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The Bluebird Books

Mary Louise Stands the Test

Josie and Mary Louise.

Mary Louise
Stands the Test

By
Edith Van Dyne

Author of
“Mary Louise,” “Mary Louise in the Country,” “Mary
Louise Solves a Mystery,” “Mary Louise and the
Liberty Girls,” “Mary Louise Adopts a
Soldier,” “Mary Louise at Dorfield.”

Frontispiece by
Harry W. Armstrong

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

Copyright 1921

By
The Reilly & Lee Co.

All Rights Reserved

Made in U. S. A.

Mary Louise Stands the Test

CONTENTS

Mary Louise Stands the Test

CHAPTER I
A SMALL CLOUD

There were persons in Dorfield who said that Mary Louise’s life was too easy; that Fortune had smiled on her more than any one mortal had a right to expect. Why should beauty, charm, intelligence, and riches all belong to one girl? Why should she have an enormously wealthy grandfather whose one idea was to gratify her every wish, when any other girl, if she had any grandfather at all, was, perhaps, forced to support him or, at any rate, never got even a taste of the breast of the chicken because of the troublesome old gentleman’s predilection for that portion of the fowl? Why should Mary Louise marry the best looking and most promising young man who had settled in Dorfield for many a year? To be sure, when Danny Dexter first came to Dorfield at the close of the World War, he was not considered so very desirable by the mothers of the young women of the town. Not one had cast her nets for him and Mary Louise was considered quite quixotic to have adopted the returned soldier with his uncertain fortunes and scarred face. It was looked upon as another proof of Mary Louise’s unfailing luck that she should have discerned the true worth of young Dexter through his ragged uniform and unhealed scars.

Those persons who gave voice to such sentiments concerning Mary Louise were ignorant of the girl’s past history or they surely would have felt that she had suffered enough as a child and young girl to deserve some good fortune from the Fate who is supposed to even up things sooner or later. What that suffering was and the adventures through which the young girl had finally come victorious, are well known to the true friends of Mary Louise. We will not dwell upon them but bring our history down-to-date.

Colonel Hathaway was palpably failing. Anyone could see it with half an eye, and poor Mary Louise had to shut both eyes to keep from acknowledging that her old grandfather had lost not only his physical vigor, but that his mind was growing feeble. His old friend and lawyer, Peter Conant, who lived next door, had noticed that there was something queer about the Colonel. He had mentioned it to his wife Hannah, and Hannah being very deaf, he had been forced to mention it in such a loud tone that his niece, Irene Macfarlane, who was in the next room, could not help overhearing the conversation.

“I heard what you said to Aunt Hannah, Uncle Peter,” Irene said, wheeling herself into the sitting room where her uncle and aunt had settled themselves for the evening. Irene, Mary Louise’s best friend, was a lame girl who went everywhere in a rolling chair. “I heard some of it and I simply had to come and hear more,” she continued, her sweet face flushing and her clear steady eyes filling with tears. “I have noticed too that our dear old neighbor is not quite himself and I’ve been so worried about it.”

“Does Mary Louise notice it?” asked her uncle.

“I don’t know but she must think he talks strangely,” answered Irene sadly. “Colonel Hathaway has always been so kindly and genial and now he seems suspicious and a little bitter. He has taken an unaccountable dislike to Danny lately. He picks on the poor fellow all the time. You remember he used to think the world and all of Danny even when he was so down and out that he hired himself to the Colonel as a chauffeur. Now he is doing splendidly and being advanced right along at the automobile factory. Laura Hinton says her father thinks he is the most promising young man he knows—certainly the best one in the factory.”

“Too bad! Too bad!” sighed Uncle Peter. “We must never forget what our old friend has been, and we must not deal harshly with him in our hearts for what he is now. A mind diseased! God grant it is merely a phase and will pass.”

Aunt Hannah had been listening to the above conversation with two ear trumpets, a method she employed when anything very interesting was being discussed.

“It may be a blood clot on the brain and he may be as right as a trivet again,” suggested Aunt Hannah, who always took a cheerful view of life and even death when the persons for whom she had prognosticated a perfect cure finally passed away. “I knew a man once—”

But Irene, who had been busily engaged in the next room on some sewing for the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, could not wait to hear about the man Aunt Hannah knew. Aunt Hannah always had known some one who had been miraculously saved from the calamity that was in question and, as her stories were long and full of detail, her husband and Irene did not always have time to listen to them. She had a way of removing her trumpet from her ear and there was no answering her or holding back the flood of her discourse. Once started, she talked on until she had freed her mind.

Irene and her Uncle Peter had a tacit agreement that one of them must always listen to Aunt Hannah’s long reminiscences beginning with “I knew a man,” or “I knew a woman,” and, since Irene was busy with her sewing and Peter was merely reading the paper, it was his duty on this occasion to give ear to his wife’s exhaustive and exhausting account of a man who had been seemingly dead from a clot on the brain and was in his coffin and the funeral under way when he sat up and demanded kidney hash.

“Well I hope Jim Hathaway will demand kidney hash and stop bedeviling Mary Louise’s Danny,” sighed Mr. Conant. “Poor old Jim! Poor old Jim!”

Mary Louise was very sad over her grandfather’s feeling against her beloved Danny. The change had come on gradually, so gradually that Mary Louise could hardly tell when the old man had adopted the critical attitude he now held. In days gone by, he had looked at his grandson-in-law with kindly benevolent eyes and had always seemed glad to see him. He had taken pride in the young man’s power of attracting friends and keeping them, in his ability in the automobile factory, and his rapid advancement. Indeed, he had felt that in Mary Louise’s marrying Danny Dexter he had not lost a daughter but gained a son. Now that the old gentleman’s mind was failing, he looked upon the young man’s every word and action with jealous suspicion. In place of the kind and benevolent glances were sly, shifting eyes that seemed to be trying to fathom some unbelievable wickedness the young man was endeavoring to conceal.

Danny himself was the last to realize that he was heartily disliked by Colonel Hathaway. He was the least suspicious of mortals and not at all inclined to think anyone was trying to insult him. He had a real affection for the grandfather of his darling Mary Louise and was grateful to the old gentleman for having taken him upon faith. Had the Colonel not given his consent to his granddaughter’s marrying Danny before he had proved himself altogether worthy of such an honor? This confidence in him had added zest to Danny’s determination to make good and not to betray the trust Colonel Hathaway had imposed in him. Danny had never wanted to be a financial burden to the Colonel and had insisted from the beginning that either he and his bride should go to housekeeping for themselves or he should be allowed to pay board for both of them. Of course, it was out of the question for Mary Louise to leave her grandfather in his old age and when the matter of board was broached the old gentleman had been very much amused.

“My dear Danny,” he had expostulated, “surely you will not take from me the pleasure and delight of having you young people in my home. As for board: I should pay you for being willing to live in my big old house that would be gloomy indeed without you. Say no more about it, my son. I have money enough and to spare and it is all to be Mary Louise’s when I die—yours and Mary Louise’s I should say.”

Danny had felt that any further insistence on his part would have been in bad taste and had let the matter drop, although it had never been satisfactory to him to feel dependent on anyone, even his wife’s beloved grandfather. Mary Louise, never having known a father, had looked upon Grandpa Jim as one and accepted all things from him as naturally as a child does from father or mother.

What a change had come about in one short year! The first step in the uncomfortable situation was when Colonel Hathaway became slightly irritable with Danny. He seemed to begrudge the time Mary Louise spent with her husband and would say sadly, “I never see my granddaughter since she married.” This was an exaggeration, since Mary Louise was ever punctilious in her care for Grandpa Jim and in her anxiety to entertain him and make him happy.

