BARBARA HALE: A DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER

“OH,” GASPED BABS, “I DIDN’T KNOW——”

BARBARA HALE:

A DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER

By

LILIAN GARIS

Author of

“BARBARA HALE AND COZETTE,” “CONNIE LORING’S

AMBITION,” “JOAN: JUST GIRL,” “GLORIA: A

GIRL AND HER DAD,” “GLORIA AT

BOARDING SCHOOL,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY

J. M. FOSTER

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Books by Lilian Garis

Joan: Just Girl

Joan’s Garden of Adventure

Gloria: A Girl and Her Dad

Gloria at Boarding School

Connie Loring’s Ambition

Connie Loring’s Dilemma

Barbara Hale: A Doctor’s Daughter

Barbara Hale and Cozette

Copyright, 1926, by

GROSSET & DUNLAP

CONTENTS

BARBARA HALE: A DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER I
SEA SANDS AND SOMERSAULTS

They dug their heels deeper into the white sand. As they were bare heels there seemed to be nothing else to do with them.

“I think it’s simply a wonderful idea,” Louise St. Clair reiterated, “only, I can’t just see how you are going to feed us all for three whole days, Cara.”

“Feed you! Dear child, that’s the easiest part of it. Lottie adores feeding the hungry. But what bothers me is what I can do to keep you all happy.” Cara Burke, who had never been called Caroline, took her heels out of the sand and stuck them up in the sunshine. She was so strictly modern and so much up to date that her own personal schedule must have been eons ahead of the time marked on the pretty calendars sent around by M. Helmer, the butcher.

“A house party is bound to make us all so happy we’ll never want to go home, Cara,” declared Esther Deane, she with a new boyish bob hair-cut that she couldn’t keep her hands off. “I’d like to fetch my trunk, if we only lived a few blocks farther away.”

“Fetch it; there’re bushels of room out in the garage,” responded Cara mischievously. “But you know, children, my list isn’t filled yet. I have just got to have Barbara Hale.”

“Barbara Hale!” Both girls exclaimed in perfect unison.

“Yes.” Cara squatted on her bare feet now and showed signs of conflict. “I want her. I like her. She’s so different, she’s sure to be good fun.”

“Good fun!” Esther almost sneered. “About as funny as a Latin exam, I’d guess. She looks different, and she is different. But at a house party! Cara, you’re crazy.”

“So they say,” agreed Cara dryly. “But I’m going to ask her, just the same.”

“She’ll never leave that dad of hers,” declared Louise. “You know he’s some kind of a queer doctor and they say she’s going to be a nurse.”

“He’s a bacteriologist,” Esther informed her friends, with that very definite tone always peculiarly Esther’s when she knew anything so worth while as that.

“Well,” drawled Cara, “Dudley says she’s a peach, and while he’s not to come to the party he might just look in and——”

“And poor us! We may have to rival a peach,” moaned Louise. “I do wish you wouldn’t, Cara,” she pleaded again. “Honestly, I am afraid of anything so high and mighty as Barbara Hale.”

“Why should she be so high and mighty?” challenged Cara. “She’s no older than we are.”

“She’s past fifteen, I should think,” guessed Esther.

“I suppose she is, for she was in first year high last summer when we came back to Sea Cosset; I remember that,” agreed Cara quite amicably. Cara wasn’t merely pretty, she was lively always, and her brown eyes managed her entire face so capably one never noticed the little irregularity of her other features. Every one said Cara Burke was “all eyes” and her eyes were lovely.

“It’s queer how every one thinks Barbara is so wonderful,” Esther was determined to find fault. “She just acts like an old lady, it seems to me.”

“Esther Phester! How dare you!” mocked Cara. “Now, you’re being jealous. You see, it’s like this. There are lots of wise old ladies but a wise young lady is different.”

“You talk rather wise yourself and you’re not so old,” retorted Louise.

“I am old. I love to be. Children are a pest, so please don’t act so childish, girls,” Cara in turn retorted. “You’re both perfectly lovely when you talk sensibly, so let’s decide how we are going to get the wily Barbara to our house party. Any suggestions?”

Persons just sauntering along for a rather late swim attracted their attention, and for the time being Barbara Hale was apparently forgotten. New and odd bathing suits were ever interesting to the girls, and those at the moment being displayed were certainly novel if not actually new.

“How can red-headed girls wear that howling yellow?” commented Louise. “She looks like a gasoline sign.” Her own hair favored the red tints, what there was of it.

“That tango is worse,” declared Esther. “They must be strangers.”

“Just wandered down from the other beach, I guess,” Cara said indifferently. She was never as much interested in strangers as were her two friends.

Settling down again to finish their sunning, for they had had their swim some time earlier, the subject of Barbara Hale was once more introduced.

“I don’t see that you girls are helping me out very much with my guest list,” Cara reminded them. “You know I am bound to have Barbara. Now, I’ll offer a prize for the best suggestion. How shall I invite her?”

“Why not ‘hail’ her down here?” Louise suggested.

“Now, Louie; that’s being too smart; to pun on Barbara’s name,” answered Cara. “The fact is, or isn’t it? Does she come down here, ever?”

“It isn’t, she doesn’t. You don’t catch that smart girl wasting her time on the beach.” As Esther said this she seemed to enjoy the saying of it.

“I’d like to know, Essie,” drawled Cara, using the little name Esther detested, “what have you against Barbara Hale?”

“I!” How much she made of the smallest word! As if the idea were preposterous.

“Yes, you. Every time I mention Barbara you just seethe up.” Cara tossed up a shower of sand that slipped through her fingers in little streams—what was left of the shower did that. If, as she said, Esther did dislike Barbara, surely she, Cara, must have liked her, decidedly.

