Red-Robin / Abbott, Jane, 1881-

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Title: Red-Robin

Author: Jane Abbott

Illustrator: Harriet Roosevelt Richards

Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #19057]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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RED-ROBIN
BY
JANE ABBOTT

AUTHOR OF KEINETH, HIGHACRES, APRILLY, Etc.

With Illustrations By
HARRIET ROOSEVELT RICHARDS

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS   NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

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[Illustration: THE EFFECT WAS VERY CHRISTMASY--Page 196]

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TO BETSY

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                      PAGE

       Prologue--A Story Before the Story      11
    I. The Orphan Doll                         19
   II. A Prince                                28
  III. The House of Forsyth                    39
   IV. Red-Robin                               49
    V. Jimmie                                  61
   VI. The Forsyth Heir                        70
  VII. Beryl                                   79
 VIII. Robin Asserts Herself                   90
   IX. The Lynchs                             103
    X. The Lady of the Rushing Waters         114
   XI. Pot Roast and Cabbage Salad            126
  XII. Robin Writes a Letter                  138
 XIII. Susy Castle                            151
  XIV. A Gift to the Queen                    164
   XV. The Party                              176
  XVI. Christmas at the Manor                 190
 XVII. The House of Laughter                  204
XVIII. The Luckless Stocking                  220
  XIX. Granny                                 235
   XX. Robin's Beginning                      250
  XXI. At the Granger Mills                   266
 XXII. The Green Beads                        279
XXIII. Robin's Rescue                         292
 XXIV. Madame Forsyth Comes Home              305
       Epilogue--A Story After the Story      318

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ILLUSTRATIONS
                                                           PAGE

The Effect Was Very Christmasy                     Frontispiece
The Beautiful Little Girl Had Not Spoken To Her              20
"Couldn't I Run Away With You?"                              56
"It's Like The House of Bread And Cake"                     119

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RED-ROBIN

PROLOGUE

A STORY BEFORE THE STORY


On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that
she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was
about her. There was so very, very _much_ beauty--the sky, azure blue
overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the
whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like
waves of a sea, the bird nesting above her, everything--

And Moira O'Donnell, who had never been farther than the boundaries of
her county, knew the whole world was beautiful, too.

Behind her, hid in a hollow, stood the small cottage where, at that very
moment, her grandmother was preparing the evening meal. And, beyond, in
the village was the little old stone church and Father Murphy's square
bit of a house with its wide doorstep and its roof of thatch, and Widow
Mulligan's and the Denny's and the Finnegan's and all the others.

Moira loved them all and loved the hospitable homes where there was
always, in spite of poverty, a bounty of good feeling.

And before her, just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could
hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the
winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she
went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the
grass and dream her dreams to its lifting music.

Her dream always began with: "Oh, Moira O'Donnell, it's all yours! It's
all yours!" Which, of course, sounded like boasting, or a miser gloating
over his gold, and might have seemed very funny to anyone so stupid as
to see only the girl's shabby dress and her bare feet, gleaming like
white satin against the green of the grass. But no fine lady in that
land felt richer than Moira when she began her dreaming.

Of late, her dreams were taking on new shapes, as though, with her
growth, they reached out, too. And today, as she lay very still in the
grass, something big, that was within her and yet had no substance,
lifted and sung up to the blue arch of the sky and on to the sun and
away westward with it, away like a bird in far flight.

Beyond that golden horizon of heaving sea was everything one could
possibly want; Moira had heard that when she was a tiny girl. America,
the States, they were words that opened fairy doors.

Father Murphy had told her much about that world beyond the sea. He had
visited it once; had spent six weeks with his sister who had married
and settled on a farm in the state of Ohio. His sister's husband had all
sorts of new-fangled machinery for plowing and seeding, and for his
reaping! And Father Murphy had told her of the free library that was in
the town near his sister's home, where he could sit all day and read to
his heart's content.