Then began the gradual growth of this hatred which seemed to be poisoning the system of the once kindly old gentleman. First he would not address a remark to Danny, to whom he had hitherto talked freely, finding much amusement in his long conversations with him. Danny overlooked this in his old friend and redoubled his efforts to find topics of interest. From not addressing a remark to Danny, it was an easy step to not answering him when asked a direct question. At first Danny thought that Colonel Hathaway was growing deaf and would shout his questions into an indignant ear.

Then began a kind of sly indirect invective against Danny. Colonel Hathaway never missed a chance to say something derogatory concerning his granddaughter’s husband. Loving the old gentleman as they did and being accustomed to look upon him as well nigh perfect, the young couple were slow to realize the change in Grandpa Jim. When they did realize that his feeling for Danny was one of intense hatred, they made a mistake in not discussing the matter thoroughly with each other. But Mary Louise was touchy about her grandfather’s peculiar behavior and Danny’s feelings were hurt, so that the question was the one thing that they tacitly agreed to hide from sight. The consequence was that a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand had come in the otherwise perfect and cloudless firmament of their love.

Once in the early days when Colonel Hathaway had been strangely rude to Danny and loudly exclaimed, “Pish! Tush! Rot!” when Danny had advanced some inoffensive theory, the young man had wonderingly remarked to his wife, “What do you think is eating the Colonel?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mary Louise had answered miserably and a little haughtily.

But Danny persisted:

“Why, what’s the matter with him? Why did he jump on me so hard? I merely remarked that, when the returned soldiers have once shed their uniforms, they are not crazy about getting back in them and parading up and down like nigger minstrels. I guess I ought to know. Anyhow, even if he disagreed with me, there was no use in jumping on me so hard, both feet down and chest extended.”

“You are mistaken. Grandpa Jim could not be rude to you. He merely hated to have you make fun of your country.”

“Fun of my country! Gee, honey, you are all off, you and the Colonel both. I was talking about parades, not my country.”

“All right, Danny dear, but please don’t say things about Grandpa Jim,” and Mary Louise slipped her hand in his.

From that day on, Danny never mentioned the uncomfortable moments that he was forced to spend in the presence of his host. He made those moments as short as possible, sometimes not even coming home to his meals, making the plea of stress of business preventing him.

Poor Mary Louise was torn between two loves, two duties. She adored Grandpa Jim. Had he not been everything to her from the time she was a baby? Could she forget the supreme sacrifice he had made to her poor mother, hounded from city to city, country to country, falsely accused of having been disloyal to the United States when all the time it had been her father and mother who had been guilty of treason? No! Never could she forget the scene at Hillcrest Lodge after her mother’s death when the knowledge of her grandfather’s wonderful courage and unselfishness had come upon her with full force. Then there was Danny, her Danny, the same man to whom she had given her first and last and only love; Danny with his charming disposition and sweet merry eyes; Danny, the returned and wounded soldier, who had been the most popular man in the regiment and looked upon as the bravest and best. It hurt Mary Louise to the quick that her grandfather should treat Danny as he did, but she could not face the fact that the old gentleman was not altogether himself. It would have been better had she realized the truth and talked the matter over with Danny and her friends, but a mistaken idea of loyalty to her beloved grandfather sealed her lips and her ears. She would not discuss it with them nor must they broach the subject to her.

And so the young couple drifted along, as devoted as ever but with the small cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, beginning to spread over their bright sky.

CHAPTER II
AT THE HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY SHOP

The Higgledy Piggledy Shop had proved even more successful than its owners had dreamed possible even in their most wildly sanguine moments. When Josie O’Gorman, the detective’s daughter—herself a budding detective—had gone into partnership with Elizabeth Wright and they had opened the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, it had been with the idea of building up a business gradually. But the first six months, indeed the first three months, had demonstrated to them and to Dorfield that such a shop was much needed in the town.

Elizabeth held up the secretarial end, doing all of the typing, correcting manuscript for would-be authors, writing club papers for aspiring females, and, occasionally, even love letters for bashful youths or maidens whose hearts were bigger than their heads or whose love burned too fiercely to make it safe for them to approach too closely to such inflammable material as scented note paper. Josie was the blanchisseuse au fin who laundered the fine laces and linen brought to the shop by their wealthy clients. And she did most of the research work in the books of reference from her father’s magnificent technical library. Another one of her duties was the matching of silks and wools. It was one that she did not relish much, as clothes and fancy work were her abomination, but her eye was so sure that she never made a mistake and Elizabeth found herself constantly making slight errors in shades when she undertook to do that part of the work.

The clipping bureau, that had been started with some trepidation because of the outlay necessary to subscribe to so many papers and magazines to enable them to carry on the work successfully, had developed into a thriving branch of the business. It was really astonishing to see how many persons were willing and anxious to pay so that, if their names appeared in print, they would be sure to know about it.

Irene Macfarlane still took entire charge of the fine needlework, orders for which poured in on the girls. She had not been content until she had learned to put in an invisible patch as well as the nefarious Hortense Markle whose whereabouts was still a mystery to the detective force. Certainly Hortense had been as much a party to the frauds practiced by her husband as Felix Markle himself; but she had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. After Mary Louise’s wedding, she had tripped away from the festivities gowned in palest diaphanous grey with stockings, slippers and gloves to match and a picture hat that could have been identified by everyone at the wedding, since it had been noted and admired by all the guests as being a work of real art. She had tripped away, and, for all the police could find out, the earth might have opened and swallowed her.

Josie always had a feeling that, sooner or later, the Hortense Markle mystery would be solved. She had the thought constantly in the back of her busy brain, but, since the men who were implicated in the wholesale robberies that had been committed throughout the whole of the United States, had one and all been caught, the police seemed to feel that the woman was not worth hunting for. Josie knew that it was the genius of the woman as much as that of her husband that had made the robberies so successful and she knew also that a character like Hortense Markle’s could not be downed but would, in the course of time, assert itself in other channels of wickedness. No doubt she had left America and was in some foreign country awaiting the release of her husband from the penitentiary. The love she bore her husband was the one good point in her character. At least, it was the only good point Josie was ready to grant her. With all Hortense’s charm, wit and beauty, artistic taste, and efficiency, she was, according to Josie and Mary Louise’s other friends, rotten to the core.

What they could not forgive in the fascinating Mrs. Markle was her treachery in regard to Mary Louise, the beloved of Dorfield. Mary Louise herself made excuses for the Markles, but then Mary Louise always made excuses for everybody.

“They were brought up wrong!” or, “They must have been greatly tempted!” or perhaps, “They inherited some weakness from their ancestors!” she would say when the exciting topic of the attempted robbery of all her wedding gifts was under discussion, as it often was at the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“Oh, gracious me, Mary Louise, you can’t see straight for sheer goodness!” Josie exclaimed at one of these occasions. “If the Markles weren’t wicked—as wicked as his Satanic Majesty—then their parents must have been, to bring them up so badly; or, if not their parents, at least some of their forbears from whom they inherited their traits. The blame has to go somewhere and it might just as well be put on Felix and the fair Hortense as on their dead progenitors. No doubt said Satanic Majesty is able to entertain the whole bunch of them in the lower regions.”

Mary Louise smiled and, taking from the book shelves a well worn copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, turned the leaves at random and read bits aloud.

