Mollie danced into the kitchen, waving the feather duster. "I'm so
happy, I can't keep still!" she declared, waltzing in a circle around
her mother and Barbara, who were in the kitchen washing the breakfast
dishes.
"It is just as well you don't have to," Mrs. Thurston laughed. "But,
children, do be sensible a minute," she urged, as Barbara joined in the
dance, still polishing a breakfast tumbler. "I've been thinking, that
going to Newport, if only to stay a few days, _does_ mean more clothes
than automobile coats and motor veils."
"Now, you are not to worry, mother dearest," interrupted Barbara, "or we
won't go a single step. Beside, have you forgotten the twenty-dollar
gold-pieces? They are a fortune, two fortunes really." Barbara had been
doing some pretty deep thinking herself, on the clothes question, but it
would never do to let her thoughts be known. As elder daughter she tried
to save her mother from all the worries she could. "While there are no
men around in the family, you'll just have to pretend I'm older son
instead of daughter," she used to say. "When Mollie marries I'll
resign."
"I'm through dusting," Mollie called from the dining-room. "This time I
am surely going to get paper and pencil to put down what clothes we most
need, if Barbara won't stop any runaway horses while I am away."
Mollie's golden head and Barbara's tawny one bent anxiously over the
paper.
"Ruth's such an impetuous dear! Starting off on our trip Monday does not
give us time to get anything new. Mother, will you go in to town
shopping for us, and then send the clothes on later? I suppose we shall
be on the road some time. Ruth says we are to stop in any of the places
we like, and see all the sights along the way," continued Barbara.
Gloves, ribbons, stockings, hair ribbons, and--oh, dear, yes! A pink sash
for Bab and a blue one for Mollie. Forty dollars wasn't such a fortune
after all. Where was the money left over for the party dresses? Both
girls looked a little crestfallen, but Barbara shook her head at Mollie
as a signal not to say anything aloud.
Mother had come into the open dining-room door and was watching the
girls' faces.
"I've a secret," Mrs. Thurston said, after a minute. "A beautiful secret
that I have been keeping to myself for over a year, now. But I think
to-day is the best time I can find to tell it." Mrs. Thurston was
fragile and blond, like Mollie, with a delicate color in her cheeks, and
the sweetest smile in the world.
"It's a nice secret, mother, I can tell by your face." Mollie put her
arm around her mother and pulled her down in a chair, while she and Bab
sat on either side of her. "Now, out with it!" they both cried.
"Daughters," Mrs. Thurston lowered her voice and spoke in a whisper,
"upstairs, in my room in the back part of my desk is an old bank book.
What do you think is pressed between the pages?" She paused a minute,
and Mollie gave her arm a little shake. "In that book," the mother
continued, "are two fifty-dollar bills; one is labeled 'Bab' and the
other is labeled 'Baby.'" Mrs. Thurston still called her big,
fourteen-year-old daughter "baby" when no one was near.
Mollie and Barbara could only stare at each other, and at their mother
in surprise.
"Please, and where did they come from?" queried Barbara.
"They came from nickels and dimes, and sometimes pennies," Mrs. Thurston
replied, as pleased and excited as the girls. "Only a week ago, I went
to the bank and had the money changed into the two big bills. Oh, I've
been saving some time. I saw my girls were growing up, and I imagined
that, some day, something nice would happen--not just this, perhaps, but
something equally exciting. So I wanted to be ready, and I am. I will
get the prettiest clothes I can buy for the money, and I'll have Miss
Mattie, the seamstress, in to help me. When you arrive in the
fashionable world of Newport, new outfits will be awaiting my two
girls."
Mrs. Thurston's face was radiant over the joys in store for her
daughters, but Barbara's eyes were full of tears. She knew what pinching
and saving, what sacrifices the two banknotes meant.
Soon Bab asked: "You don't need me any more, do you, mother? Because, if
you don't, I am going up to look in the treasure chest. I want to find
something to re-trim Mollie's hat. The roses are so faded, on the one
she is wearing, it will never do to wear with her nice spring suit."
There was a little attic over the cottage, and it almost belonged to
Barbara. Up there she used to study her lessons, write poetry, and dream
of the wonderful things she hoped to do in order to make mother and
Mollie rich.
Barbara skipped over to the trunk, where they kept odds and ends of
faded finery, gifts from rich cousins who sent their cast-off clothes to
the little girls. "This is like Pandora's chest," laughed Barbara to
herself. "It looks as if everything, now, has gone out of it, except
Hope."