Father Murphy (he had spent three whole days in New York) had made her
see the great buildings that were like granite giants towering over and
walling in the pigmy humanity that beat against their sides like the
rise and fall of the tide; he told her of the rush and roar of the
streets and of the trains that tore over one's head.

And he told her of the loveliness that was there in picture and music.
Moira, listening, quivering with the longing to be fine and to do fine
things, could always see it all just as though magic hands swept aside
those miles of ocean dividing that land of marvel from her Ireland.

That was why it was so simple to let her dream-mind climb up and away
westward. Her eyes, staring into the paling blue, saw beautiful things
and her thoughts revelled in delicious fancies.

That slender, gold crowned bit of a cloud--_that_ was Destiny circling
her globe, weaving, and moulding, and shaping; Moira O'Donnell's own
humble thread was on her loom! And Destiny's face was turned westward.
Moira saw shining towers and thronged streets and fields greener than
her own. Far-off music sounded in her ears as though the world off there
just sang with gladness. And it was waiting for her--her. She saw
herself moving forward to it all with quick step and head high, going to
a beautiful goal. Sometimes that goal was a palace-place, encircled by
brilliant flowers, sometimes a farm like Father Murphy's sister's and a
husband who worked with marvelous contrivances, sometimes a free library
with all the books one could want, sometimes a dim, vaulted space
through which echoed exquisite music--

She so loved that make-believe Moira, moving forward toward glowing
things, that she cried aloud: "That's me! _Me!_" And of course her voice
broke the spell--the dream vanished; there was nothing left but the
fleecy cloud, the meadow lark's song, close by.

There was just time enough before her grandmother needed her, to run
down to Father Murphy's. She knew at this hour she would find him by his
wide doorstep. Fleetly, her bare feet scarcely touching the soft earth,
she covered the distance to his house. She ran up behind him and slipped
her fingers over his half-closed eyes.

He knew the familiar touch of the girl's hands. He patted them with his
own and moved aside on his bench that she might sit down with him.

"Father," she said, very low, her eyes shining. "It's my dream again."

The old priest did not chide her for idling, as her grandmother would
have done. The old priest dreamed, too.

"Tell me," she went on. "Can one go to school over there as long as one
likes? Is it too grown-up I am to learn more things from books?"

The old Father told her one could never be too old to learn from books.
He loved her craving for knowledge. Had he not taught her himself, since
she was twelve? He looked at her proudly.

"Father!" She whispered now, and the rose flush deepened in her face.
"It's Danny Lynch that comes every evening to see me."

Now Father Murphy turned squarely and regarded her with startled eyes.
This slip of a girl was the most precious colleen in his flock.

"And, Father, it's of America _he_ talks all the time!"

The old priest shivered as though from a chill. Sensing his feeling,
Moira caught his hand quickly and held it in a close grip.

"But if I go away it's not forgetting you I'll be! Oh, who in all this
world has been a better friend to Moira O'Donnell? Who has taught Moira
but you?"

"Child--"

"Sure it's grown-up I am! See!" She sprang to her feet and stood slimly
erect. "See?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes. And your old priest had not noticed. Moira--" he
caught her arm, leaned forward and peered into her face as though to
see through it into her soul. "Moira, girl, is it courage I have taught
ye? And honor? And faith?"

Her heart was singing now over the secret she had shared with him. Who
would not have courage and faith when one was so happy? With a lift of
her shoulders, a tilt of her head, she shrugged away his seriousness.

"If you could only see me, Father, as I am in my dream. Oh, it's
beautiful I am! And smart! And rich!"

"Not money," broke in the priest with a ring of contempt.

"Sure, no, not money! But fine things. Oh, Father," she clasped her
hands childishly. "It's fine things I want. The very finest in the
world! And I want my Danny to want them, too."

