"Mollie Thurston, has Barbara driven off with those awful horses?"
It was Grace Carter who spoke. She had reached the doorway of the
cottage just in time to catch a glimpse of the departing equipage.
Without waiting for a reply, she turned from the open door to the group
inside just as Mollie rejoined them, exclaiming:
"Barbara is driving the runaways to the hotel for the machine!"
Mrs. Thurston started. She had been downstairs for some time helping to
make the victims of the accident comfortable. She was a slim,
sweet-faced little woman, whose entire world lay in her two lively young
daughters, in whom she had unlimited faith.
But, in a moment, she smiled and said, "I am not afraid to trust Barbara
with anything."
Ruth Stuart's lately pale face was glowing. "I think that is regularly
splendid of her!" she exclaimed, with more animation than she had shown
since she had left the carriage.
"Oh, Barbara is used to taking care of herself," Gladys Le Baron
interposed with a supercilious smile.
Mollie looked at her cousin a moment. "Yes," she answered steadily, "we
think it is a pretty good thing in our family."
Gladys flushed, and had no reply ready. Ruth looked surprised and Grace
plunged into the breach.
"Oh," she tried to murmur off-handedly, "Barbara and Mollie and Gladys
are cousins, you know."
"And you never----" Ruth turned to Gladys, then stopped and smiled. "Well,
it's awfully jolly to have met you all in this nice, informal way. Grace
has often spoken of you," she said.
The girls had to laugh at this, so Ruth continued: "I'm well enough now
to be proper and conventional, I suppose. I believe you know I'm Ruth
Stuart. Mrs. Thurston, Mollie, have you met Gladys's friend, Mr.
Townsend?"
The young man came out from the corner near the window, where he had
been seated, and bowed gayly. Ruth nodded in a satisfied fashion.
"There, doesn't that finish it?" she sighed. "The rest of you are all
acquainted, aren't you? Now, won't one of you, please tell me why those
awful horses aren't running still? I know some horrible white hay-caps
started them, and Jones fell off the seat, and now we are here. Who
stopped us?"
Everybody turned to Ruth at once. "Why, Barbara stopped them," Grace
managed to say first. "Barbara----"
A gay laugh sounded in the doorway, and Barbara herself appeared before
them.
"Now I've caught you!" she cried merrily, her bright eyes sweeping the
circle. Then she turned to Ruth with a mock curtsey.
"Your ladyship's chariot waits," she declaimed, then continuing in quick
explanation: "You see, your driver was scarcely hurt and he rushed back
to the hotel at once and sent the automobile along the road where he had
seen the horses disappearing. Before I'd gone a quarter of a mile, I met
the machine with the chauffeur, and doctor and Jones himself. We sent
Jones back with the horses, though they weren't bothering me a bit, and
I came back in the automobile. How are you feeling?" and the bright
voice softened sympathetically, as she noted Ruth's pale cheeks.
For answer the girl arose quickly, and held out both hands to Barbara.
"You're a brick," she said simply. "I fainted, like a goose, and they've
just told me what you did. I am so glad I know you, and I guess my
father will be glad, too--not to say thankful! Now, please won't you and
your sister dine with us to-morrow? No? Make it lunch; then I'll see you
sooner. I won't take no for an answer, because I have a very important
plan. Dad decides as quickly as I do. So if you'll only say yes--but I
can't tell you about it now. Perhaps, if I make you curious, you'll be
more interested when the time comes!" Ruth laughed mischievously.
"What have you up your sleeve now, Ruth Stuart?" asked Grace, curiously.
"I never saw such a girl as you are for chain-lightning projects!"
"You'll see," laughed Ruth. "You're in it too, you know. You must be one
of my lunch party to-morrow. I know you and Mr. Townsend have another
engagement, Gladys, so you will pardon my delivering my invitation
before you. Now, I won't say another word.
"Come," she continued, addressing the party, "we must be off at once. If
the news of this runaway circulates through the hotel and reaches either
your father or mine, Gladys, they'll be wild with fright. Good-bye, Mrs.
Thurston, and thank you. You've been awfully good to us. As for you
two"--holding out her hands to Barbara and Mollie--"wait till tomorrow at
lunch!"
Drawing the two Thurston girls with her, she stepped outside the door
and to the gate, the rest of the party following. The machine was
waiting in the road, and out of it hurried the hotel doctor toward Ruth.
"Aren't you hurt, Miss Stuart?" he cried. "I would have come in, but
Miss Thurston said she would go in first and see how you were."
"I'm perfectly well, doctor," smiled Ruth. "It's too bad you had to come
way out here. I hope father will not hear you have been sent for!"
She patted affectionately the nearest tire-rim of the big automobile.