Esther didn’t try to answer the charge. They were, all three of them, just at that stage of young girlhood that might be called the mimic stage. They said smart things, or tried to say them, because older girls acted that way. True, the older girls never deigned to associate with Cara, and her “set.” Just “kids” they were still being inelegantly styled. But girls in second year high do feel rather important, and at this particular new summer season the three girls on the beach at Sea Cosset were not one whit less important—in their own way—than Elinor Towle, Katherine Barrett and Melinde Trainor, all over twenty, and now sitting on the same cozy little beach nearer the water. Merely degrees of difference separated them, but there seemed nothing essentially different between the two groups.

And to make the comparison still closer, here was Cara planning to give a house party.

“I don’t care what any one says,” Louise spoke up rather like a small girl again, “it’s a perfectly darling idea. Even if we all do live around here; what difference would a train ride make in a house party?”

“None; not a speck,” confirmed Esther, both the girls bracing Cara up in her resolve to give the party and worrying secretly lest she back out.

“Except,” chimed in Cara, “that when they come a distance they have to stay. If you girls get bored to death you could even sneak home in your nighties,” she wound up, turning a very good hand-spring to prove why she was such a fine basketball player.

“No danger of us sneaking home, Cara,” declared Louise. “I’m just crazy about the idea. And I know there are a lot of girls jealous because you didn’t ask them,” she flattered the prospective hostess.

“Really!” Cara reversed the hand-spring and threw up a veritable desert sandstorm with the turn. “The only reason I have asked just five,” she panted, settling again, “is because mother would only let me have three rooms.”

“Just imagine having three rooms for company!” gasped Esther. “I’m lucky to get an extra cot in my own room and the attic privilege while we’re down here. But you can invite a whole tribe to stay days with you.”

“Now girls!” spoke Cara, sighing a little as if in despair at their attitude, “don’t get the idea that a big house and a flock of servants make a lot of fun. They don’t. We had better times when we camped in a lovely wide-open bungalow out on the bluff, where you didn’t dare leave the front door open without danger of blowing out at the back door. Oh me, oh my!” she sighed. “Them was the days! When I ate molasses cookies without fear of fatness. But we are not getting at the important point of asking Barbara. Haven’t you anything else to propose? It will be time to dress before we decide a single thing.”

“Why not call on her? She’s not anything to be afraid of, is she?” This was Esther, of course.

“No.” Cara paused, thoughtfully. “But she is, I know, a busy girl, and one doesn’t want to ‘bust’ in on a high-brow just as she’s in the act of discovering some scientific—oh, whatever it is they discover, you know,” she floundered. “Besides, it would look so important if I called. As if my party was really going to be a party instead of a row. I’m sure it will end in a row, you know,” Cara was prettiest when she laughed.

“Cara Burke! You just want to make believe it isn’t going to be wonderful when you know very well it is,” pouted Louise. “But if you want Barbara Hale so badly, I’ll manage somehow to see her, and I’ll ask her if you want me to.”

“Want you to! I’d love you to. I just want Barbara, well, for more than one reason, but one is because Dud declares she wouldn’t bother with such silly little things as he claims we are. I want to show him.”

“Oh, that’s it.” Esther’s lip curled and she was now acting very grown up indeed.

“Does Dud know Barbara?” Louise wanted to know.

“That’s just it. She’s sort of, what he calls, elusive. They just know her enough to be curious about her.”

“I don’t think she’s so wonderfully pretty,” commented Esther again. “And I’m certain sure she’s not rich!”

“Esther Phester!” cried out Cara in mock despair. “There you go. Rich! That isn’t what counts at all, not with boys like Dud, anyway. They like girls who keep them guessing.”

“Oh, Barbara Hale can do that well enough,” scoffed Esther. “Isn’t she keeping us guessing?”

“Just because she keeps to herself,” retorted Cara. “Now, that’s just why I’m so crazy to know her. There must be a reason for her, oh, you know,” again stumbled Cara, who wanted to say there must have been a reason for Barbara’s aloofness, or was it reticence?

“Since you are so keen about it Cara, I’ll do my best,” offered Louise. “You know, her father is a sort of doctor and has some of the awfully rich folks on his list.”

“Rich!” moaned Cara. She seemed to loathe the word. They were starting off towards the boardwalk along which a slim line of girls and boys were already winding their way towards the road. It was almost lunch time.

Just as the girls came to within a few feet of the roadway a small car drew up and from it sprang two persons.

“Look!” gasped Louise. “There she is now!”

“Is that—Barbara!” exclaimed Cara in an undertone, for the two in bathing suits—a young girl and a young man—were racing along through the sands quite close to them.

“Yes,” answered Esther and Louise in one voice.

“Isn’t she stunning in a bathing suit?” continued the entranced Cara. “She must be dandy at athletics.” The two figures under scrutiny were now far enough away to be out of possible reach of the girls’ voices. Barbara Hale was wearing the regulation blue bathing suit with white stripes around the long Jersey and a loose sash flew along after her as she ran towards the ocean. She was trying to adjust her rubber cap as she went, and was just now crowding into it a closely bobbed head, chestnut in color, that beautiful brown that glows and glistens and lights up so wonderfully in the sunshine. Barbara was as slender and straight as an Indian. Her limbs were innocent of stockings or socks, for girls under sixteen were not now trying to be prim at Sea Cosset, that is, girls like Barbara.

“But who can the good-looking boy be?” Louise wondered. “Isn’t he just—just——”

“Not lovely,” warned Cara. “Please don’t call him anything so silly as that. He’s fine looking, just great. Whew! Look at those two strike out!”

Dots on the waves were all that could now be seen of the two who were ducking in and out of the crest, but the girls still watched as if fascinated.