"Fine things," he repeated slowly. "And will ye know the fine things
from the dross, child? That wealth is more times what ye give, aye, than
what ye get? It's rich ye are of your fine things if the heart of you is
unselfish--"

"What talk, you, Father; it's like the croaking frogs in the Widow
Finnegan's pond you are! But, sh-h-h, I will tell you what I saw, as
real as real, as I lay dreaming--Destiny herself, as fine as you please,
sailing to the new world, a-spinning on her loom. She had Moira
O'Donnell's poor thread and who knows, Father Murphy, but maybe this
minute it's a-spinning it with a thread of gold she is!" The girl's
eyes danced. "Ah, 'tis nonsense I talk, for it's a dream it was, but my
poor heart's so light it hurts--here."

The old man laid a trembling hand upon her head. Under his touch it
bowed with quick reverence but not before she had seen a mistiness in
the kindly eyes.

"It's God's blessing I ask for ye--and yes, may your dream come true--"

"Your blessing for Danny, too," whispered Moira.

"For the both of ye!"

"Sure it's a crossing Granny'll be a-giving me and no blessing," laughed
the girl. It was her own word for Granny's sharp tongue. "I'd best be
off, Father dear."

"Wait." The old man disappeared through his door. Presently he came out
carrying a small box. From this he took a crumpled package. Unwrapping
the tissue folds he revealed, in the cup of his hand, a string of green
beads.

"Oh! Oh! How beautiful!" cried the girl. "Are they for me?" with the
youthful certainty that all lovely things were her due.

"Yes. To remember my blessing." He regarded them fondly, lifted them
that she might see their beauty against the sun's glow. "'Twas in a
little shop in London I found the pretty things."

Moira knew how much he must love them as a keepsake--that visit to
London was only next in his heart to the trip to America. She caught his
hands, beads, tissue wrappings and all.

"Oh, it's precious they are! And you too!"

The Father fastened them over the girl's shabby dress. "They are only
beads," he admonished. "But it's of this day they'll remind you."

He watched Moira as she ran off down the lane. He noted the quick, sure
tread of her feet, the challenging poise of her head. "Colleen--" he
whispered with a smile. "Little colleen." He turned to his door and his
lips, even though they still twisted in a smile, moved as though in
prayer.

"And may God keep pure the dream in the heart of ye!"




CHAPTER I

THE ORPHAN DOLL


November--and a chill wind scurrying, snapping, biting, driving before
it fantastic scraps of paper, crackly leaves, a hail of fine cinders. An
early twilight, gray like a mist, enveloped the city in gloom. Through
it lights gleamed bravely from the grimy windows rising higher and
higher to the low-hanging clouds, each thin shaft beckoning and telling
of shelter and a warmth that was home.

High over the heads of the hurrying humanity in a street of tenements
Moira Lynch lighted her lamp and set it close to the bare window. With
her it was a ceremony. She sang as she performed the little act. Without
were the shadows of the approaching night--gloom, storm, disaster,
perhaps even the evil fairies; her lamp would scatter them all with its
glow, just as her song drove the worries from her heart.

Her lamp lighted, she paused for a moment, her head forward, listening.
Then at the sound of a light step she sprang to the door and threw it
open. A wee slip of a girl, almost one with the shadows of the dingy
hallway, ran into her arms.

"And it's so late you are, dearie! And so dark it's grown--and cold.
Your poor little hands are blue. Why, what have you here, hidin' under
your shawl? Beryl Lynch! Dear love us--a doll!" With a laugh that was
like a tinkling of low pitched bells the little mother drew the treasure
from its hiding place. But as her eyes swept the silken splendor of the
raiment her merriment changed to wonder and then to fear.

"You didn't--you didn't--oh, Beryl Lynch, you--"

"Steal it? No. Give me it. I--found it."

But the terror still darkened the mother's eyes.

"And where did you find it?"

"On the bench. She left it. She forgot it. Ain't it mine now?"
pleadingly. "I waited, honest, but she didn't come back."

Mrs. Lynch was examining the small wonder with timid fingers, lifting
fold after fold of shining satin and dainty muslin.