"Bless the 'bubble's' heart," she murmured. "He wouldn't run away with
his missus. Barbara, Mollie, this is my best friend, Mr. A. Bubble. I
think you'll get better acquainted with him before long. I wish you
could come with me now, but I'm afraid neither you nor 'Bubble' would be
quite comfortable. And you three must get along well together from the
start."
The doctor helped Ruth into the big red touring car and Gladys and Grace
followed. The two men and the chauffeur crowded together in the front
seat.
"Au revoir," chorused the autoists, and "see you tomorrow," nodded Ruth
emphatically to the girls. Then, in a whirl of dust, the big machine
sped out of sight.
"Isn't she a dear?" burst forth Mollie, as the sisters turned to go back
to the house. "How her eyes shine when she talks! I wonder if I could do
my hair that way. I was sure she'd be nice--but what do you suppose she
means by that plan? Barbara, for heaven's sake, how did you happen to
think of that umbrella stunt? It was great, but you did look so
funny--like a sort of desperate, feminine Darius Green with his flying
machine! No wonder you stopped the horses!"
"Oh, I heard of a man who stopped a stampede of cattle that way out West
once," Barbara answered abstractedly. There was a puzzled look on her
face. "Mollie," she said abruptly, as they entered the house, "you
didn't take our money with you, when you went into the bedroom for
pencil and paper?"
"Why, no," replied Mollie wonderingly. "It must be over there on the
table now. I remember I noticed it as I came into the room. I wondered,
for a second, why you'd gone away and left it so near the open window.
That was before I looked through the window and saw what you were doing.
It must be there," and Mollie hurried over to the window.
The next moment she turned an astonished face to her sister. "Barbara!"
she exclaimed, "it isn't here, anywhere!" Indeed, the marble top of the
little table was absolutely bare. There was no sign of either of the
gold pieces.
"Let's look on the floor," said Barbara, quietly. "One of our guests may
have unconsciously brushed them off."
Both girls stopped and began a careful survey of the carpeted floor,
under the table, and near the window. Their search was unrewarded.
"Let's look in the grass outside," suggested Mollie. "You might have
brushed them off as you went through the window."
"But didn't you say you saw them on the table, when you came back into
the room and found me gone?" queried Barbara, thoughtfully.
"I was sure I did," Mollie replied. "But sometimes one remembers
imaginary things. And if the money had been in the room when I came in,
it would be there now. I'll ask mother----"
"No, don't," said Barbara quickly; "at least, not yet." Mrs. Thurston
had gone into the kitchen directly after her return from the gate, and
had heard none of the conversation. "There's no need to worry mother
about it now. Of course we must find it somewhere. Money doesn't walk
off by itself. We'll go out and look in the grass under the window."
On hands and knees the girls worked through the closely cropped grass
underneath the sitting room window. Not two days before, they themselves
had clipped this bit of lawn with big shears, and it was so close that
there seemed no possibility of anything being hidden in it. Certainly
nothing was to be found. The girls even looked over the short path, and
ground near it. "Your skirts might have switched those small things a
long way," observed Mollie, wisely. Yet, as before, the result
was--nothing.
Giving it up, at last, the girls sat down in a little garden seat at one
side of the tiny yard, and looked at each other ruefully.
"I am so glad I feel sure Miss Stuart will invite us to her party, now,"
commented Mollie dryly. "Our new gowns and the pink hair ribbons and the
silk stockings will be so awfully fetching! But where, where, where, by
all that's mysterious, can those double-eagles have flown?"
Suddenly she looked curiously at her sister. "Barbara, you are thinking
of something!" she exclaimed. "Have you any nameable idea?"
"No," said Barbara, quickly; "it isn't nameable."
"All right; you never would talk when you didn't want to," complained
Mollie. "And I know you want that money back as badly as I do. Tell you
what--I'll say the fairies' charm. Don't you remember the one the old
gypsy woman taught us? Wish she were here to say it for us! She promised
to do all sorts of things for me when I found her in the field with a
sprained ankle and helped her back to camp. Why! why! Barbara, this is
_uncanny_--she's coming now!"
In truth, down the road a queer little bent figure was seen approaching.
"I know her," continued Mollie eagerly, "by that funny combination of
red and yellow handkerchiefs she wears on her head. Do let's go and meet
her and tell her--it can't do any harm."
"What nonsense, Mollie!" laughed Barbara. But she followed her younger
sister, who had already started down the road toward the quaint, little,
gaudily-turbaned dame.
Between them, the girls brought her into the yard, Mollie meanwhile
busily explaining their predicament. "You'll help us, won't you, Granny
Ann?" she coaxed childishly. "You said, that time that I helped you
home, you'd always be near when I wanted you."
Granny Ann sat on the garden seat, looking gravely down at the
half-laughing, half-serious girls huddled at her feet.
