had come the death of old Cornelius Starkweather and the legacy. After that, when Prince Morrell sent Starkweather the money he was supposed to have lost in the bankruptcy of Grimes & Morrell, Starkweather did not dare refuse it. He feared always that it would be discovered he had known who was really guilty of the embezzlement.

Flossie met Helen in the hall and hugged her. "Don't you go away mad at me, Helen," she cried. "I know we all treated you mean; but—but I guess I wouldn't act that way again, to any girl, no matter what Belle does."

"I do not believe you would, Floss," agreed Helen, kissing her warmly.

"And are you really going back to that lovely ranch?"

"Very soon. And some time, if you care to and your father will let you, I'll be glad to have you come out there for a visit."

"Bully for you, Helen! I'll surely come," cried Flossie.

Hortense was on hand to speak to her cousin, too. "You are much too nice a girl to bear malice, I am sure, Helen," she said. "But we do not deserve very good treatment at your hands. I hope you will forgive us and, when you come to New York again, come to visit us."

"I am sure you would not treat me again as you did this time," said Helen, rather sternly.

"You can be sure we wouldn't. Not even Belle. She's awfully sorry, but she's too proud to say so. She wants father to bring old Mary Boyle downstairs into the old nursery suite that she used to occupy when Uncle Cornelius was alive; only the old lady doesn't want to come. She says she's only a few more years at best to live and she doesn't like changes."

Helen saw the nurse before she left the house, and left the dear old creature very happy indeed. Helen was sure Nurse Boyle would never be so lonely again, for her friends had remembered her.

Even Mrs. Olstrom, the housekeeper, came to shake hands with the girl who had been tucked away into an attic bedroom as "a pauper cousin." And old Mr. Lawdor fairly shed tears when he learned that he was not likely to see Helen again.

There were other people in the great city who were sorry to see Helen Morrell start West. Through Dud Stone, Allen Chesterton had been found light work and a pleasant boarding place. There would always be a watchful eye upon the old man—and that eye belonged to Miss Sadie Goronsky—rather, "S. Goron, Milliner," as the new sign over the hat shop door read.

"For you see," said Miss Sadie, with a toss of her head, "there ain't no use in advertisin' it that you are a Yid. That don't do no good, as I tell mommer. Sure, I'm proud I'm a Jew. We're the greatest people in the world yet. But it ain't good for business.

"Now, 'Goron' sounds Frenchy; don't it, Helen? And when I get a-going down here good, I'll be wantin' some time to look at a place on Fift' Av'ner, maybe. 'Madame Goron' would be dead swell—yes? But you put the 'sky' to it and it's like tying a can to a dog's tail. There ain't nowhere to go then but home," declared this worldly wise young girl.

Helen had dinner again with the Goronskys, and Sadie's mother could not do enough to show her fondness for her daughter's benefactor. Sadie promised to write to Helen frequently and the two girls—so much alike in some ways, yet as far apart as the poles in others—bade each other an affectionate farewell.

The next day Helen Morrell and her two friends, Dud and Jess Stone, were headed West. That second trip across the continent was a very different journey for Helen than the first had been.

She and Jess Stone had become the best of friends. And as the months slid by the two girls—Helen, a product of the West, and Jessie, a product of the great Eastern city—became dearer and dearer companions.

As for Dud—of course he was always hanging around. His sister sometimes wondered—and that audibly—how he found time for business, he was so frequently at Sunset Ranch. This was only said, however, in wicked enjoyment of his discomfiture—and of Helen's blushes.

For by that time it was an understood thing about Sunset Ranch that in time Dud was going to have the right to call its mistress "Snuggy" for all the years of her life—just as her father had. And Helen, contemplating this possibility, did not seem to mind.

THE END

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SOMETHING ABOUT AMY BELL MARLOWE AND HER BOOKS FOR GIRLS

In these days, when the printing presses are turning out so many books for girls that are good, bad and indifferent, it is refreshing to come upon the works of such a gifted authoress as Miss Amy Bell Marlowe, who is now under contract to write exclusively for Messrs. Grosset & Dunlap.

In many ways Miss Marlowe's books may be compared with those of Miss Alcott and Mrs. Meade, but all are thoroughly modern and wholly American in scene and action. Her plots, while never improbable, are exceedingly clever, and her girlish characters are as natural as they are interesting.

On the following pages will be found a list of Miss Marlowe's books. Every girl in our land ought to read these fresh and wholesome tales. They are to be found at all booksellers. Each volume is handsomely illustrated and bound in cloth, stamped in colors. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York. A free catalogue of Miss Marlowe's books may be had for the asking.

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THE OLDEST OF FOUR

"I don't see any way out!"