"Who was she?" she asked.

"A kid." Little Beryl kindled to the interest of her story. Had not
something very thrilling happened in her simple life--a life the
greatest interest of which was to carry to the store each day the small
bundle of crocheted lace which her mother made. "She was a swell kid.
She played in the park, waitin' for a big man."

"Did she talk to you?" breathlessly.

Beryl avoided this question. The beautiful little girl had _not_ spoken
to her, though she had hung by very close, inviting an approach with
hungry eyes.

"She was just a little kid," loftily. Then, "Ain't the doll mine?"

Mrs. Lynch patted down the outermost garment. "Yes, it's yours it is,
darlin'. At least--" she hesitated over a fleeting sense of justice,
"maybe the little stranger will be a-coming back for her doll. It's a
fair bit of dolly and it's lonesome and weeping the little mother may be
this very minute--"

Beryl reached out eager arms.

"It's an orphan doll. I'll love it _hard_. Give me it. Oh," with a
breath that was like a whistle. "_Ain't_ she lovely? Mom, is she _too_
lovely for us?"

The timid question brought a quick change in the mother's face, a
kindling of a fire within the mother breast. She straightened her
slender body.

"And if there's anything too good for my girlie I'd like to see it!
Isn't this the land where all men are equal and my girl and boy shall
have a school as good as the best and grow up to be maybe the President
himself?" She repeated the words softly as though they made a creed,
learned carefully and with supreme faith. Why had she come, indeed, to
this crowded, noisy city from her fair home meadows if not for this
promise it held out to her?

"And isn't your brother the head of his class?" she finished
triumphantly. "And it's smarter than ever you'll be yourself with your
little books. Oh, childy!" She caught the little girl, doll and all,
into an impulsive embrace.

From it Beryl wriggled to a practical curiosity as to supper. She
sniffed. Her mother nodded.

"Stew! And with _dumplin's_--" She made it sound like fairy food. "Ready
to the beating when your father comes."

"Where's Dale? And Pop?"

"It's Dale's night at the store. And Pop'll be comin' along any minute.
I've set the lamp for him."

"I'm hungry," Beryl complained. She sat down cross-legged on the
spotless scrap of carpeting and proceeded with infinite tenderness to
disrobe the doll.

"Do you think she will like it here?" she asked suddenly, looking about
the humble room which for the Lynch's, served as parlor, dining-room and
kitchen. Now its bareness lay wrapped in a kindly shadow through which
glinted diamond sparks from much-scrubbed tin. "It's _nice_--" Beryl
meditated. She loved this hour, she loved the singing tea-kettle and the
smell of strong soap and her mother's face in the lamplight, with all
the loud noises of the street hushed, and the ugliness outside hidden by
the closed door, against the paintless boards of which had been nailed a
flaming poster inviting the nation's youth to join the Navy.

"But maybe this home'll be--too different," she finished.

The mother's eyes grew moist with a quick tenderness. Her Beryl, with
this wonder of a dolly in her arms! Her mind flashed over the last
Christmas and the one before that when Beryl had asked Santa Claus for a
"real doll" and had cried on Christmas morning because the cheap little
bit of dolldom which the mother had bought out of her meagre savings
would not open or shut its eyes. And now--the impudent heart of the
blessed child worrying that the home wasn't good enough for the likes of
the doll!

"It's a good home for her where it's loving you are to her. It's the
heart and not the gold that counts. And who knows--maybe it's a bit of
luck the dolly'll be a-bringing."

As though a word of familiar portent had been uttered Beryl lifted a
face upon which was reflected the glow of the little mother's. Babe as
she was, she knew something of the mother's faith in the fickle god of
chance, a faith that helped the little woman over the rough places, that
never failed to brighten her deepest gloom. Did she not staunchly
believe that someday by a turn of good fortune she and her Danny would
know the America and the good things of which they had dreamed, sitting
in the gloaming of their Ireland, their lover's hands close clasped? But
for that hope why would they have left their dear hillsides with the
homely life and the kindly neighbors and good Father Murphy who had
taught her from his own dog-eared books because she was eager and quick
to learn? Through the fourteen years since they had come to America
those girl-and-boy dreams had gone sadly astray, but the little wife
still clung to the faith that they'd have the good things sometime, her
Danny would get a better job and if he didn't there was young Dale,
always at the head of his class in school and even the baby Beryl, as
quick as anything to pick out words from her little books.