"I knowed," she began in a high, cracked voice, "I knowed my little fair
one," lightly touching Mollie's curls, "would need me to-day. Far away I
was, when I heard the shadow of her voice callin' out to me--and miles I
have traveled to reach her. Granny Ann is thirsty, and she has had no
food since morning." The old woman looked reproachfully at her
listeners.
Barbara's eyes twinkled at Mollie's rather crestfallen face, when the
sybil voiced this most human request. But she said cheerily: "All right,
Granny; supper isn't ready yet, but I know mother'll have something."
Then Barbara hurried into the house, the gypsy dame waiting solemnly
until she reappeared, a moment later, with sandwiches, doughnuts and a
big glass of milk.
Granny Ann smiled, but she didn't speak until the lunch had quite
disappeared. Then the old woman rose impressively. "There's one sure
magic for fetching back money that has gone," she declaimed. "Because
you have been good to me, 'Little Fair One,' you and your sister, I will
say the golden spell for you." With her hands crossed, Granny Ann began
to croon dreamily:
Gold is gladsome, gold is gay,
Here to-night and gone to-day,
Here to-day and gone to-morrow,
Guest of joy and host of sorrow.
Gold of mine that's flitted far,
Forget me not, where'er you are.
Mine you are, as Pluto wrought you,
Mine you are, whoever's sought you,
Come by sea or come by land--
Homeward fly into my hand!
Three times Granny Ann repeated this. Then, with a queer dignity, oddly
assorting with her variegated raiment, she turned to the girls. "It will
return," she said; "now, I must go to my own people."
"But I thought you said you came here for us by yourself!" protested
Mollie.
The gypsy dame drew herself up. "I travel not alone!" she said, stiffly.
"Good-bye."
"Oh, good-bye, and thanks ever so much, Granny Ann!" cried both of the
girls.
But Granny Ann did not turn her head. Barbara looked at Mollie, her eyes
dancing. "The blessed old fraud!" she teased; "her people decided to
camp somewhere about, and she thought she'd come over for a call and a
lunch, and whatever else she could get! I believe she actually expected
us to cross her palm with silver for saying that little rhyme. But I
wish I knew really----"
All at once a faint chug-chug sounded in the distance. In a moment a big
red touring car appeared, enveloped in dust. "Why, it looks like Ruth's
car!" exclaimed Mollie, excitedly. "Yes, I do believe that young man
seated beside the chauffeur is the Mr. Townsend who was with them.
Barbara----"
But Barbara was walking quickly toward the gate. A moment later the
automobile stopped before it, and Harry Townsend stepped out.
"Miss Thurston," he began, soberly, "have you lost any money?"
"Oh, yes!" burst out Mollie, who was just behind, before Barbara could
speak; "two twenty-dollar gold-pieces! We've hunted and hunted. We had
them this afternoon----"
"Then these must be yours," said the young man, extending his hand to
Barbara. In it were two golden double-eagles. "When the young ladies
were getting out at the hotel these were found on the seat, and Miss
Stuart was sure you had dropped them out of your pocket, Miss Thurston,
during the few moments you were in the machine. I am very glad to be
able to restore them to you."
"Yes," said Barbara, "but I----" Then she stopped. "Thank you, Mr.
Townsend," she said, giving him a clear, direct glance. For some unknown
reason the young man's eyes wavered under it, and he climbed hurriedly
into the automobile. "I am very glad," he murmured again.
"Miss Stuart expects you to-morrow," he added quickly, and the machine
backed round and hurried off.
Barbara stood looking at it, the money still in her hand. But Mollie was
laughing happily. Then she saw Barbara's face. "Barbara, what is it,
dear?" she demanded. "You look exactly as you did before Granny Ann
appeared, and I asked you if you were thinking of something. What is it?
Can't you tell me?"
Barbara shook her head. "It really isn't anything, Molliekins. I did
have an idea in my head, but I must be mistaken somehow. You are sure
you saw the money on the table after I left the room? It must have been
there, then, when the crowd from the automobile came in. I thought I saw
some one standing near the table with one hand resting on it, when I
came back and called out: 'Now, I've caught you!' But I must not think
anything more about it. Please don't ask me any questions. Let us just
be glad we have the money back. It is queer, though. Mr. Townsend says
the money was found on the seat. I wonder who found it, and whether it
was found on the front or back seat? Let's ask Grace. I don't understand
it. But he brought the money back, and he's Miss Stuart's friend. Of
course we will keep quiet, you and I, Mollie, whether the money was
lost, strayed or stolen!"
"Well, I am sure, Barbara Thurston," Mollie answered a little
indignantly, "I am not likely to talk of what I know nothing about. If
there is any mystery about the disappearance of that money, I am sure
you have left me utterly in the dark."
"Don't be cross," said Barbara, putting her arm in Mollie's. "But do you
know if Mr. Townsend is a special friend of Gladys's?"
Mollie shook her head. "How should I know?" she said. "Let's go in, it's
nearly dark."