“With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man knead,

And there of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:

And the first Morning of Creation wrote

What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

* * * * * *

As under cover of departing Day

Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazán away,

Once more within the Potter’s house alone

I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.

Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,

That stood along the floor and by the wall;

And some loquacious vessels were; and some

Listen’d perhaps, but never talk’d at all.

Said one among them—‘Surely not in vain

My substance of the common Earth was ta’en

And to this figure, moulded to be broke

Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.’

Then said a Second—‘Ne’er a peevish Boy

Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;

And He that with his hand the Vessel Made

Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.’

After a momentary silence spake

Some vessel of a more ungainly make:

‘They sneer at me for leaning all awry:

What! Did the hand then of the Potter shake?’

Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot—

I think a Sufi pipkin—waking hot—

‘All this of Pot and Potter—Tell me then

Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?’

‘Why,’ said another, ‘Some there are who tell

Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell

The luckless Pots he marr’d in making—Pish!

He’s a Good Fellow, and ’twill all be well.’”

“That expresses what I want to say better than I ever could,” said Mary Louise. “I can’t blame anybody very much because he or she may have been marred in the making.”

“Right dangerous doctrine for us to practice in regard to ourselves,” said Josie. “It’s all right to feel that way about the other fellow, but, if we get to feeling that way about ourselves and excusing our every fault because we were made that way, we’d be a mighty lopsided bunch. For my part, I’d rather think of myself as wet clay—never dried and baked—always wet and pliable, and with it my own job to mould myself into some kind of useful and even beautiful shape. I don’t want to blame a soul but myself for my shortcomings.” She put a book back in place with a vigorous push.

Mary Louise had come to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop to try to throw off some of the misery and gloom she felt enveloping her. She longed to tell Josie about her predicament, but Elizabeth Wright was present and Irene had just come gliding in her wheel chair from the dumb waiter, an arrangement Danny had perfected so that the lame girl could come to the shop whenever she wanted to and not be dependent on anyone to be carried up stairs. Entering from the rear of the building, she merely wheeled herself into the large dumb waiter and, with a few pulls of the rope, landed on the second floor.

Mary Louise shrank from discussing her trouble concerning her grandfather with Irene because of the fact of her living next door and of Uncle Peter Conant’s being such a friend of Grandpa Jim. The poor girl had become very sensitive and, because of Colonel Hathaway’s feeling against Danny, feared perhaps his friends were sharing that feeling. She was sure her grandfather quite freely expressed his opinion of Danny to anyone who would listen to him. That in itself was very unlike Grandpa Jim, who had always been reticent about his affairs even with an old and tried friend like Mr. Peter Conant.

Josie has such a level head. Perhaps she could suggest something to do. At least, it would be a relief to talk it over with her. It seemed strange and wrong for anything to have come into her life that she could not discuss with Danny, but she felt that it would be rank disloyalty to poor Grandpa Jim if she mentioned the trouble to him. It was plain to see that the young man was puzzled and hurt by the Colonel’s treatment of him and now was becoming irritated and impatient. It seemed absurd to accuse Colonel Hathaway of being not quite himself since the stand he had taken in regard to his grandson-in-law was the only evidence of it. He attended to his affairs as usual, looking after his investments with punctilious care, clipping coupons, seeing that his property was kept up with all repairs necessary, and reinvesting his money as bonds matured. He had even made quite an extensive sale of real estate, selling at a large profit and investing the money to great advantage, so he declared, in some mines. This particular investment had caused Mary Louise more sorrow than she had known before in all her life. It seemed to the girl that even the death of her mother had not brought such intense suffering.

The Colonel had come home after selling a large number of bonds, loudly proclaiming, “I’ll tie it up, too, so that rascal can’t get his clutches on it. The worthless fellow!”

Mary Louise did not understand that her Danny was the rascal and worthless fellow and had asked in some astonishment “What rascal, Grandpa Jim?”

And he had answered sadly, “You poor child, I mean your husband.”

She had burst out crying and Colonel Hathaway had taken her action as proof that she was being abused by Danny and had continued his invectives against that innocent and long suffering young man. Vainly Mary Louise had endeavored to stem the flow of his abuse.

“Women always take up the defense for their worthless husbands,” he had said, “but it makes no impression on me. He is a rascal and I don’t care who knows I think so.”

Danny had overheard the remark and it had added fuel to the fires of his resentment. He had rushed from the house without waiting for dinner, and Mary Louise regretted the fact that he had given the front door an ear-splitting slam. This gave Colonel Hathaway a real grievance which be aired during the miserable meal that followed. As soon as it was over, Mary Louise had fled to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“How is everybody?” called Irene as her chair rolled smoothly across the floor. It was the best one of its kind that could be bought and moved so easily that the girl could wheel herself many city blocks without the least fatigue. It was a present from Colonel Hathaway, with whom the lame girl was a great favorite. He was constantly doing something kind for her.

“We are fine,” answered Josie, “and glad to see you. A job of mending has come in that must be done immediately. It beats me how rich people wait until the last minute to attend to their own affairs and then come with a great rush for poor people to do their part. It is a set of real lace curtains—exquisite things—but there are many small breaks to be darned and Mrs. Sears wants it rushed through as fast as possible so they can be hung in time for the reception she is giving next week. She might just as well have brought them six weeks ago,” grumbled Josie.

“Well, I guess I can do them in time,” laughed Irene. “Let me see them. Why, I’ll have to appliqué these corners on net. Just see how shot with holes they are! Anyhow, it is easier to appliqué than to darn.”

“It all seems terribly hard to me. I can mend only with hammer and nails and a glue-pot,” declared Josie. “I suppose you want me to go out and match the net. Let me see the mesh.”

“That would be mighty good of you,” said Irene. “Do you want me to give you a tiny sample? I could snip it off under the casing at the top.”

“No, I can remember it! That’s the kind of memory I have and so had my father. He had a photographic mind and I seem to have one too. Come on, Mary Louise, and go with me.”

Josie’s keen eye had seen from the first that something was worrying her dear friend and she divined that her advice and sympathy were wanted and that Mary Louise had been disappointed to find Elizabeth in the shop. She had also detected a shade of annoyance at Irene’s entrance. It had taken sharp perception indeed to realize this, for Mary Louise’s manner had been as courteous as ever with the other girls and her greeting as affectionate. But little escaped the sharp eyes and ears of Josie. The warp and woof of the lives of her acquaintances were as clearly defined in her mind as the net of the curtains she was to match. Something was wrong with the tapestry Fate was working on the life of dear Mary Louise. Josie knew it for sure and she determined to find out if possible and to help her if she could.

CHAPTER III
JOSIE INTERVENES

“What is it, honey?” asked Josie as they left the rickety old building, the second floor of which was occupied by the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“What’s what?” asked Marie Louise.

“What’s the matter?”

“The matter?”

“Yes, honey, you can’t fool your great-aunt Josie! There is something that is making you pale and thin and sad-eyed—something that keeps your eyes swimming in tears half the time. There is no use in pretending you didn’t come down to the shop to see me alone if possible and talk over something that is worrying you to death. Now is there?”

Mary Louise smiled, “Well—y-e-e-s! But how did you know?”

“By a pricking in my thumb, perhaps! Anyhow—out with it!”

Mary Louise breathed a sigh of relief. It was rather nice to have Josie be so direct and uncompromising and businesslike. She had come to see her in hope of getting a word alone with her, but, when the opportunity arose, she had half determined not to take advantage of it. She had not known just how to begin and now Josie had taken the bit between her teeth and there was nothing to do but sit tight and let Josie have her way.