"A good luck dolly!" Beryl held the doll close. Her eyes grew round and
excited. "Then I can ride all day on a 'bus and go to the Zoo, can't I?
And can I have a new coat with fur? And go to Coney? And shoot the
shoots? And can Dale ride a horse? And can Dale and me go across the
river where it's like--that?" nodding to the poster.

Mrs. Lynch rocked furiously in her joy at Beryl's anticipations. The
floor creaked and the kettle sang louder than before.

"That you can. And it'll be a fine strong, brave girl you'll be, going
to school and learning more than even poor old Father Murphy knew, God
love him. And by and by--"

But a heavy toiling of steps up the stairs checked her words. That slow
tread was not her big Danny nor the young Dale! At a knock she flew to
the door.

"Oh, and if it isn't Mister Torrence." She caught the old man who stood
on the threshold and laughingly pulled him into the room. "It was afraid
I was that it was bad news! Danny Lynch isn't home yet but you shall
stay and eat dumplin's with us--the best outside of our Ireland--"

[Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL HAD _NOT_ SPOKEN TO HER]

"No! No!" protested the old man, regretfully. "My old woman's waitin'!
_Bad_ news! It's _good_ news I bring. Dan's had a raise. He's foreman of
the gang now. And I stepped 'round to tell ye the good news and that
Dan'll be a-workin' tonight with an extry shift and'll not be comin'
home to dinner, worse luck for him!" sniffing appreciatively at the
pleasant odor from the stove.

"A raise? My Dan a foreman?" Moira Lynch caught her hands together.
"It's the good luck! And it's deservin' of it he is for no man on the
docks works harder than my big Dan." Her eyes shone like two stars.

"Well, ye'll want to be a-eatin' the dumplin's so I'll go along.
Good-night, Mrs. Lynch."

"God love you, Mister Torrence," whispered Moira, too overcome to manage
her voice.

Closing the door behind her unexpected visitor she turned and caught the
wondering Beryl into her arms.

"And I was a-thinking it would never come! It's ashamed I should be to
have doubted. My big Dan!"

"Is it the dolly that's brought us the good-luck, Mom?" interrupted
Beryl, round-eyed.

"A foreman!" cried the mother in the very tone she would have used if
she had said "a king." She-danced about until the floor creaked
threateningly. "Our good fortune is coming, my precious. And it's fine
and beautiful my girl shall be with a dress as good as the next one.
Wait! Wait!" She flew into the tiny bedroom, returning in a moment with
a small box in her hands. From it she lifted a string of round green
beads and held them laughingly before Beryl's staring eyes.

"My beads! You shall wear them this night. It's the good old Father's
blessing." She clasped them about Beryl's neck, fingering them tenderly.

"Pretty beads. Pretty beads," cried the little girl.

Suddenly quieted by a rush of memories Mrs. Lynch sat down and took
Beryl upon her lap. "Beryl darlin', was the likes of that other little
girl--the one who forgot the dolly--fine and beautiful?"

"Oh, yes!" The child's voice carried a note of wonder.

"And you shall be fine and beautiful, too, Moira Lynch's own girl, just
as I used to dream for my own self, the selfish likes o' me. You shall
go to school and learn from good books. Didn't the old Father tell me of
the fine schools he had seen when he visited his sister in America? And
anybody can go--anybody!"