Bump! bang! crash! the chandelier shivered over Mrs. Thurston and
Mollie's heads. Both started up with the one word, "Bab," on their lips.
It was impossible to know what she would attempt, or what would happen
to her next.
Just as they reached the foot of the attic steps an apologetic head
appeared over the railing. "I am not hurt," Bab's voice explained. "I
just tried to move the old bureau so I could see better, and I knocked
over a trunk. I am so sorry, mother, but the trunk has broken open. It
is that old one of yours. I know it made an awful racket!"
"It does not matter, child," Mrs. Thurston said in a relieved tone, when
she saw what had actually happened. "Nothing matters, since you have not
killed yourself."
She bent over her trunk. The old lock had been loosened by the fall, and
the top had tumbled off. On the floor were a yellow roll of papers, and
a quaint carved fan. Mrs. Thurston picked them up. The papers she
dropped in the tray of the trunk, but the fan she kept in her hand.
"This little fan," she said, "I used at the last party your father and I
attended together the week before we were married. I have kept it a long
time, and I think it very beautiful." She opened, with loving fingers, a
fan of delicately-carved ivory, mounted in silver, and hung on a curious
silver chain. "Your great-uncle brought it to me from China, when I was
just your age, Mollie! It was given him by a viceroy, in recognition of
a service rendered. Which of my daughters would like to take this fan to
Newport?"
Barbara shook her head, while Mollie looked at it with longing eyes. "I
don't believe either of us had better take it," protested Bab, "you have
kept it so carefully all this time."
But her mother said decidedly: "I saved it only for you girls. Here,
Mollie, suppose you take it; we will find something else for Bab."
As Mollie and her mother lifted out the tray of the old trunk, Bab's
eyes caught sight of the roll of papers, and she picked them up.
"Hello, hello!" a cheerful voice sounded from downstairs.
"It's Grace Carter," said Mollie. "You don't mind her coming up, do you,
mother?"
Grace was almost a third daughter at the little Thurston cottage. Her
own home was big and dull! her mother was a stern, cold woman, and her
two brothers were much older than Grace.
"No," said Mrs. Thurston, going on with her search.
"I couldn't keep away, chilluns," apologized Grace as she came upstairs.
"Mother told me I'd be dreadfully in the way, but I just had to talk
about our trip. Isn't it too splendid! You are not having secrets, are
you?"
"Not from you," Mrs. Thurston said. "See what I have found for Bab."
Mrs. Thurston held out an open jewel-case. In it was a beautiful spray
of pink coral, and a round coral pin.
"I think, Bab, dear," she said, "you are old enough, now, for such
simple jewelry. I will buy you a white muslin, and you can wear this pin
at your throat and the spray in your hair. Then, with a coral ribbon
sash, who knows but you may be one of the belles of a Newport party?"
Barbara flushed with pleasure over the gifts, but she looked so
embarrassed at her mother's compliment that Mollie and Grace both
laughed.
"I declare," Grace said, "you have less vanity than any girl in the
world. Oh, wasn't it fortunate I discovered your money yesterday? Just
as we all jumped out of the car I heard something clink, and picked up
one of your twenty dollars. Harry Townsend said he found the other
tucked away in the leather of the front seat."
"And I sat in the back seat all the time I was in the car," reflected
Barbara, under her breath.
When a turquoise blue heart on a string of tiny beads had been added to
Mollie's "going-away" treasures, she and Grace went down stairs.
Barbara still held the roll of papers in her hand and kept turning them
over and over, trying to read the faded writing. She caught sight of her
father's signature. "Are these papers valuable?" she asked her mother.
Mrs. Thurston sighed deeply as she answered: "They are old papers of
your father's. Put them away again. I never like to look at them. I
found them in his business suit after he was dead. He had sent it to the
tailor, and had forgotten all about it." Mrs. Thurston took the papers
from Barbara's hand and put them back into her trunk.
"Do you think they are valuable, mother?" persisted Barbara.
"I don't think so," her mother concluded. "Your uncle told me he looked
over all your father's papers that were of any value."
After the two had mended the lock of the old trunk, and turned to leave
the attic, Barbara was still thinking. "Dearest," she said thoughtfully,
"would you mind my going through those papers some time?" To herself Bab
added: "I'd like to ask a clever business man, like Mr. Stuart, to
explain them to me."
But Mrs. Thurston sighed as she said: "Oh, yes, you may look them over,
some day, if you like. It won't make any difference."
What difference it might make neither Mrs. Thurston or Barbara could
then know.