“Better ask him to the party, Cara,” suggested Esther. “I’ll bet all the girls would want to stay if he were around.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” proposed the wily Cara. “I’ll tell Dudley I’ll have Barbara to the party if he manages to fetch along the good-looking boy. I’ve just decided to give a dance. Why shouldn’t we have a dance?” she asked simply, with one of those sudden strokes of social genius she was especially noted for.

“A dance!” echoed Louise, in ecstasy. She did clasp her hands but caught herself just in time to save that foolish expression Cara was sure to call saintly. Louise was very apt to clasp her hands, throw one of those heavenly looks out of her gray eyes, and altogether affect quite a pose when anything suddenly pleased her.

“Yes, a dance,” Cara repeated. “We are grown up enough for that, although we couldn’t, of course, ask the boys to the house party. They could come in to the dance.”

“Just look at Barbara Hale now,” suggested Esther. The figures were shaking themselves out of the waves, and as the girls watched they saw Barbara put her two hands on a big post that supported the ropes, and vault over as easily as did her companion following her. “Don’t you suppose he’s her cousin?” Esther asked, innocently.

“Not necessarily,” replied Cara. “But if we don’t make a break for lunch——” They made the break.

CHAPTER II
WHEN THE DAY ARRIVED

Between that day at the beach and the day set for the first session to the house party, Cara all but backed out several times. It was rather absurd, to ask five girls to week-end at her lovely big home, the Billows, to bring clothes enough for three days and to stay for almost that length of time, when they all lived near enough to run home if their mothers should call them—on the telephone.

But from the time that Cara mentioned the brilliant idea to Louise and Esther, she was not allowed to change her mind. There is not a great deal of excitement for girls of their ages at little sea-coast towns, and the prospects of a house party were far too precious to relinquish.

Mrs. Burke, Cara’s mother, was rather pleased that her athletic daughter thought of anything so socially refining, for, as a rule, Cara cared very little for the amenities. She liked, very much better, to row their boat on the lake that always seemed to envy the wild little wavelets that flew about the ocean’s edge, or she might stay on the golf links all day with her dad, who believed in golf for girls as well as for boys, and there was only Dudley at Burke’s to share honors with his sister Cara.

So now that the day of the party was actually at hand, Cara felt like “laughing her head off,” as she described her unusual emotions.

“If it wasn’t that I just made this chance to get acquainted with Barbara Hale, Moma,” (she always called her mother Moma because it means soft, in Celtic,) “I would be apt to think myself silly. But it’s worth while to meet Barbara.”

“Why is she so difficult and desirable?” asked Mrs. Burke, who might be Moma or “soft” to her daughter, but as a woman seemed quite the opposite. She was capable of formality, fine, dignified yet lovely with just that charm that all mothers should possess.

“Well,” replied Cara to her question, as she settled a final bunch of snap-dragons on the long davenport table in the living-room, “to tell you the truth, Moma, she’s a bit mysterious.”

“A girl—mysterious; how?”

“Oh, in a lot of ways. I couldn’t just tell you, darling, but they’re plenty. Wait until you meet her,” she promised archly. “I’m sure you will call her perfect; I believe all the grown-ups do. She’s said to be so sensible.”

“Not too sensible, I hope,” qualified Mrs. Burke, who liked girls to be girls and not Minervas.

“No. My own idea is that the sensible stuff is just a pose to keep the girls away. She’s not cranky, I know that. I met her at the Community Club last week,” continued Cara, who was now donning her white sport coat, preparing for a race in town. “At any rate, Moma, I’m sure it will do me a lot of good to know her,” she just nipped a make-believe kiss on her mother’s cheek. “She might inspire me with a little sense.”

“Oh, you’re not so bad, my dear,” replied the proud mother, surveying Cara affectionately. “But I am really anxious to meet the paragon.”

A half-hour later Cara was being surrounded at the post office; the girls who were shortly to be her guests formed the circle. She had just told them that Barbara was coming.

“How ever did you get her?” demanded Louise.

“As easy as easy,” teased Cara. “All I did was just give the operator the number and Barbara answered.” Cara was plainly proud of the conquest.

“And she said she’d come? Right off?” asked Esther in uncovered surprise.

“Said she would love to, not what you might call exactly ‘right off’ but after her father had urged her to. He calls her Babs and they seem to be great chums,” Cara finished, trying to break away from the party and reach her mail-box.

“Oh, they are,” agreed Louise. “That’s just what makes her so different. She’s always chumming with her father. Isn’t that queer?”

“Not so very,” said Cara dryly. “Dad and I are pretty good chums. But I’ve got to rush or I won’t be at the front door to greet you when you arrive,” and she did break away this time.

“Cara!” called Lida Bent, a new girl in Sea Cosset, “shall we really bring our suit-cases?”

“Just as you like,” answered Cara, mischievously stepping back to make her remarks safe for Lida’s ears only. “If you want to carry your pajamas on your arm I have no objection. There really isn’t any obligation to carry suit-cases.”

“Now Cara,” blushed little Lida who was a dainty blonde and blushed prettily, “you know I don’t mean that.”

“Well, Lida, you may bring a steamer trunk if you like,” joked Cara, “only be sure to come. That’s the big idea,” and Cara Burke, the heroine of the day with a house party only a few hours off, clutched her bundle of morning mail as she escaped from her admiring friends.

Cara was always such a lark, they each and all were sure to be thinking, and to give this affair simply sealed that opinion.

Louise, Esther, and Lida sauntered off with their own post office material, but this today seemed less interesting than usual.

“I didn’t know whether to fetch my corduroy or silk robe,” said Louise. “If we go romping around I suppose the silk——”

“Will be too thin,” Esther finished laughingly. “You’re lucky, Louie, to have two down with you. Mother just won’t allow any duplicates in my clothes. She hates baggage so.”