“I know you hate to start but you’ll feel better when once you begin. Is it something about Danny?”

“Partly!”

“Anyone else?”

“Grandpa Jim!”

“Aren’t they getting along as well as they used to?”

“Oh, Josie—I am nearly dead about the way Grandpa Jim is treating Danny. I can’t make it out at all. He used to be crazy about Danny and wanted me to marry him and seemed to love him like a real son—but lately he is so strangely unkind to him.”

“How does Danny take it?”

“At first, his feelings were hurt and he didn’t know what to do about it, but now he is angry and impatient and just sees as little of Grandpa Jim as possible. He hardly ever comes home to dinner and, when he does come home, it is awful because Grandpa Jim makes the most terrible insinuations about money and all kinds of things and Danny just flings himself out of the house and then Grandpa Jim says he is neglecting me. Whenever I go anywhere with Danny, Grandpa Jim gets furious with him and says Danny monopolizes me so that I have no time to give to my poor old grandfather who has made every sacrifice for me.”

“The Colonel is nutty, just plain nutty, I think,” suggested Josie without mincing matters in the least.

“Oh don’t say it! Please don’t say it!” cried Mary Louise. “He is as clear headed as can be and attends to his business just as he always has and he plays chess with Uncle Peter and can beat him as often as he gets beaten. A man who was not quite in his right mind couldn’t do that.”

“Well, honey, I should think you would rather your old grandfather was off his bean a bit than just plain mean and cantankerous. I fancy you think I put it pretty baldly,” noticing how her friend winced at her words, “but I see no other way to put it. Have you talked it over with Danny?”

“Oh, Josie, I just can’t talk it over with him because it would be so disloyal to poor Grandpa Jim! Think of all he has done for me! Think of what he sacrificed for my mother and how he was willing to go on and sacrifice himself forever for me if it had not been for the wisdom of your dear father.”

“Yes, honey, I am thinking of that. Don’t you know your grandfather loves you better than anybody in the world and he would die rather than hurt you, that is, if he is in his right mind? Don’t you realize that this poor old man who is deliberately wounding you every moment of the day—because he would ordinarily know that there can be no wound deeper than the one he is inflicting when he says hard things about your husband—don’t you know that this is not your real grandfather but a sick man, your grandfather with his brain not functioning properly? Just as my father refused to let your grandfather go on sacrificing himself uselessly for your poor mother, who had passed beyond his care and solicitude, so I am trying to make you see that you must not let your dear Danny be sacrificed just because you refuse to face the truth.”

“Josie, you are hard on me!”

“So I am, but not as hard on you as you are on yourself. Can’t you see, Mary Louise, you are being as unfair to Grandpa Jim as you are to Danny? Can’t you see that the real Colonel Hathaway would die before he would do what he is doing if he had his senses about him? He really should see a doctor. Why don’t you get that young Dr. Coles to look in on him?”

“It would make him furious. He likes Dr. Coles but, if he should come to see him professionally when he had not sent for him, he might be rude to him.”

“Well a little rudeness isn’t going to kill a nerve specialist. That’s what Coles is I believe. Get him to come in a kind of friendly way and see if he thinks your grandfather is normal.”

“You don’t think it would be underhanded?”

“Sure it would be underhanded! But sometimes being underhanded isn’t such a bad thing to be.”

So persuaded by the astute Josie, Mary Louise agreed to stop at Dr. Coles’s office and have a little talk with him concerning her grandfather.

“Don’t tell him what you think is the matter,” Josie whispered while they waited their turn to see the young doctor. “Just tell him you are a little uneasy about the old gentleman and for him to step around in a friendly way and look him over. Then, when he gives his verdict, you have a plain talk with Danny and make him realize it is not the true Colonel Hathaway who is behaving this way. Danny has disposition enough to carry it off without a murmur if he knows you know that your grandfather is simply suffering from a slight—er—er—derangement.”

“All right! I’ll do what you say if Dr. Coles thinks he has some brain trouble that is making him do this way. I do hope Grandpa Jim’s mind is not really failing.”

“Well, I’d a deal rather his mind would fail than his own kind heart. I’d hate to think that my dear old friend was just plain mean for meanness’ sake. I’d much rather think he was a bit batty.”

Mary Louise sighed and smiled in spite of herself. Josie was so simple and natural and spoke her mind so honestly and directly that there was no getting hurt with her, although it did seem a little heartless for her to speak of Colonel Hathaway as “off his bean” and a “bit batty.”

Dr. Coles was as direct as Josie and immediately grasped what Mary Louise wanted him to do and promised to do it that very evening.

“I’ll make an evening call, coming in quite naturally and asking to see you and Mr. Dexter as well as the Colonel,” he suggested.

“Exactly!” put in Josie. “Stethoscopes and blood pressure tests can follow later.”

“Now I feel better,” sighed Mary Louise as they left the doctor’s office. “Let’s go get an ice cream soda. I haven’t had the heart for one for weeks.”

“You poor lamb!” laughed Josie. “One does have to feel kind of perky for ice cream sodas.”

The sodas were enjoyed, the net for the curtains matched, and the two girls made their way back to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“Sorry to be so long but I fancy you have been busy enough on the other darns,” said Josie. “Anything happened?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “a lady came in and wanted a mourning bonnet made in a certain way. You see ladies don’t wear bonnets any more, not even old, old ladies. Everybody wears hats. This dear old lady complained that she was too old for hats and the girls in the stores laughed at her for requesting an old-fashioned bonnet. She had heard that we did anything and came to us.”

“Too bad you had to turn her down.”

“But Josie, I didn’t. I just took the order on a venture. I felt there must be somebody we could get to do it. She left an old one to be copied as to shape, but she wants the new one trimmed a little more.” Elizabeth dived into a box and produced a little rusty black crêpe bonnet with a widow’s ruche and a package of fresh new crêpe.

“She was a sweet old lady,” put in Irene. “I wish I had time to do it for her, not that I am much of a milliner.”

“Do let me do it,” begged Mary Louise. “I just know I can although I haven’t made a hat for years. I used to get the most gorgeous results for my doll family. I make outrageous inside stitches, but the outsides look fine.”

“Oh, would you? That would be scrumptious!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “When can you do it?”

“Right now! All I want is a thimble and some scissors. I’ll run round to the five-and-ten-cent store for a bonnet shape. I noticed this morning that they had a window full of them. I can get one nearly like this one and then cut it down to be exactly like it. Let me see how this one fits me so I can judge the size.”

Her hat was off in a moment and the sad little bonnet put on over her pretty curls.

“It fits exactly!” she cried, making a little moue at her image reflected in an antique gilt mirror. Antique mirrors were among the wares the Higgledy Piggledies dealt in.

Mary Louise was off in a jiffy, eager to make the purchase and get to work. It made her happier to have something definite to occupy her until she could get the doctor’s verdict concerning her grandfather and, also, until she could have the heart to heart talk she was planning to have with her Danny.

Irene shook her head sadly when her dear friend’s eager footsteps died away as she flew down the stairs to the street.

“Dear, dear child,” she said solemnly. “I do wish she had not tried on that queer old mourning bonnet.”

“It gave me a turn too,” confessed Josie.

“I wondered if you felt funny about it,” said Elizabeth. “My old nurse used to tell us that it was the worst luck in the world to try on mourning unless you were already wearing it. Of course, she was an ignorant old woman but she used to say it was a sure sign of trouble coming. Were you thinking of that, Irene?”

