"I hear the car coming," said Minnie. Everybody listened, and sure
enough the big car rounded the bend and drew up at the bank with a
mighty blast of the horn. Tommy yelled in reply and bolted for it, the
others following, loaded down with the empty hamper and rugs, and by no
means least, the baby, awake now and very happy after his sleep.
Minnie marshalled them into their places, putting the two boys on the
front seat with Mr. Culver, and off they rolled. When they reached the
little house where the children lived, Mary thanked Rosanna and Helen
and Minnie and Mr. Culver again and she would have liked to thank the
car too, and the hamper. Even Tommy managed to say, "Much obliged!"
before he rushed to the house so he could have the fun of telling all
about it before Mary could get there.
But Mary did not mind. This was something that would have to be told
over and over a dozen or twenty times. She stood with Luella and Myron,
the baby looped over her arm, and watched the car disappear with a
feeling of happiness and gratitude that filled her thin little frame to
overflowing.
When the car reached the great white steps of Rosanna's house, the two
little girls said good-night.
"I never had such a nice, lovely, beautiful day in all my life,
Rosanna," she said. "And all because you were so good and kind."
"You would have thought of it just the same," said Rosanna, blushing.
"But oh, Helen and Minnie, _wasn't_ it lucky that we took such a lot of
lunch?"
"Well, it did turn out so," said Minnie.
The car rolled away, and Rosanna and Minnie went into the big, cool
hall.
On the table was a letter addressed to Rosanna in her grandmother's
stiff, precise handwriting. Rosanna took it up with a sort of groan.
"That's to tell when she is coming home, of course," she said. "I won't
read it until I am all undressed. Everything is going so beautifully and
I am learning such a lot and having such a lovely time that it doesn't
seem as though I could bear to have it come to an end."
"I think you ought to read your letter, Rosanna," Minnie said. "I don't
believe in leaving things. You expect bad news in that letter and you
are having a horrid time all the time you are getting ready for bed. You
couldn't feel any worse if you opened it. And suppose there was good
news in it? Then you would wish you had found it out before, wouldn't
you?"
"I suppose so," said Rosanna listlessly.
She sighed and, taking the letter, tore off the end of the envelope and
commenced to read. The second sentence caused her to cry out. She turned
to Minnie, hugged her, and cried, "Oh, Minnie, you are so wise! Just
listen to this!" The letter read:
"My dear Granddaughter Rosanna:
"What news I have had from home leads me to believe that you are well
and being nicely cared for.
"Since this is the case, I feel that it will be possible for me to
remain here in the East for a few weeks with your Uncle Robert. He is
not ill, you understand, but is run down and nervous from the effects of
his wound and many trying experiences abroad. He is fussing because he
has lost track of a soldier friend of his, the man who saved his life.
He is doing all he can to trace him, as he feels--and of course so do
I--that we could never do enough to repay the debt we owe him.
"About yourself, I hope you will have a good time. Do not forget to
practice. Mrs. Hargrave spoke of seeing a very interesting child at our
house. I am very glad you have found among your acquaintances one whom
you would like to make your friend. I can trust you, Rosanna, to choose
wisely. And I am glad to see that Mrs. Hargrave says that this Helen
somebody comes of an old Lee County family. I cannot read the name. Mrs.
Hargrave is a very careless penman. Always write distinctly, Rosanna.
It is one of the many marks of good breeding.
"Your Uncle Robert sends his love. He is anxious to see you.
"Your loving grandmother,
"VIRGINIA LEE HORTON."
Rosanna read the letter twice.
Then she turned and looked at Minnie. "It's good and bad too, isn't it,
Minnie? You know Helen is _not_ one of the Culvers of Lee County, but
she is just as good and sweet as though she belonged to all the Lee
County Culvers in the world. Minnie, what shall I do?"
"You must do what you think right, dearie," said Minnie, her kind, wise
eyes searching the girl's face. "I can't tell you what to do. You must
decide for yourself. It's one of the biggest things in the world to
learn; that is, to decide what is right and wrong without someone
telling us."
She kissed Rosanna good-night and left the room. A moment later she
returned. "Mrs. Hargrave just telephoned, dearie, that she wants you and
Helen to take luncheon with her to-morrow." Once more she bade the
little girl good-night, and Rosanna, tired out, fell asleep before the
door was closed.
She did not see Helen the next day until time for luncheon, but when she
waked up she found a book lying beside her bed. Helen had sent it over
to her. It was all about the Girl Scouts, and their rules and duties
and pleasures, and Rosanna found it hard work not to sit down and read
instead of taking her cold bath and dressing herself. Then after
breakfast came the history lesson and the music and dressing again, and
when Helen, very crisp and dainty, came in ready to go to Mrs.