“A robe?” repeated Lida. “Why, I hadn’t thought of that. Of course we must fetch robes,” she repeated showing alarm that the idea had almost escaped her.

“That’s mostly what a house party is for,” Louise continued. “To show off our pretty things. Although,” she hurried to atone for the possible boast, “I don’t pretend to have pretty things, they’re just—just useful of course,” she ended trying hard to be sensible.

“There’s Ruth!” exclaimed Esther, as a girl with a big box turned a corner and walked towards them. “I’ll bet she’s got a new robe. Look at that box.”

“’Low girls!” called out Ruth Harrison, a tall girl who walked with a swinging stride. “I had to go shopping the last minute, and I’m dead. Whew! It’s hot carrying bundles,” and she took off her hat to prove it.

“A new robe? We were just talking about robes,” said Esther. “It’s hard to know whether we ought to fetch bungalow aprons or—or ulsters. Cara may have some kind of a midnight parade on, she’s such a joker.”

“Robe!” repeated Ruth. “Say, I never thought of a robe. This is a new party dress; Cara told me about the dance only yesterday. But a robe!” Ruth look dismayed. Her frank, eager face was suddenly changed into a question mark. What should she do about a new robe? She had one, of course, but probably not one worthy of Cara’s party.

“Don’t bother,” suggested Louise, noticing Ruth’s perplexity, “you can just duck in and out——”

“Ye-ah! While you all parade. I can see that. But do you mean to tell me I’ve got to wear my Indian blanket? It’s one I had at camp and I love it——”

“Why don’t you? That would be fun,” spoke up Louise, brightly.

“The very thing and I’ll bring—— But never mind the details,” Ruth suddenly drew up, getting a better grip on her box. “I’ll be there with my blanket. I’ve got to rush. I want an ocean bath first.”

“Isn’t she funny?” remarked Lida, as Ruth dashed off.

“She’d love a thing forever, even an Indian blanket,” said Louise, rather complimentary to Ruth.

“And an ocean bath today! Just as if she couldn’t have that every day,” murmured Esther as they were again on their way.

“I hope she didn’t get a rose-colored dress, that’s my color,” went on Louise. “And if two of us were dressed alike at that small party we’d look like twins or something,” she finished, tittering happily at the idea.

“Ruth is so much, so sort of—a lot,” Esther ventured, “she’s almost twins herself. But here’s where we part. Be ready at three and we’ll all go in our big car.”

“In style,” added Lida. “It’s lovely you have a big car, Esther.”

“And a good-natured mother,” added Louise. “I suppose she gave up something, to drive for us this lovely afternoon.”

“She was glad to give it up,” confessed Esther, “for it’s a meeting on the summer exhibit. I can’t see why towns always have to do summer things that keep folks so busy.”

“Because there are not enough folks to do things in winter,” said little Lida quietly. “Mother’s on a committee and she thinks it’s going to be fine.”

“I guess they’ve got all our mothers on,” grumbled Louise. “But we always have to have something every summer. Well, good-bye for a while,” as they reached the little dividing park, “and I’ll be ready, Esther.”

“Don’t forget your robe,” called out Esther jokingly, for their robes had suddenly become an all-important item in the house-party programme.

CHAPTER III
HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER

In a house that hid behind friendly old trees cuddled in trumpet vines and tender, little trailing things, Barbara Hale and her father, Dr. Winthrop Hale, lived. It was just off the road that stretched into the newly settled summer place called by the land developers Sea Cosset. A fanciful name indeed, and its choice had caused much discussion, for as every one with access to a dictionary soon discovered, cosset means pet and is usually applied to a little lamb.

“Sea Lamb,” scoffed the old sailors who brought their nets in from the ocean at the road’s turn.

“Why didn’t they call it ‘the kid,’ and be done with it,” Thom Merrill wanted to know. Thom had sold all his land to the enterprising development company, and now he had nothing else to do but criticize their choice of name for the new colony.

“But you’re all wrong,” declared Mary-Louise Trainor, who was the “bookiest” woman in the county. “We chose the name because it literally means that the sea fondles, loves, yes if you like——” she flung this defiantly into Thom Merrill’s red face—“the sea pets the land at this pretty little point, and Sea Cosset is a perfectly ideal name.”

“Sure is,” agreed Thom, chuckling so audibly that Mary-Louise turned away in evident disgust at that memorable meeting held three years ago last spring. Then Sea Cosset was cut away from the surrounding territory by its fancy name, a number of pretty bungalows, the land agents’ promise to build more “of any design desired as fast as they would be applied for,” not to mention all the other well-advertised improvements of a new summer place as compared with its well-seasoned, comfortable old town of Landing.

Strange that all of this would have anything to do with Cara Burke’s house party. But it had, for Barbara Hale and her beloved “Dads,” the doctor, were this very day admitting they should have sold their land, or some of it, to that company that developed Sea Cosset.

“Then, my dear Babs,” said father, regretfully, “you might have afforded proper things for your party.”

“But I don’t need them, really, Dads; I’ve got lots of clothes,” protested the daughter. “It’s just that these different affairs require different things.”

Which explanation meant not a thing, in the way of an explanation, for it plainly stated that Barbara Hale did not have things ready for a house party.

On the floor of her quaintly old-fashioned bedroom, Barbara was now packing her suit-case. And only the suit-case that lay there helplessly could have seen or understood the expression on her face, for the bag had more than once witnessed that same look as Barbara leaned over, putting things in and taking them out, anxiously.

“She’s worried but she’s brave,” would have been the verdict could the leather case have spoken.

“But she’s plucky and she’ll never never give in to silly little clothes,” the comb and brush might easily have confided to each other.