“I am ashamed to say I was. Under those wretched widow’s weeds there was something about her sweet face, that certainly has been pale and pensive lately, that made me feel strangely superstitious—but I hate myself for giving it room in my mind.”

CHAPTER IV
MARY LOUISE—MILLINER

With deft fingers Mary Louise fashioned the little bonnet. She had purchased a piece of fresh white crêpe ruching which she tacked in the front.

“Now, a lining to keep my huge stitches from showing and there we are!” she cried.

“Lovely!” gasped Elizabeth. “I don’t see how you did it. I can’t trim a hat to save me. My mother can’t even trim a hat to look like anything, although she thinks she can. There is nothing Mother confesses not to be able to do.”

The girls laughed. Mrs. Wright’s idiosyncrasies were well known to the group. She was a managing lady who had unbounded faith in her own prowess and judgment.

“I guess I’ll take the bonnet to the little old lady on my way home,” suggested Mary Louise. “I’d like to see her try it on.”

“That would be fine,” said Josie, who had been busily engaged all afternoon with her laundering. “I’d go with you, but this last dozen napkins must be polished off. Don’t they look lovely and glossy? I just love to iron. It is such wonderful work to let you think while you are doing it.”

“Yes, and I’m afraid I’d think scorched places on the fine damask,” laughed Elizabeth. “What must Mary Louise charge the little old lady?”

“Charge her! Why nothing, goose! Of course, I did it just for the fun of doing it,” blushed Mary Louise.

“Oh, that would never do,” put in Josie, sternly. “Such a thing would ruin our trade. In the first place, the little old lady won’t think it is done right if it is free, and then she would tell other persons that we do work for nothing but it is not good and, before you know it, we’d be overrun with charity practice. No indeed, my dear Mary Louise, the bonnet must be paid for and it must be well paid for. Of course, I have no idea what it’s worth. What would you have to pay to have such work done? You know, Irene. Your aunt must have bonnets made.”

“Well, Aunt Hannah did have a bonnet made only last week and it was not nearly so chic as this one and she furnished all the material and just the work on it cost four dollars.”

“Heavens! Four dollars! I couldn’t possibly have earned four dollars in about two hours. Why I could make a living at that rate, even if I worked only two hours a day. It couldn’t be worth that much!”

“Well, you know perfectly well, Mary Louise, if you were having the work done, you wouldn’t hesitate to pay twice that much,” scolded Josie. “You’ve got to put yourself in the other fellow’s place. Just pretend you need the money and charge what it would be worth to a well off young person like, say—Mrs. Danny Dexter. You have to pay us a fifteen per cent commission besides for letting you do the work. That would only leave you three dollars and forty cents.”

“Oh, what a funny Josie!” laughed Mary Louise. “You know I’m not going to take any of the money. It would be absurd when I’ve had such a good time doing the little bonnet.”

“A good workman always has a good time doing his work,” asserted Josie, who was quite like her father in getting off wise little saws. “You needn’t keep the money, but you are obliged to take it and give us sixty cents. Business is business and we want to get other business from this very same little old lady.”

“I’ll wager she doesn’t have a new bonnet more than every three years,” said Mary Louise, smiling at Josie’s firm business methods.

“Perhaps not but she has many friends, I am sure, and she will tell them and they will tell their friends and so forth and so on.”

“How do you know she has a lot of friends?” teased Elizabeth. “You didn’t see her and Irene and I haven’t told you a thing about her, not even her name.”

“Why, I could tell by her old bonnet—tell easily enough. Don’t you know one of the first things a detective studies is the psychology of clothes? My father thought more of a pair of old shoes found under the bed of a man who was supposed to have committed a murder than he did of all the mass of circumstantial evidence the other sleuths were unearthing. He had the opinion from the beginning that the wearer of those old shoes had not committed a murder, wasn’t capable of having committed that particular murder, which was one of these low down, sneaking murders. He said he might have got angry and knocked a man down and killed him that way, but a man who walked so straight without running his heels down at all and who wore out his shoe in a little round ring under the ball of his foot, evidently not trying to walk on his tip toes nor yet taking the precaution to have rubber heels to walk easy, was not a man to deliberately plan a foul, sneaking murder. He hung on to those shoes and worked up the case with that theory as a basis and, do you know, he proved the man’s innocence in the face of all kinds of damning evidence! Link by link he knocked off the chain of evidence of guilt until the man was free and the proper person indicted and imprisoned for life.”

“And did the guilty one wear rubber heels and run ’em down and wear off the toes of his shoes trying to pussyfoot?” asked Mary Louise.

“No! He wore Louis Quinze heels and got so many new shoes there was no reading character from his shoes. The fact was, he was a she and that was the reason he is serving a life sentence instead of being hanged.”

“Well all I have to say is you are a very delightful and amusing Josie. If Elizabeth and Irene will divulge the name and address of the little old lady who has so many friends, which one can plainly tell by her old bonnet, then I will take the bonnet there on my way home and collect the money, sixty cents of which I’ll hand over to the grasping proprietors of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.”

Josie smiled to see how much more cheerful her friend was after the hours spent in making herself useful. She felt too that Mary Louise was happier in that she had seen Dr. Coles and was to know something definite concerning her grandfather’s condition. It was also easy to understand that the determination to make a clean breast of her troubles to Danny had put new heart into the girl.

“Wait a minute! Let me make out a bill on the Higgledy Piggledy paper,” suggested Elizabeth. “It takes a hardened shopkeeper to hand in a parcel and say, ‘Four dollars, please!’ while, if you have a bill with you, you don’t have to say anything, but just present the bill with an air of giving an invitation.”

Mary Louise went off carrying the bonnets, old and new, in a neat parcel.

“It seems real funny,” she said to herself, “actually to have earned three dollars and forty cents for myself and sixty cents for the Higgledy Piggledies. I am going to tell Danny about it and he will be so amused. I believe I’ll take him off tomorrow and treat him to lunch with my own hard earned funds. I’d tell Grandpa Jim, too, except that he would be sure to say Danny is not making a living for me and I have to go out and work my fingers to the bone. Poor Grandpa Jim! Everything is distorted to him just now in regard to Danny.”

The little old lady turned out to be exactly what Josie had predicted—a gentle soul who attracted friends. Mary Louise found her drinking tea with four other old ladies, all of whom examined the bonnet critically, at all angles, and pronounced favorably upon its style and workmanship. Mary Louise was devoutly thankful that none of them could peep beneath the lining and see her huge stitches. They looked at her curiously. To be sure she did not seem much like a milliner’s assistant with her handsome duvetyn suit and rich furs, but her manner was modest and impersonal and, when she produced the bill, made out in Elizabeth’s best style on the Higgledy Piggledy paper, the little old lady paid it readily and seemed to think it was very reasonable and all of the friends seemed to think so too and eagerly took the address of the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“I think I’ll get my year-before-last hat done over,” said one. “It is so much more suitable than this horrid hat my daughter-in-law insisted upon my buying.”

“I intend to have a new one made, just like Jane’s,” declared another. Jane was the name of the little old lady—Mrs. Jane Kellogg.

“But that isn’t fair!” cried another. “Jane doesn’t want a twin.”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” said Jane gently. “Susan and I used to dress alike when we were girls. Do you remember, Susan?”

Susan did remember and Mary Louise took her departure with a pleasant impression of Mrs. Jane Kellogg and her friends drinking tea together, happily reminiscent of their girlhood.