Little Beryl felt that it was a solemn moment. She lifted serious eyes.
"I promise," she drawled, with a gravity out of all proportion to her
six years, "I promise to go to school and learn lots like Dale and be
fine and boo'ful so's my 'dopted dolly will like me as well as--that
other kid. I've gotta be good 'nough for her. So there."

The child could not comprehend the obstacles which might threaten such a
standard; she stared bravely into the unblinking eyes of the doll who
smiled back her graven smile.

Then: "I'm hungry," she declared, suddenly deciding that dumplings were
more important than anything else. "And can my Dolly sit in Pop's seat?"

"That she can," cried the mother, going to her "mixin'." "And what a gay
supper it will be--with the new dolly and the pretty beads and the
dumplin's. Oh, Himself a foreman!"




CHAPTER II

A PRINCE


Promptly at nine o'clock, young Dale Lynch turned the key in the door of
"Tony Sebastino, Groceries" and started, whistling, homeward. Three
times a week, from the close of school until nine o'clock, he worked in
the store, snatching a dinner of bananas, or bread and cheese, between
customers. Because "Mom" had whispered that there were to be "dumplin's"
this night and that she would keep some warm for him, and because the
wind whipped chillingly through his thin clothing, he broke into a run.

His homeward way led him past a bit of open triangle which in the
neighborhood was dignified by the name of park, a dreary place now,
dirty straw stacked about the fountain, dry leaves and papers cluttering
the brown earth and whipping against the iron palings of the fence.
Dale, still whistling, turned its corner and ran, full-tilt, upon a bit
of humanity clinging, like the paper and leaves, to the fence.

"Giminy Gee!" Dale jumped back in alarm. Then: "Did I scare you, kid?
Oh, say, what's the matter?" For the face that turned to his was red and
swollen with weeping. "Y'lost?" This was Dale's natural conclusion, for
the hour was late, and the child a very small one.

"I lost--my Cynthia."

"Your--_what_?"

"My--my Cynthia. She's my b-bestest doll. I forgot her." The voice
trailed off in a wail.

Dale, touched by her woe, looked about him. Certainly no Cynthia was
visible. By rapid questioning on his part he drew from her the story of
her desertion. She had played a nice game of running 'round and 'round
and counting the "things," waiting for Mr. Tony; Cynthia did not like to
run because it shook her eyes, so she had put her down on the edge of
the straw where the wind would not blow on her. And then Mr. Tony had
come and had told her to "hustle along" and she "had runned away and
for-g-got Cynthia!"

"Well, I guess she's somebody else's Cynthia now, kid. Things don't stay
long in the parks 'round here."

Dale seemed so very old and very wise that the tiny girl listened to his
verdict with blanching face. He knew, of course.

"Where d'you live?" demanded Dale. "Why, you're just a baby! Anybody
with you?"

The child pointed rather uncertainly to one of the intersecting streets.

"I come that way," she said, then, even while saying it, began to wonder
if that were the way she had come. The streets all looked so much
alike. She had run along the curb, so as to be as far away as possible
from the dark alley ways and the doors. And it had been a long way.

Her lip quivered though she would not cry. After Cynthia's fate, just to
be lost herself did not matter.

"Well, don't you know where you live? What's the street? I'll take you
home."

"22 Patchin Place," lisped the child.

Dale hesitated a moment to make sure of his bearings. "Well, then, come
along. I know where that is. And you forget 'bout your Cynthia. You've
got another doll, haven't you? If you haven't, you just ask Santa Claus
for one. Why, say, kiddo, what's this? You lame?" For the little girl
skipped jerkily at his side.

"That's just the way I'm made," the child answered, quite indifferent to
the shocked note in the boy's voice. "I can walk and run, but I go
crooked."

"What's your name?"

"Robin Forsyth." She made it sound like "Wobbin Force."

"Oh, Wobbin Force. Funny name, isn't it? And what's your Ma and Pa going
to say to you for running off?"

Putting a small hand trustingly into the boy's big one, the child
skipped along at his side. "Oh, nothing," she answered, lost in an
admiring contemplation of her rescuer. "What's they, anyway?"