“And you don’t know, Dads, what a perfectly stunning pair of pajamas I have,” the girl leaning over the bag spoke up finally. “You know, dear old Mrs. Seaman sent them to me for Christmas; wasn’t that lucky?”

“It was,” replied the tall, thin man sullenly. “And if it hadn’t been for dear old Mrs. Seaman,” he was adding irony to every word, “I suppose you wouldn’t have that perfectly stunning pair of slippers, either.” More irony, more sarcasm, and teams of bitterness sharpened Dr. Hale’s words. He was blaming himself, only, and was therefore free to be as cruel as he wished about it.

“Dads,” coaxed Barbara, jumping up from her packing and confronting the ogre, “you’re being mean.” She was standing there before him in her big white bungalow apron—this was her idea of a practical bathrobe—and her eyes, always the deepest blue, were now so truly violet that their shadows were almost purple.

Certainly Barbara had a remarkable face—every feature matched up so perfectly—but the two most striking were her pallor, for one of her type, which she left untinted; and the deep violet of her eyes. She looked foreign or rather classic, with a firmness about her expression hardly fair to her youth. Her nose was very straight with that sculptured curve at her nostrils that made one think of a Greek statue—or a young colt, depending entirely upon Barbara’s mood.

Just now she was being the colt, and Dr. Hale, her indulgent father, was well aware of that mood.

“We should have sold off some of our land, Babs,” he repeated, coming back to her door and intoning the words like a verdict for some one doomed.

“We should not, Dads,” she contradicted. “Just because I haven’t a few brand new rags for a silly little party, you stand there bewailing our misery.” Her words were serious enough but her tone was bantering. Barbara was determined to cheer up the gloomy man before her.

“Well, all right,” he conceded, tapping his fingers impatiently on her door jamb and thereby drawing one’s attention to its shabby paint. “But I’m glad you’re going. Do you good,” he pronounced, again in that judicial tone.

“Maybe,” scoffed Barbara. “But I wouldn’t have gone a single step if it hadn’t been for that Cara Burke.” Barbara ignored her packing completely now. “She’s the nicest girl, Dads, really a thoroughbred. I just couldn’t refuse her.” The inference was plainly that she preferred to have refused even Cara.

“And why should you refuse?” demanded Dr. Hale. “Look here, Babs,” he spoke a little sharply. “Do you know this won’t do? I won’t have folks talking about you as if I—as if I were depriving you of—of everything.”

“Dadykins!” Barbara burst out, and all the pallor of her face was now dyed with an angry flush. “Who has said that? Whose business is it what we do or how we live? Just because I want to keep to myself more than other girls do, they think I’m being deprived of—of what?” she ended bitterly, and it was easy to see now that she was very much her father’s daughter.

“There now, don’t get excited,” placated the doctor. “I’m sure no one was talking about us, dear. Do hurry your packing,” he urged anxiously. “Dora has lunch ready and we must not get her wrought up,” he ended wearily. “Dora’s our stand-by,” he pointed out emphatically.

“But it does make me so mad, Dad,” Barbara echoed. “To have folks always slurring——”

“But they were not, dear.” He raised his voice irritably. “I merely guessed that they might.”

Still in her bungalow apron and with her arms bare, Barbara answered Dora’s call to lunch. She was excited. Not on account of her father’s words, which really had amounted to nothing unusual, but because she had to go to that party. And she hadn’t the right things to wear.

The little meal was not, apparently, being much appreciated, for both Barbara and her father were entirely preoccupied, as Dora passed from one to the other the slighted food.

Suddenly the jangling telephone startled them.

“I’ll go,” offered Barbara. “Take your tea, Dads.”

It was Cara Burke calling.

“Yes, yes,” Barbara answered. “That’s awfully good of you, Cara, but I am honestly on the point of sending my very late regrets. I really should not have accepted.”

“Why Barbara!” almost shrieked Cara at the other end of the wire but the telephone voice was of course, pouring into Barbara’s ear, “I just couldn’t have the party without you. You’ve got to come. Don’t mind about the little dance,” went on distracted Cara. “I shouldn’t have told you only I thought you would want to know.”

“I do, Cara. And it’s lovely of you to call me up.” Barbara hesitated. Cara had just called her to say there would be a little dance and she might want to fetch something different for it. And that had added to Barbara’s misery, for what had she different to take?

Long and ardent pleas and protestations were coming over the wire, for Cara had counted much upon the presence of Barbara at her party, but now, at the last moment, the much-desired one was hesitating.

There was no questioning the sincerity of Cara Burke. Unspoiled by all her advantages, she was so worth-while a girl that Barbara found it very difficult indeed to ignore her advances.

“It’s so good of you,” Barbara repeated. “But you see, I——” she paused, and instantly Cara filled the gap.

“You know, my brother Dudley thinks you and your friend Glenn are just about right,” Cara chuckled, “and he promised to get Glenn to come to our little dance if I could get you to come to the party.”

“Really!” laughed Barbara. “Glenn’s an awful stick—I mean he’s what we call a real stude, student you know,” Barbara explained. “But is he going?”

“Dud says he is, and that’s why you really couldn’t disappoint me; now could you, Barbara?”

“After all that? It would be ungrateful I know, Cara. But clothes—”

“I understand perfectly, Babs,” Cara was saying, using the endearing name with telling effect. “You don’t pay much attention to clothes. Couldn’t I lend you a little dress? You are just about my size and I’ve so many useless frocks that mother loves to buy. Wouldn’t you wear one just out of charity? It would really be a blessing to air the stuff.”

What could Barbara say to such an impulsive, generous girl? Well, that was just what she did say, and when she finally left the phone and returned to the table, her face had lost its look of perplexity.