“There’ll be a lot of bonnets to make for the Higgledy Piggledy Shop before long,” she said to herself. “I’ll help the girls out some more and give the money to charity.”

CHAPTER V
DANNY IS DRIVEN FROM HOME

As Mary Louise entered her home after delivering the bonnet she was met in the hall by Aunt Sally, the fat old negro cook who had been with the Hathaway family off and on since the Civil war and, before that time, had been with them only on and never off, for as a small child she had belonged to the Colonel’s father. She, with the aid of Uncle Eben, her husband, did most of the work of the great house, not because Colonel Hathaway was not willing to hire any number of servants, but because the two old ex-slaves preferred to do the work according to their own ideas. There was supposed to be a housemaid, but no matter how efficient and satisfactory this maid might prove to Mary Louise, she never met the requirements of Aunt Sally and consequently there was a procession of housemaids coming and going. Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben couldn’t and wouldn’t leave and so the housemaids must.

Aunt Sally was goodness itself where white people were concerned, but she was as hard as steel in regard to her own race. Even Uncle Eben came in for her criticism, though she never let anyone else say anything derogatory to her faithful mate.

“Eben air as good as nigger men goes,” she would assert. “He ain’t ter say puffect, but I reckon he air doin’ er his bes’ ’cordin’ ter his ’telligence.”

Aunt Sally met Mary Louise as she opened the front door and it was plain to see that something had happened. The old woman had been weeping and, as the young mistress entered she gave a final dab to her eyes with the corner of her apron.

“Why Aunt Sally, what’s the matter?”

“Lawd, honey chil’, they’s trouble a comin’! Trouble a comin’! I knowed it when yo’ maw’s pixcher fell off’n the wall las’ month—I knowed it when I dreamed ’bout nesses full er aigs an’ none er them cracked even, which air a sho sign trouble air hatchin’ an—”

“But, Aunt Sally, please tell me what the trouble is,” begged Mary Louise.

“I cyarn’t bear ter tell you, honey baby. Me’n Eben an’ Marse Jim air been all time tryin’ ter keep trouble ’way from you an’ now I cyarn’t be the one ter tell it to you. Marse Jim air sho the one what am a bringin’ it on you an’ I’ll say it to his face right now an’ I’d a said it to his face befo’ the wah, even if he had a sol’ me down the river the nex’ minute for my imperence. He mought sen’ me a packin’ now, but, befo’ Gawd, I’m a gonter tell it to him.”

“Tell him what? Please speak out, Aunt Sally!”

“Tell him he ain’t called on ter do no sich confabbin’ as he done did.”

“Confabulating with whom? Mr. Danny hasn’t been home, has he? It isn’t quite time for him.”

“Yes, he done a been an’ he gone agin.”

“Gone! Gone where?”

“I ain’t sho wha’ he gone but, arfter sech a bullyraggin’ as Marse Jim done give him, I reckon there wa’n’t nothin fer him ter do but light out.”

“Oh, Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally! What am I to do?”

“Lawd love you, honey baby, yo’ ol’ Aunt Sally ain’t got no ’vice ter han’ yer. I reckon’ you’ll have ter take it to the Lawd in prayer.”

“What did Grandpa Jim say?” asked Mary Louise, trying to keep back the tears that were forcing their way down her pale cheeks.

Aunt Sally was crying now.

“Oh, honey, I cyarn’t say sech things, even in vain repetition! He done ’lowed that po’ Mr. Danny wa’ a fortune hunter an’ a dead beat comed from a fambly er law breakers an’ he done come an’ stole yo’ love an’ tromple it in the dus’. Now, he said, he wa’ neglectin’ er you mos’ shameful. He ’cused him er bein’ the cause er yo’ pale face an’ sad eyes.”

“What did poor Danny say?” sobbed Mary Louise.

“He done arsk with a moughty stiff back bone: ‘Air my wife make complaint er me?’ an’ I wa’ so ’stonished I couldn’t b’lieve my years when Marse Jim up’n tol’ as big a lie as the debble hisse’f could er fabricated. ‘Yes,’ he say, ‘yes, time an’ time ergin.’ I knowed it wa’n’t the truth an’ I come moughty nigh bustin’ in an’ a sayin’ so but I wa’ a mixin’ up a sponge cake at the time an’ you know, honey chil’, how ’ticular I air ’bout keepin’ a stirrin’ when oncet I gits a goin’ on sponge cake?”

“Yes, I know,” Mary Louise nodded, sadly. “But, oh, Aunt Sally, I do wish you had stopped this one time.”

“Well, p’raps I should er, but habit’s habit. Not only air I got that there habit ’bout sponge cake but I also boast the habit er not wedgin’ in on other folks’s business, mos’ specially white folks’s. They wa’ in the dinin’ room at the time where Mr. Danny done come ter try an’ git you on the phome at that there Humpty Dumpty Shop. He comed back an’ arsked me whar’ you is an’ when I tol’ him, he pick up the phome and, while he wa’ a tryin’ ter git you, Marse Jim comed in. You had done gone from the Humpty Dumpty Shop but he got ter chattin’ a piece with one er yo’ gal friends, Miss Josie, mo’n lakly. I heard him say, ‘Well don’t let Mary Louise find out about it,’ kinder laughin’ lak, an’ jes then Marse Jim comed in an’ he yanked the phome out’n his han’. I seed him do it from the crack in the pantry do’ what Mr. Danny done lef’ open a bit the way men folks has a way er doin’, black an’ white.

“‘Whe’fo’ you use the phome in my house fer sech a vile nufarious comversation!’ he hollered out an’ Mr. Danny jes’ stepped back an’ said real quiet lak, ‘Colonel Hathaway, you are mistaken. You must have misunderstood me. I merely said—’

“‘Never min’ what you said! I heard what you said’ an’ then he started in tellin’ him mo’ things than you could er believed pos’ble. When he done tol’ him you’d made complaint er him time an’ time ergin, it looked lak Mr. Danny jes’ give up. Befo’ then he’d kinder jawed back but mos’ ’spectful lak cawnsiderin’ the way Marse Jim wa’ a ladlin’ it out ter him.”

“What did he do then? Did he tell you where he was going and when he’d be back?” asked Mary Louise breathlessly.

“No, baby, he jes’ bulged through the do’ inter the hall an’ I hearn him a goin’ licksplittin’ up the step inter you-all’s room an’ then, in ’bout ten minutes, I hearn the front do’ bang an’ that’s all ’cept’n that ol’ fool Eben said he seed him gittin’ on a down town cyar an’ he wa’ a carryin’ somethin’.”

Mary Louise closed her eyes for a moment and steadied herself against a hall chair, then trying to compose her trembling and convulsed countenance, she made her way slowly up stairs. She wanted to run but her feet seemed to have leaden weights on them and it was with difficulty that she advanced step by step clinging to the bannister as to a life rope.

Slowly she opened the door to her pretty room, the room that Grandpa Jim had taken such delight in having all freshly done over for her while she was on her wedding trip and to which she had come home so happily and joyously. It was a pink room, a soft shell-pink, and Mary Louise had said that she felt as though she were living in the heart of a rose. The woodwork and the furniture were old ivory. The pictures were all the daintiest imaginable water colors and pastels. The hangings were of cretonne with a design of roses in loose clusters. The floor was covered with quaint rag rugs woven of pastel shades. It was a charming room and seemed like a bit of fairy land where one might dream one’s life away.