"A Ma? Don't you know what your mother is?"

Little Robin met his astonishment with a ripple of laughter. "Oh a
_mother_! I had a lovely, lovely mother once but she's gone away--to
Heaven. And is a Pa a Jimmie?"

"A--what?" Dale had never met such a strange child.

"'Cause Jimmie's my Parent. I call him Parent sometimes and sometimes I
call him Jimmie."

If his companion had not been so very small Dale might have suspected an
attempt at "kidding." He glanced sidewise and suspiciously at her but
all he saw was a cherub face framed in a tilted sky-blue tam-o'shanter
and straggling ends of flaming red hair.

"Jimmie won't scold me. _He'd_ want me to try to find Cynthia." Robin
smothered a sigh. "He wasn't home anyway."

"D'you live all alone? You and your Jimmie?"

"Oh, yes, only Aunt Milly's downstairs and Grandpa Jones is 'cross the
hall, so I'm never 'fraid. They're not my really truly aunt's and
grandfather's--I just call them that. And Jimmie leaves the light
burning anyway. What's your name? And are you very old? Are you a man
like Jimmie?"

Dale, warming under the adoration he saw on the small face, felt very
big and very manly. He returned the little squeeze that tugged on his
hand.

"Oh, I'm a big fellow," he answered.

"You look awful nice," the little girl pursued. "Just like one of my
make-believe Princes. I wish you lived with Jimmie and me. I wouldn't
mind Cynthia then."

"But the Princes never lived with the little girls in the stories, you
know," argued Dale, finding it a very pleasant and unusual sensation to
act the role of a Prince even to a very small girl. "You have to find
me, you see."

Miss Robin jumped with joy. "Oh, goody, goody! I'll always make b'lieve
you are a Prince and I'll find you and you must find me, too. You will,
won't you?"

"You just bet I will," promised Dale, easily. "Here's your street." He
stopped to study the house numbers. Suddenly a door flew open wide and a
bareheaded man plunged into the street, almost tumbling upon them.

"Robin! Good gracious! I thought you were--stolen--lost--"

Robin, very calm, clasped him about his knee.

"I _was_ lost, Jimmie. But this very big boy brought me home. He's a
Prince--I mean he's my make-believe Prince."

"But, Robin--" The man turned from the child to Dale.

"I found her way down by Sheridan Square. She was hunting for her doll
she'd left there."

"While I was walking with Mr. Tony this afternoon I played in the park
and I forgot Cynthia."

"Good Heavens--and you went way off there all by yourself to find the
thing?"

In her pride of Dale, Robin overlooked the slur on Cynthia.

"I went alone," she repeated, "but I came home with my Prince."

Gradually Robin's father was recovering from his shock. The muscles of
his face relaxed; he ran his fingers through his thick hair, red like
the child's, with a gesture of throwing off some horrible nightmare. To
Dale he looked very boyish--with a little of Robin's own cherubic
expression.

"Well, say, you gave me a fright, child. And you must promise not to do
it again. Why, I can't ever leave you alone unless you do."

He turned to Dale, who stood, lingering, loath to leave the little Robin
under the doubtful protection her Jimmie offered. "I'm no end grateful
to you, my boy. If there's anything I can do for you--" He slipped one
hand mechanically into his pocket.

"_I_ don't want anything." Dale spoke curtly and stepped back. "It
wasn't any bother; it's a nice night to walk."

With a child's quick intuition Robin realized that her gallant Prince
was about to slip out of her sight. Her Jimmie had pulled his hand from
his pocket and was extending it to the boy. He was not even inviting him
to come in and smoke like he always invited Mr. Tony and Gerald and all
the others. But of course Princes wouldn't smoke, anyway.

She waited until her father had finished his thanks, then, stepping up
to Dale, she reached out two small arms and by holding on to Dale's,
drew herself up almost to the boy's chin. Upon it she pressed a shy,
warm kiss.