“Well, Dads,” she exclaimed, beaming so merrily that her dark eyes threatened to ignite, “I guess I’m in for it now. Cara is bound to play me up, although why she’s so keen I can’t see.”

“I can,” replied her father grimly. “And look here, Barbara Hale,” he continued, using her name to emphasize his seriousness, “I’m glad you’re going. It’s highly important that you should go. It’s all very well to be a high-brow——”

“High-brow! Me, a high-brow?”

“Exactly. What do you think a good student ever becomes if not intelligent?”

“But I want to know—just certain things——”

“Exactly again. That’s just how one becomes a high-brow. If you had scattered interests, Babs dear, it would be different. But when one concentrates one achieves.”

“Daddy, don’t you want me to study?” Barbara’s voice was pleading, her eyes misty.

“Yes, daughter, of course I do,” replied the father, himself softening his tone until it matched Barbara’s. “But this summer I want you to go out with your friends. In fact, I want you to promise me that you will set aside everything in the way of study for this summer.” He went over to where she stood and put his hands upon her shoulders so that his look completely encompassed her. “You are so like your mother now, my dear——”

“And mother loved the same things I do,” quickly defended Barbara, in turn putting her hands on his shoulders.

“Yes, but not at your age,” he argued.

A silence fell between them. The man whose shoulders were straight as a soldier’s, in spite of his bending over with constant research work, was now thinking of Barbara’s mother. She was gone. Her devotion to nursing during the war had cost her her life with the deadly influenza then ravaging the camps among America’s flower of youth. She had been a nurse, just as Barbara was now determined to be, and the research work in bacteriology, which was Dr. Hale’s chosen field, had been as fascinating to her as it now threatened to become to Barbara.

“Do you mean, Dads, that we shouldn’t do any more experiments this summer?” his daughter asked gently.

“I do, dear. This must be your play season. I’ve got plenty to do single-handed. I’ll miss your help, of course——” he hurried to interject, “but you must promise me, right this minute, to fall in line with the girls and boys——”

“And fall out of line—with you!” Barbara’s arms went quickly about his neck and so the promise was given.

“And this is splendid, this affair today,” her father continued, when he recovered his composure. “I only wish you had a lot of pretty things——”

“I have, slathers of them,” she fibbed bravely. But no mention was made of Cara’s offer of the extra party dress.

Nor did she bother to tell her dad that Glenn Gaynor was expected to be at the party. Glenn was the attractive youth who figured so prominently in Barbara’s appearance on the beach, when Cara and her girl friends stood at a safe distance, thrilled in admiration.

One hour more—and then she must be at Billows.

CHAPTER IV
ON HER WAY

“Just for a lark,” Barbara told herself, “I’ll take the old cap and gown. We are sure to dress up after we undress, and I really haven’t a decent robe.”

A robe! If she only could have known how this particular item had bothered the other girls, especially Ruth Harrison. The cap and gown which Barbara had decided to take, “just for a lark,” were sent her last winter by Marjorie Ellis who achieved them in a brief stay at college and wanted to forget she had ever heard the word. Marjorie hated college now, she had been so homesick while away in Connecticut, that she absolutely refused to return at mid-years, and because she knew Barbara would love even to play at being a collegian, Marjorie sent her the mortar-board hat and the big black cape, they poetically call a gown.

Often had Barbara dressed up in the college clothes, especially at night when she would parade around in the enfolding comfort of that soft, black robe. It was this habit, no doubt, that gave her the idea of fetching the costume to Cara’s party. This and the necessity of having something to throw on over her pajamas—how lucky that she had the pajamas!

Packed at last and her misgivings quieted, Barbara ventured a look at herself in the old-fashioned mirror that hung between her room and the sitting-room.

“I guess I’ll do,” she told the reflection. It showed a tall, finely formed girl, with a head held high—Barbara’s head couldn’t get enough of sky gazing—and wearing a sport suit that Dora, the maid of all work, had helped her make.

“Good material and not a bad fit,” the girl secretly commented, for the natty little jacket was made of bright green flannel, and the skirt of white flannel had a matching stripe of green. Her blouse was white, bought ready made, and a little white felt hat had been picked up at Asbury Park; not picked up on the beach, however, but at a bargain counter very late last fall. So that the costume was quite complete and decidedly effective.

Of course Barbara’s hair was bobbed, and because of a little ripple that huddled around her ears the bronzed, glossy tresses framed her face in a most attractive way. Barbara seemed dark and her blue eyes were often taken for brown. Her brown hair might be called brunette, if one didn’t see the bronze tones that came in certain lights.

And she wore her clothes well. That was why her own amateur efforts, supplemented by the not unwilling but always protesting Dora, usually turned out well. So she had no fear for the effect of her sport dress upon her arrival at Cara’s party; it was the robe and the party dress and other accessories that bothered her somewhat.

“Cara’s car is coming out this way, Dads,” she told her father as she picked up her bag, “so they’re going to stop for me.”

“That’s fine,” her father replied. “Cara’s a nice girl——”

“There’s a knock; I’ll answer,” Barbara interrupted, hurrying to the side door. “Oh, it’s Nicky and his sister Vicky,” she presently explained, for she could see the two Italian children through the glass door; Nickolas and Victoria.

“Don’t bother with them,” her father ordered irritably. “I wish those children would stop coming around here.”

“They’ve got some eggs to sell——”

“We don’t need any eggs——”

“Oh, Dads, the poor youngsters have only three eggs to sell and we’ve got to buy them from them,” insisted Barbara, opening her purse with its precious party money in it to give Nicky twenty cents in return for three eggs “just laid.”

“And how’s granny?” Barbara asked the black-eyed children.

“Fine,” said Nicky.