It was Natalie's mother who said that, after the awful news had been received that Mr. Raymond had been lost in a shipwreck on the Atlantic. Natalie was the oldest of four children, and the family was left with but scant means for support.

"I've got to do something—yes, I've just got to!" Natalie said to herself, and what the brave girl did is well related in "The Oldest of Four; Or, Natalie's Way Out." In this volume we find Natalie with a strong desire to become a writer. At first she contributes to a local paper, but soon she aspires to larger things, and comes in contact with the editor of a popular magazine. This man becomes her warm friend, and not only aids her in a literary way but also helps in a hunt for the missing Mr. Raymond.

Natalie has many ups and downs, and has to face more than one bitter disappointment. But she is a plucky girl through and through.

"One of the brightest girls' stories ever penned," one well-known author has said of this book, and we agree with him. Natalie is a thoroughly lovable character, and one long to be remembered. Published as are all the Amy Bell Marlowe books, by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by all booksellers. Ask your dealer to let you look the volume over.

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THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM

"We'll go to the old farm, and we'll take boarders! We can fix the old place up, and, maybe, make money!"

The father of the two girls was broken down in health and a physician had recommended that he go to the country, where he could get plenty of fresh air and sunshine. An aunt owned an abandoned farm and she said the family could live on this and use the place as they pleased. It was great sport moving and getting settled, and the boarders offered one surprise after another. There was a mystery about the old farm, and a mystery concerning one of the boarders, and how the girls got to the bottom of affairs is told in detail in the story, which is called, "The Girls of Hillcrest Farm; Or, The Secret of the Rocks."

It was great fun to move to the farm, and once the girls had the scare of their lives. And they attended a great "vendue" too.

"I just had to write that story—I couldn't help, it," said Miss Marlowe, when she handed in the manuscript. "I knew just such a farm when I was a little girl, and oh! what fun I had there! And there was a mystery about that place, too!"

Published, like all the Marlowe books, by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale wherever good books are sold.

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A LITTLE MISS NOBODY

"Oh, she's only a little nobody! Don't have anything to do with her!"

How often poor Nancy Nelson heard those words, and how they cut her to the heart. And the saying was true, she was a nobody. She had no folks, and she did not know where she had come from. All she did know was that she was at a boarding school and that a lawyer paid her tuition bills and gave her a mite of spending money.

"I am going to find out who I am, and where I came from," said Nancy to herself, one day, and what she did, and how it all ended, is absorbingly related in "A Little Miss Nobody; Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall." Nancy made a warm friend of a poor office boy who worked for that lawyer, and this boy kept his eyes and ears open and learned many things.

The book tells much about boarding school life, of study and fun mixed, and of a great race on skates. Nancy made some friends as well as enemies, and on more than one occasion proved that she was "true blue" in the best meaning of that term.

Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers everywhere. If you desire a catalogue of Amy Bell Marlowe books send to the publishers for it and it will come free.

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THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH

Helen was very thoughtful as she rode along the trail from Sunset Ranch to the View. She had lost her father but a month before, and he had passed away with a stain on his name—a stain of many years' standing, as the girl had just found out.

"I am going to New York and I am going to clear his name!" she resolved, and just then she saw a young man dashing along, close to the edge of a cliff. Over he went, and Helen, with no thought of the danger to herself, went to the rescue.

Then the brave Western girl found herself set down at the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. She knew not which way to go or what to do. Her relatives, who thought she was poor and ignorant, had refused to even meet her. She had to fight her way along from the start, and how she did this, and won out, is well related in "The Girl from Sunset Ranch; Or, Alone in a Great City."

This is one of the finest of Amy Bell Marlowe's books, with its true-to-life scenes of the plains and mountains, and of the great metropolis. Helen is a girl all readers will love from the start.

Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers everywhere.

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WYN'S CAMPING DAYS

"Oh, girls, such news!" cried Wynifred Mallory to her chums, one day. "We can go camping on Lake Honotonka! Isn't it grand!"

It certainly was, and the members of the Go-Ahead Club were delighted. Soon they set off, with their boy friends to keep them company in another camp not far away. Those boys played numerous tricks on the girls, and the girls retaliated, you may be sure. And then Wyn did a strange girl a favor, and learned how some ancient statues of rare value had been lost in the lake, and how the girl's father was accused of stealing them.

"We must do all we can for that girl," said Wyn. But this was not so easy, for the girl campers had many troubles of their own. They had canoe races, and one of them fell overboard and came close to drowning, and then came a big storm, and a nearby tree was struck by lightning.

"I used to love to go camping when a girl, and I love to go yet," said Miss Marlowe, in speaking of this tale, which is called, "Wyn's Camping Days; Or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club." "I think all girls ought to know the pleasures of summer life under canvas."

A book that ought to be in the hands of all girls. Issued by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers everywhere.

THE END