It had been young McGinnis's intention to look up the home and the
parents of the little mill-girl, Nellie Magoon, at once, and see if
something could not be done to keep--for a time, at least--that frail bit
of humanity out of the mills. Some days had elapsed, however, since he
had talked with the child, and not until now had he found the time to
carry out his plan. He was hurrying with frowning brow along the lower
end of Prospect Hill road when suddenly his ears were assailed by the
unmistakable evidence that somewhere a mob of small boys had found an
object upon which to vent their wildest mischief. The next moment a turn
of the road revealed the almost motionless runabout with its living
freight of shrieking urchins, and its one white-faced, terrified girl.
With a low-breathed "Margaret!" McGinnis sprang forward.
[Illustration: "A MOB OF SMALL BOYS HAD FOUND AN OBJECT UPON WHICH TO
VENT THEIR WILDEST MISCHIEF."]
It was all done so quickly that even the girl herself could not have
told how it happened. Almost unconsciously she slipped over into the
vacant seat and gave her place to the fearless, square-jawed man who
seemingly had risen from the ground. An apparently impossible number of
long arms shot out to the right and to the left, and the squirming
urchins dropped to the ground, sprawling on all fours, and howling
with surprise and chagrin. Then came a warning cry and a sharp
"honk-honk-honk" from the horn. The next moment the car bounded forward
on a roadway that opened clear and straight before it.
Not until he had left the town quite behind him did McGinnis bring the
car to a halt in the shade of a great tree by the roadside. Then he
turned an anxious face to the girl at his side.
"You're not hurt, I hope, Miss Kendall," he began. "I didn't like to
stop before to ask. I hope you didn't mind being thrust so
unceremoniously out of your place and run away with," he finished, a
faint twinkle coming into his gray eyes.
Margaret flushed. Before she spoke she put both hands to her head and
straightened her hat.
"No, I--I'm not hurt," she said faintly; "but I _was_ frightened. You--you
were very good to run away with me," she added, the red deepening in her
cheeks. "I'm sure I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't."
The man's face darkened.
"The little rascals!" he cried. "They deserve a sound thrashing--every
one of them."
"But I'd done nothing--I'd not spoken to them," she protested. "I don't
see why they should have molested me."
"Pure mischief, to begin with, probably," returned the man; "then they
saw that you were frightened, and that set them wild with delight. All
is--I'm glad I was there," he concluded, with grim finality.
Margaret turned quickly.
"And so am I," she said, "and yet I don't even know whom to thank,
though you evidently know me. You seemed to come from the ground, and
you handled the car as if it were your own."
With a sudden exclamation the man stepped to the ground; then he turned
and faced her, hat in hand.
"And I'm acting now as if it were my own, too," he said, almost
bitterly. "I beg your pardon, Miss Kendall. I have run it many times for
Mr. Spencer; that explains my familiarity with it."
"And you are----" she paused expectantly.
The man hesitated. It was almost on his tongue's end to say, "One of the
mill-hands"; then something in the bright face, the pleasant smile, the
half-outstretched hand, sent a strange light to his eyes.
"I am--Miss Kendall, I have half a mind to tell you who I am."
She threw a quick look into his face and drew back a little; but she
said graciously:
"Of course you will tell me who you are."
There was a moment's silence, then slowly he asked:
"Do you remember--Bobby McGinnis?"
"Bobby? Bobby McGinnis?" The blue eyes half closed and seemed to be
looking far into the past. Suddenly they opened wide and flashed a glad
recognition into his face. "And are you Bobby McGinnis?"
"Yes."
"Why, of course I remember Bobby McGinnis," she cried, with outstretched
hand. "It was you that found me when I was a wee bit of a girl and lost
in New York, though _that_ I don't remember. But we used to play
together there in Houghtonsville, and it was you that got me the
contract----" She stopped abruptly and turned her face away. The man saw
her lips and chin tremble. "I can't speak of it--even now," she said
brokenly, after a moment. Then, gently: "Tell me of yourself. How came
you here?"
"I came here at once from Houghtonsville." McGinnis's voice, too, was
not quite steady. She nodded, and he went on without explaining the "at
once"--he had thought she would understand. "I went to work in the mills,
and--I have been here ever since. That is all," he said simply.
"But how happened it that you came--here?"
A dull red flushed the man's cheeks. His eyes swerved from her level
gaze, then came back suddenly with the old boyish twinkle in their
depths.
"I came," he began slowly, "well, to look after your affairs."
"_My_ affairs!"
"Yes. I was fifteen. I deemed somehow that I was the one remaining
friend who had your best interests at heart. I _couldn't_ look after
you, naturally--in a girls' school--so I did the next best thing. I looked
after your inheritance."
"Dear old Bobby!" murmured the girl. And the man who heard knew, in
spite of a conscious throb of joy, that it was the fifteen-year-old lad
that Margaret Kendall saw before her, not the man-grown standing at her
side.
"I suppose I thought," he resumed after a moment, "that if I were not
here some one might pick up the mills and run off with them."
"And now?" She was back in the present, and her eyes were merry.
"And now? Well, now I come nearer realizing my limitations, perhaps," he
laughed. "At any rate, I learned long ago that your interests were in
excellent hands, and that my presence could do very little good, even if
they had not been in such fine shape.... But I am keeping you," he broke
off suddenly, backing away from the car. "Are you--can you--you do not
need me any longer to run the machine? You'll not go back through the
town, of course."
"No, I shall not go back through the town," shuddered the girl. "And I
can drive very well by myself now, I am sure," she declared. And he did
not know that for a moment she had been tempted to give quite the
opposite answer. "I shall go on to the next turn, and then around home
by the other way.... But I shall see you soon again?--you will come to
see me?" she finished, as she held out her hand.
McGinnis shook his head.
"Miss Kendall, in the kindness of her heart, forgets," he reminded her
quietly. "Bobby McGinnis is not on Hilcrest's calling list."
"But Bobby McGinnis is my friend," retorted Miss Kendall with a bright
smile, "and Hilcrest always welcomes my friends."
Still standing under the shadow of the great tree, McGinnis watched the
runabout until a turn of the road hid it from sight.
"I thought 'twould be easier after I'd met her once, face to face, and
spoken to her," he was murmuring softly; "but it's going to be harder,
I'm afraid--harder than when I just caught a glimpse of her once in a
while and knew that she was here."