“She ain’t either, she’s sick,” declared Vicky.

“Well, run along,” ordered the smiling Barbara, “I’m going out——”

“Say,” Nicky squeezed in, “do you want an ole candlestick? I’ve got one fer half a dollar.”

“No, I guess not.” Barbara was becoming impatient. “Run along; here’s my car,” for the toot from Cara’s car was sounding along the drive.

“It’s a swell candlestick,” Nicky argued. “I could get a dollar fer it in Asbury.”

“Better go in there and sell it then,” almost thundered Dr. Hale, if ever he did speak in a thunderous tone, which he didn’t, quite, “and don’t fetch any more eggs here——”

“Dads!” pleaded Barbara. “Let them come. Poor little things——”

But Nicky and Vicky were off, scampering as if Dr. Hale had threatened them with a shot-gun.

“Good-bye, Dads,” called back Barbara. “Be sure to phone me——”

“I shall—not,” replied her father, sending the first two words after Barbara, and blowing the last one against the hall mantel. He would not phone Barbara, not unless there was very urgent need to do so, and there appeared to be no prospect of the latter contingency, just then.

Dora came forth from the pantry, two eggs in one hand and one in the other. Her long face was longer than usual, and her faded eyes seemed about to lose their jell and melt into a little puddle of colorless mucilage.

“There’s the eggs,” she intoned, as if any one could have mistaken them for tomatoes.

“Yes,” echoed Dr. Hale, “I see. But I wish those youngsters would peddle eggs some place else. They’re a nuisance.”

“Sure are,” agreed Dora, “and I don’t think Barbara ought to have them trap’sin’ around here at all.”

Dr. Hale eyed Dora sharply. It was surprising how much audacity a few months’ overdue wages could incite. But he had no idea of telling this to Dora.

“Yes, sir,” she went on, putting one of the twin eggs in the hand with the singleton, “they’re a thieving gang, them Eytalians.”

“But those children aren’t thieves, Dora,” the doctor found courage to say, “and their folks are poor but deserving, I understand.”

“You understand that from Barbara,” Dora retorted adding “sir” when she realized how impertinent the answer really was. “She’s too good hearted. I’ve told her time and again, and there was a report that them Eytalians put a bomb in the hotel——”

“Tut—tut!” checked up the doctor, smiling in a way, but not in a cheerful way. “That old hotel burned itself down when it swallowed a big spark from the trains it must have been very weary listening to. The old Mansion House wasn’t bombed by any one, Italian nor others. It just got tired standing there useless and deserted. It was once a merry place, Dora. Many a happy time I had at the Mansion House—before I got to studying bugs, you know,” he explained, moving off towards his study.

Dora too moved off, she towards the kitchen.

“Well,” she called as she went, “what I’m saying is that Barbara is too fond of trashy folks. And now that she’s going out in society she ought to know better!”

If Barbara could only have heard that.

“Going out in society!”

And her reputation endangered by taking up with trashy folks, especially Nicky and Vicky who sold junk candlesticks and new-laid eggs!

In his study Dr. Hale did not at once turn to the unfinished experiment that lay in the tubes before him. He was thinking that Dora was right, in spite of her brusque way of stating the case. There had been very unpleasant rumors current all over Sea Cosset upon more than one occasion, when suspicious fires brought out the volunteer fireman and when daring thefts called for action from the limited police force.

The “Eytalians”, as Dora and others called all the foreigners who were huddled in a few old barracks over by the tracks, were not only suspected but openly blamed, and the Marcusi family, to which Nickolas and Victoria belonged, were doubly charged with the crimes, because their father was known to be in prison. He had belonged to a gang, it was said, and he couldn’t get away because he was almost a cripple. For years he had tended the railroad gates, and one day he dashed under the gates to let a horse out before the train hit him. That was what happened to Nick’s father’s leg.

But at his shanty alongside the track some men plotted one night, and whether he was to blame or not, when the midnight train jumped the track because it couldn’t escape the ties that had been piled up to derail it, Nickolas Marcusi was found guilty of aiding the plotters. He had protested his innocence, of course, but to have the railroad’s property damaged and many lives endangered by a plot actually planned on the railroad itself, seemed too daring to countenance. So Nick Marcusi went to prison and was still there when little Nick and his smaller sister sold Barbara Hale three fresh eggs for her father’s dinner.

Dr. Hale was pondering all of this now. He had been sorry for the one-legged gateman; had even tried to intervene for him at court, but people about the sea-coast town were bitter. They despised foreigners, although none of their own class would have tended a railroad gate and risked a life to save a fractious horse.

It was this daring deed that had so enthused Barbara, and she was determined never to turn from her door little Nicky and Vicky—not for Dora nor for a dozen like her! She would buy every egg they brought; she couldn’t often buy the junk the children uncovered at the dump, but she had given them fifty cents once for an old pewter mug.

“Heigh-o!” sighed Dr. Hale, turning finally to his test tubes. “It’s a hard road for the poor to travel, but harder still for the more unfortunate.”

He was seeing little Victoria’s face “all eyes” as he spoke harshly about the eggs. He was remembering little Nicky’s flying feet as the children scurried off, and he was not blaming Barbara for her interest in the picturesque youngsters.

“There’s something fascinating about the genuine,” the doctor pursued secretly, “and even a genuine ragamuffin has charm.”

The clock in the lower hall chimed four. Barbara would be at the party now, and he was so glad she had gone. Twice Dora had called up the back stairs to ask if he wanted dinner earlier as Barbara would not be home, once she had asked if he would like the eggs “cuddled”, she meant coddled, of course, and he said he would. And he even conceded a half-hour in favor of Dora’s earlier meal so that she could go to the beach to see the fish boats come in.