The girl stood for a moment on the threshold gazing into the room. It looked strangely unfamiliar to her, as though it might have been the room of some other person. Perhaps it was Mary Louise’s room and she was not Mary Louise. She crossed to the dressing table. Such a lovely dressing table with dainty appurtenances that might have been fit for a princess had there been any princesses left to speak of at that time! She picked up the silver backed brush, Danny’s present to that person called Mary Louise, the gay, happy girl who used to occupy that room—used to look in that clear mirror and brush her hair, such pretty curly hair, every strand of which Danny said he loved.

She glanced at her image in the mirror and started back in terror. It wasn’t Mary Louise after all—not this person whose tragic red-rimmed eyes gazed into hers. Those blanched tear-stained cheeks could never have been the cheeks of Mary Louise. Her cheeks were soft and rosy. That trembling chin with its sagging, convulsed muscles could not be the round determined little chin that Danny used to stoop over and kiss while her hair was being brushed. Whose mouth was that, that pale gash in a paler face? Mary Louise’s mouth was a cupid’s bow and crimson and full of smiles with a row of pearly teeth. She widened her mouth in a piteous grin. The teeth were pearly but they too seemed to have lost their sparkle.

She picked up the folded piece of paper stuck on the plump pink pin-cushion with a long hat-pin. The pin had been thrust all the way through the cushion, the point sticking out on the other side.

“Josie would say that showed his state of mind,” flashed through Mary Louise’s thoughts. It seemed to her that the point that had so fiercely penetrated the fat little cushion had pierced her own heart.

She had known all the time she would find a note stuck on her pin-cushion, had known it from the moment Aunt Sally had told her Uncle Eben had seen Danny get on a trolley car and that he was carrying something. She knew that something was a suit-case. Uncle Eben knew it too and Aunt Sally knew it, but she wouldn’t tell her young mistress for fear of hurting her more.

The girl smoothed out the note which had been hastily folded. She had to wipe her eyes many times before she could decipher the penciled scrawl which gave evidence even more clearly than the hat-pin of Danny’s state of mind. It was a boyish little letter but with a tragic note running through it that almost broke Mary Louise’s heart. His great and abiding love for her was expressed in every word but, at the same time, his deep humiliation and anger at the treatment to which he had been forced to submit at the hands of Colonel Hathaway were evident. He told her he had been driven from the house by her grandfather and must, of course, leave. He did not know wherein he had sinned, but he felt sure he must have done something unpardonable, even if unwittingly, to make his dear wife complain of him as Colonel Hathaway had assured him had been the case. If any one else had told him such a thing, he would not have believed him but, in spite of Colonel Hathaway’s treatment of him, he could not doubt his word, knowing him to be honorable above everything and truthful—as truthful as his own Mary Louise to whom a lie was impossible. He was going away—it was best for all concerned—but it would not be so very long. Perhaps Colonel Hathaway would get over the rancor he now felt—perhaps it could be in some way explained to him that he had been mistaken. At any rate, he felt that Mary Louise’s grandfather had the prior claim on her and he would let the old gentleman’s declining years be as happy as possible. He could never enter the house again unless Colonel Hathaway apologized to him and offered some explanation of the astounding sins of which he had accused him. If she had not been so sure of her grandfather’s sanity, he would believe that Colonel Hathaway was not himself but, when he had suggested this to her, she had been so grieved, so sure it was not the case, he had felt she must know and he had given up that idea which might have explained everything. He only asked his dear little wife to trust him and love him, if only a little, and to let him know in what way he had sinned against her to cause her to complain of him. If she had only told him and not told some one else, even anyone as close and dear as her grandfather! He did not blame her though. He loved her so supremely and trusted her so implicitly that he knew she could do no wrong.

At this point in the letter Mary Louise felt she could bear life no longer.

“It is my own fault! My own fault!” she wailed. “I have not been truthful. I have done the worst thing a person can do—I have lied to myself. I have known all the time that Grandpa Jim was not himself and I have refused to admit it. I have wronged him and I have wronged Danny. Now I will suffer all my life for having been so blind, so blind because I would not see.”

She composed herself and went on with the letter. Danny was going away—going far away, and to be gone for several months. His firm had been talking to him about going to China to establish an agency there and he had, up to this time, refused, feeling he could not part from Mary Louise, nor could he ask her to leave her grandfather and go with him. Now, it seemed wiser for him to go. There was a big advancement in it and he would prosper financially by the change. Colonel Hathaway had spoken of him as being such a dead beat, which was hard in that he had wanted from the beginning to do what he could in the matter of paying board for himself and his wife, but the proposition had been laughed at by Colonel Hathaway as absurd considering his own wealth. Now of course, he realized his mistake in letting the matter drop, although, at the time, if he had insisted upon paying board, he would have been guilty of very bad taste. He was taking the train for Chicago that very evening where he would see the president of the company and then would go on to San Francisco, from there to sail for China. He gave her an address in San Francisco and hoped to find a letter awaiting him there. That was all.

CHAPTER VI
THE DOCTOR CALLS

Gone! Gone without seeing her! Gone without waiting for an explanation! But what explanation was there to make? He had tried to talk the matter over with her and she had refused, refused because she was so afraid of being disloyal to her grandfather—afraid of having to admit that the old gentleman was in the wrong—afraid of having to admit that his mind was failing and he was obsessed by a strange dislike for a man to whom, in the past, he had been as devoted as though he had been of his own flesh and blood.

“Well, what now?” she asked herself. “What must I do?” She looked around the pretty room. There was little in it to remind her of Danny. It had been designed for a young girl’s room and had remained so. Those pretty pink hangings and pastel shaded rugs did not look very mannish. There was the high-boy, in the drawers of which he kept his belongings; there was the man’s wardrobe, that Grandpa Jim had given him on his birthday. She opened it and looked at his suits hanging in a neat row.

“He has taken his tweed and the blue serge,” she said, passing her hand over the row. “He left his dinner coat. I wonder if he won’t need it.” She pressed her cheek against the khaki uniform that hung there among the civilian clothes.

“Oh Danny! Danny! If you were only back!”

She closed the door of the wardrobe and turned, looking at the room again, the pretty pink room with all of its feminine touches.

“I never did realize how little this was really your home, Danny dear,” she said to his photograph which stood on her dressing table. “This was all the time just my room—this was all the time just Grandpa Jim’s house. It hasn’t been fair—it hasn’t been right! But what must I do now?” The question kept on dinging at her senses.

“Do!” she exclaimed as though she had received some kind of inspiration from the smiling boyish countenance on her dressing table. “Do! I must go on loving Grandpa Jim and I must protect Danny’s name and explain his sudden departure and never let anyone know what I am suffering. I must go about my business and keep up so I won’t be a sad, broken old woman when Danny comes home. I must wash my face and powder my nose and get ready for Dr. Coles. I must smile and pretend I knew all the time Danny was going and I wanted him to go because it will be such a good thing for him. I must write him a wonderful letter to San Francisco to speed him on his way. I must face the fact that Grandpa Jim is cra—, no not that awful word—but just a little peculiar. I must even forgive him for being so horribly cruel to my dear, dear boy. He didn’t know what he was doing. I must be brave! I must be worthy of Danny! I must be worthy of poor Grandpa Jim, who has been so wonderful all his life. Maybe Dr. Coles can cure him.”