Hargrave's, she found that Rosanna had not had time to read a single
line.
Mrs. Hargrave lived three houses away, and the children felt very
important and fine, especially Helen, who had never been asked to
luncheon with a grown-up lady before. Her eyes grew round when they
entered the house. It was so dim and cool and "old timey" as Helen put
it.
Mrs. Hargrave always dressed in the latest fashion for old ladies, yet
somehow she always looked as though she belonged to another day and
time. When she drove about the city she scorned the modern automobile.
She went in the spickest and spannest little carriage drawn by an old,
sleek and still frisky roan horse with a gold mounted harness and her
driver was a colored man as haughty and aristocratic looking as Mrs.
Hargrave herself; perhaps a little more so.
She advanced to meet the two little girls with a charming manner that
made them curtsey their very prettiest and caused them to feel more
important and grown up than ever.
During luncheon Mrs. Hargrave said:
"Will your brother return to college now that the war is over, Helen?"
Helen looked up in surprise. "I think you have me mixed up with some
other little girl, Mrs. Hargrave," she said. "I have no brother."
Mrs. Hargrave stared at her guest. "Are you not Lucius Culver's youngest
child?" she questioned. "The Lee County Culvers?"
"No, Mrs. Hargrave," said Helen. "I am John Culver's daughter."
"Another family," said Mrs. Hargrave and changed the subject politely by
asking Rosanna what she had heard from her grandmother.
Helen sat thinking. She was a straightforward, honest little girl, and
somehow she felt as though she was sailing under false colors as far as
Mrs. Hargrave went. She felt sure of Rosanna; Rosanna did not care
whether she was poor or rich, and it made no difference at all to her
that Helen's father worked for Mrs. Horton. But some people were
different, Helen reflected. Twice Mrs. Hargrave had spoken of Helen
being one of the Culvers of Lee County, and Helen wondered if it would
make any difference to the fine old lady sitting there in her soft,
shimmery silks, with the long string of real pearls about her neck if
she thought the little girl sitting there as her guest was living over a
garage back of Mrs. Horton's elegant home. It puzzled Helen and troubled
her. But try as she might, not once did the talk turn so she could
bring in what she felt she wanted Mrs. Hargrave to know. It just
_wouldn't_ come about.
After luncheon was over Mrs. Hargrave took the children and showed them
some of the strange and curious things about the house.
Then she had a delightful suggestion to make. She herself was obliged to
go down town to see her lawyer and she thought it would be very nice for
the girls to come for a little ride. To Rosanna, used only to
automobiles, and Helen who rode most of the time in street cars, the
idea of riding along after the proud gold-harnessed, frisky old horse in
the spick-and-span carriage was a treat and an adventure. Making
themselves politely small and quiet, sitting on either side of Mrs.
Hargrave, they went trotting down Third Street, turned by the big white
library building, and continued down Fourth Street where they eyed the
crowds, read the giddy signs in front of the movie houses and looked at
the window displays.
While Mrs. Hargrave talked to her lawyer, the girls sat in the carriage
and pretended that they were grown-up ladies.
When Mrs. Hargrave came out, they started up Fourth Street.
"Do you know," said Mrs. Hargrave, "this is the first time in all my
life that any little girls have visited me without their mothers? And I
have had the _nicest_ time I think I ever had. I want to remember it
always." She gave the signal to stop, and asked the children to get out.
"There is something I want to get here," she said, and led the way into
a big jeweler's shop. The two girls stopped to look at the rings in the
case near the door, but Mrs. Hargrave called them. "I need a notebook
and pencil and I thought you would like to help me select it. I am a
rather fussy and very forgetful old lady."
She did seem fussy over that notebook, but finally chose a dainty gold
one with a square in the center for initials. Attached by a tiny gold
chain was a slender pencil with a blue stone in the top.
Then, to their amazement, the clerk laid two others exactly like it on
the counter. Three just alike!
"I think it would be nice for us all to remember our pleasant day, don't
you?" asked Mrs. Hargrave, smiling. "I want to give you each one just
like this one that I am getting for myself. Then we will think of each
other whenever we use them."
Helen lifted Mrs. Hargrave's delicate old hand and laid it against her
cheek.
"Oh, Mrs. Hargrave," she cried, "I will _never_ forget you. I don't need
the notebook, but it is too lovely, and I will keep it as long as I
live."
Mrs. Hargrave's eyes filled with tears. "Bless your heart!" she said.