Also, there had been two telephone calls to jerk him out of his reverie, and already he was missing Barbara.

And now the door-bell!

“Might as well put work aside for today!” the doctor told himself, for while Dora was preparing a meal she never deigned to answer the door.

“Hey there!” came a shout through the hall. “May I come up?”

“Yes, come along. Glad you are nobody else,” called back Doctor Hale, while Glenn Gaynor was already dashing up the stairs.

“Barbara gone?” he asked sharply, as if hoping she wasn’t and knowing she was.

“Yes, went long ago,” answered the doctor. “You’re going to the dance, I hear.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” The boy, who was so big and good-looking that he might well have been called a young man, tossed his cap down impatiently, and folded his brown arms to keep them out of mischief. “I hate these affairs——”

“Now, see here, Glenn,” said the doctor, in that unmistakable voice that starts a lecture, “all work and no play, you know——”

“Yes sir, I know,” Glenn cut in. “But when a fellow starts they run him to death, and I just can’t see these house parties.”

“Why go then?” complacently asked the older man.

“Promised Babs, promised Dud and promised his sister, Cara,” admitted the complaining youth. “A silly little party, with giggling girls just out of grammar school——”

“Oh, really now, Glenn,” laughed Dr. Hale, “they’re better than that. They are, I believe high school sophs. And besides—look who is giving this party!”

“Oh, yes I know,” Glenn almost sneered, “the rich de Burkes,” this was a pure mockery, “at Billows, seaside residence of—oh, darn!” he broke off suddenly. “I came over to buy Babs off. I’ve got tickets for the Music Festival tomorrow night and—I’m due at a—dance!”

Glenn’s discomfiture was so boyish it was positively laughable, and Dr. Hale was enjoying it.

“Look out, boy,” he warned. “That’s just the way a colt acts when he sees a lasso!”

“Lasso! What do you mean, sir?”

“That you may have a better time at the dance than you anticipate,” replied Dr. Hale slowly but not solemnly.

CHAPTER V
BILLOWS THE BEAUTIFUL

Imagine trees, so many beautiful trees that they made canopies, tunnels and softest green shelters fit for fairies, for elves and for lovely little children. Outside and beyond this grove, imagine a carpet so green that the sky threw shadows upon it in futile jealousy, gardens so gorgeous that butterflies fluttered over the blooms, bewildered and confused in their temptations and then—just beyond and yet within all of this, think of a House Beautiful!

That was Billows, the summer home of Cara Burke.

A great iron fence raised its palings outside the farthermost borders of the estate. But only the ocean and the ocean drive were thus separated, for acres and acres were shut in behind the iron fence, and one couldn’t find the gates unless one knew where to look for them. Greenery everywhere.

Yes, they were very rich, the Burkes, but no one could call them “stuck up,” not even the most jealous, or most narrow-minded person at Sea Cosset, who was generally supposed to be old Sarah Jenkins, who sold peppermints and never stopped talking.

And here at the Billows, Cara Burke was holding her first house party, while among those present was Barbara Hale.

“Cara, you should be dressed and down here now,” her mother warned from the alcove near the stairs. “The girls are coming——”

“You do the honors, Moma,” called back Cara, in a voice quite pardonable if she was a little distance off. “That’s just Louise and Esther——”

No pompous butler barred the way, for the massive doors were open wide and the laughter of young girls was echoing clear up to Cara’s dressing-room, while Sniffy, the black poodle, bumped himself down the stairs to find out what it was all about.

“Come right along, girls,” Mrs. Burke welcomed the first arrivals, Esther, Louise, and Lida. “Cara will be down directly.”

The girls hesitated, overwhelmed by the beauty of the flowers and soft lights. They were already familiar with the house and its luxurious furnishings, but the urns and vases filled with blooms beneath the silken floor lamps made the rooms look like a scene from some gorgeous theatrical set.

“I waited for Ruth,” Esther was saying, “but she didn’t come over. Then we drove over there and she was gone, in a taxi, her mother said.”

“Here she is now!” proclaimed Louise, for the rollicking Ruth was tripping up the stone steps, suit-case dangling by her.

“’Low girls!” she called out. “I missed you! But I got the worth of my money from old Taxi-Dermot,” she declared, “I made him drive me down along the ocean, and then—so that every one might see me, I directed him to drive past the tennis court——”

“Here’s Cara,” interrupted Louise. “Ruth, you didn’t shake hands with Mrs. Burke,” she whispered to the obstreperous Ruth, although Mrs. Burke had by now disappeared, leaving the scene to Cara and Sniffy.

Greetings and exclamations peculiar to girls who are only growing up and think they have already grown up, were being perfunctorily exchanged, when Cara’s car, almost noiselessly, rolled up the drive, and then a shadow appeared in the doorway. This time it was the Burke’s chauffeur, Dixon, and the suit-case he primly placed in the hall, over near the carved wooden settee, was none other than Barbara Hale’s.

“Oh, here’s Barbara!” exclaimed Cara, happily, rushing forward to greet the latest and last arrival, Barbara, in her green and white sport suit with the close-fitting white felt hat.

Cara gushed and gurgled, saying every pleasant thing she could think of and all but kissing Barbara, but it seemed as if all the joy was between those two. The other girls had fallen back a little, into a group of their own, and just then Barbara wondered if she were going to be treated as an interloper, an outsider.

Were they not glad to meet her?

“Girls!” called out Cara, “you all know Barbara, don’t you? We met her at the committee meeting, you know,” she pointed out breathlessly. “Barbara, this is Louise, and Lida, and you must know Ruth? Ruth Harrison——”

“Oh yes, I know Ruth,” interrupted the embarrassed Barbara, for she was feeling the same old catch in her breath which she always experienced when meeting a lot of strange girls.