The determination to be brave worked wonders for Mary Louise. She washed her face vigorously, trying to remove all traces of tears, but she felt like Lady Macbeth in the sleep walking scene when she cried, “Out damned spot!” and then later decided that all the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten that little hand—only it was Mary Louise’s face that refused to be washed clean of tears. She did her best, however, and a little powder helped wonderfully to conceal the ravages of convulsive weeping. She changed her suit for a pretty soft dinner gown of old rose, one that Danny had especially liked and then she bravely stepped forth to take up the burden of facing life. She felt that she had never really faced life before, even when she had gone through such trials as a child and young girl. As she remembered them, she was thankful that having gone through with them had given her strength to bear what was placed on her shoulders now.

“Danny first! Danny first!” she said to herself as she went down the steps. “Nobody must think for an instant or intimate that he has left home because there is a cloud between us. I must take the stand that everything is all right and I approve of his going and it is all for the best.”

She went to the kitchen first, where Aunt Sally was grumbling and rumbling over her pots and pans.

She overheard her saying to Eben, “Hi there, nigger! Come here an’ take this here dinner in befo’ it gits col’!”

“Well you come here an’ make room fer this here piece er ice in yo’ ’frigerator befo’ it gits hot,” was Eben’s retaliation. “You’m so dodblasted ’ticular ’bout yo’ ’frigerator you won’t let me han’le it.”

“No, I won’t let you han’le it! They’s too many li’l temptations in that there ’frigerator ter be a tu’nin’ you loose in it. They’s trouble enough in this here dommersile ’thout you a eatin’ up the li’l lef’-overs what I mought be a considerin’ er puttin’ in a pie or somethin’ er other.”

“Humph!” was all Eben deigned in reply.

“You mus’ ’scuse me, Eben, if I kinder light you up,” said Aunt Sally. “I’s turrible upset ’bout our white folks.”

“You needn’t be worried about me, Aunt Sally,” said Mary Louise, coming into the kitchen. She was trying to smile and it might have passed muster for a smile with anyone but Aunt Sally, but the old woman knew her young mistress too well not to realize that the smile was forced.

“Mr. Danny has gone on a trip, just a business trip. It was too bad I was away from home but it is all right. He is well and he won’t be gone so very long. He had to catch a train to Chicago. You can just take his place from the table, Uncle Eben. And, Aunt Sally, I have asked Dr. Coles to come see Grandpa Jim this evening, but he is supposed just to be calling on the family so when he comes, whoever answers the bell, just bring him into the living room as though he were plain company, not a doctor. You understand, don’t you?”

“Sho’ we understands, honey chil’. Is you ’lowin’ Mr. Danny will be home fer breakfus?”

“No, not for some time. I’ll let you know in plenty of time to set the table for him.” Mary Louise then went to find her grandfather.

“Gawd in heaven! She ain’t doin’ nothin’ but play-actin’ but the chil’s heart air breakin’. Eben, she had a smile on her face lak folks have what air gazin’ on their daid, that kinder smile what makes you know they air a tryin’ ter let the one what air jes’ gone know that they’s a gonter take up the burden er life an’ bear it the bes’ they kin. I tell you one thing, nigger, I’m a gonter play-act too an’ th’ain’t nobody gonter git nothin’ out’n me but what Miss Mary Louise wants them ter git. Mr. Danny’s been called away sudden lak on a business trip an’ we ain’t quite sho jes’ when he’ll be back but Marse Jim ain’t said nothin’ ter him as we knows about an’ the fambly goose air a hangin’ high. If us Hathaways ain’t a gonter hol’ up our haids an’ keep a smilin’ I’d lak ter know who air a gonter keep up the fambly name.”

“You done said a plenty!” agreed Uncle Eben. “Us black folks ain’t gonter be weighed in the balance an’ foun’ wantin’.”

“Ain’t it the truf?”

“Sally, you air a good ooman!”

“An’ you air a good man, Eben—that is as fer as nigger men goes,” she added, but Eben looked lovingly at his spouse, thankful for her scanty words of praise and not at all minding the string tied to his compliment.

Mary Louise found her grandfather hovering over the fire in the living room. She went up and kissed him affectionately and then seated herself on a low stool at his feet. The old man put his hand lovingly on the bowed head.

“I have been reinvesting some funds for you today, my child,” he said gently. “I sold all of the real estate bonds I have bought in the last years and am putting the bulk of the money into some gold mines. I am going to put every cent I can call in on these mines.”

“I know you are doing wisely, Grandpa Jim, because you have such fine judgment. I am a perfect little goose about business. I don’t see why you don’t teach me something about investments and things. I simply don’t understand a thing.”

“You are right, child, I should teach you. I know I can’t live forever but I want to fix it so that rascally husband of yours can’t find a cent.”

Mary Louise’s neck stiffened and her head was held high. She turned and looked at her grandfather, her face flushed and her eyes flashing.

“Grandpa Jim, I love you dearly, but I ask you to realize that Danny is my husband, the man I love above all others and I cannot sit here and listen to his being reviled.”

Colonel Hathaway looked a bit dazed and then smiled in the eyes of his granddaughter.

“All right, honey, I reckon you are right. Of course, I know how you feel about the wretch. You told me yourself you despised him—but then women are women.”

“I told you I despised him! Grandpa Jim, what can you mean?”

“I was under the impression you had told me that. Didn’t you come to my room in the night and sit on my bedside in your pretty pink wrapper and hold my hand and tell me Danny abused you terribly?”

“Grandpa! Never! You must have had a dream!”

“Well! Well! Too bad! I thought you did. Perhaps I should not have told him you complained of him then. Of course, I know you would complain of him if you were not such a lady. He is so ugly and so untidy.”

“Danny ugly and untidy! Why Grandpa Jim, he is the pink of neatness and everybody thinks he is the best looking young man in Dorfield.”

“Tut! Tut! Let’s say no more about it.”

“Dinner am served!” announced Uncle Eben, sticking his woolly pate in at the door.

Mary Louise helped her grandfather to his feet and gently led him to the dining room. He leaned on her heavily. Tenderly she placed him in his chair. She understood now, without the help of Dr. Coles, that her grandfather was really failing. What would she not give to have acknowledged it sooner! Well life must be faced and, because she had made one big mistake, there was no reason for going on slumping. She smiled bravely as she explained to Colonel Hathaway that Danny had gone on a business trip and pretended not to hear him when he muttered, “Good riddance of bad rubbish!—bad rubbish!”

Dr. Coles came to call soon after dinner. Colonel Hathaway received him with his usual graciousness. The old gentleman was never more charming than on that evening. He conversed delightfully with his guest, recalling anecdote after anecdote of the past. He showed a remarkable memory for dates and events going into minute detail several times, remembering the time of day, the day of the week, the day of the month and the year of some happening. He never seemed saner to Mary Louise than on that evening. Dr. Coles listened to his stories with interest, speaking but little himself and encouraging his unknowing patient to do the talking.

From stories of the past Colonel Hathaway suddenly switched to the present and then plunged into a confused account of the recent investments he had made in a gold mine.

“I have to make more and more money to take care of my poor child here. Her husband is absolutely a dead beat, you know,” he remarked quite casually.

Mary Louise blushed furiously and was on the point of saying something to try to set her poor Danny right in the eyes of their visitor, but Dr. Coles motioned to her to be quiet.

“He is gone now, gone for good I hope, but poor little Mary Louise pretends it is only a business trip. I can see she is concealing something from me and, no doubt, he has taken all her jewels with him or the family silver. He is a wretched person, I can assure you, Dr. Coles. I was never so fooled by anybody in my life. Mary Louise and I were both fooled, but, thank God, at last our eyes are opened to his perfidy!”

Dr. Coles knew and liked Danny immensely, but he said nothing in his defense, only watched his patient the more keenly.