"Good-bye, Prince. You will hunt for me, won't you? Promise! Cross your
heart!"

Dale, flaming red, confused, promised that he would, then wheeled and
stalked off down the street. After he had rounded the corner he lifted
his arm and wiped his chin with the sleeve of his coat. Then he stuck
his hands deep in his pockets and whistled loudly. But after a moment,
at a recollection of sky-blue eyes underneath a sky-blue tam-o'shanter,
he chuckled softly. "A Prince! Gee, some Prince!" But his head
instinctively went higher at the honor thrust upon him.

When he returned from the store, Dale usually found his mother sitting
by the lamp crocheting. But tonight everything was different; scarcely
had he stopped at their landing before the little mother, quite
transformed, rushed to greet him and tell him the wonderful bit of good
fortune.

Before it his own adventure was forgotten.

"And it's only a beginning it is--it's the superintendent he'll be in no
time at all, at all," finished Mrs. Lynch.

"And we can move? And I can join the Boy Scouts? And go to camp next
summer? And have a pair of roller skates?"

Mrs. Lynch nodded her head to each question. Behind each note of her
voice rippled a laugh. "Yes, yes, yes. Sure, it's a wonderful night this
is."

"Where's Pop now?"

"Working with the extra shift," the wife answered, proudly.

"Any dumplings?" eagerly.

"And I was forgetting! Bless the heart of you, of course I saved the
biggest. 'Twas like a party tonight for I dressed your sister in the
beads. It's worn out she is, God love her, with the excitement and
trying to keep her wee eyes open 'til her Pop come home. Hushee or
you'll waken the lamb now."

Dale was deep in thought choosing the words with which he would tell the
good news to the "fellows" on the morrow, his mother was busying herself
with the "biggest" dumpling, when a peremptory knock came at the door.
With a quick cry Mrs. Lynch dropped her spoon--why should anything
intrude upon their joy this night?

A man stood on the threshold presenting a curious figure for he wore a
heavy coat over a white duck suit. Where had she seen such a suit
before? With a catch at her heart she remembered--at the hospital, that
time Dale had been run over. "Oh!" she cried. "My Dan!"

"Mrs. Lynch?" The hospital attendant spoke quickly as one would who had
a disagreeable task and must dispose of it without any delay. "Your
husband's had an accident--he's alive, but--you'd better come."

Mrs. Lynch stood very still in the centre of the room--her hand
clutching her throat as though to stifle the scream that tore it.

"My Dan--hurt!" She trembled but stood very straight. "Quick, Dale, we
must go to him. My Dan. No, no, you stay with Beryl. Oh, _hurry_!" she
implored the interne, rushing bareheaded past him down the stairway.
"_Hurry._"

For a few moments Dale stared at the half-open door. In his thirteen
years he had experienced the pinch of poverty, even hunger, the pain of
injury, but never this overwhelming fear of something, he did not know
what. Pop, his big, strong Pop--hurt! Pop, who could swing him even now,
that he measured five feet three himself, to his shoulder! Oh, no, no,
it could not be true! Someone had made a mistake. Someone had cruelly
frightened his mother. Hadn't their luck just come? Hadn't Pop been made
a boss?

"Mom-ma!" came Beryl's voice, sleepily, from the other room. "Mom-ma,
what's they?" Glad of anything to do Dale rushed to quiet his little
sister. He bade her, brokenly, to "never mind and go to sleep," and he
pulled the old blanket up tight to her chin, his eyes so blinded with
tears that he did not see the waxen head pillowed close to Beryl's.

Then he sat in his mother's chair and dropped his head upon the table
and waited, his hands clenched at his side.

"I _won't_ cry! I _won't_ be a baby! Mom'll maybe need me. I'm big now!"
he muttered, finding a little comfort in the sound of his own voice.

       *       *       *       *       *

Poor Robin's Prince; alas, he felt very young and helpless before the
trouble which he faced.

Big Dan Lynch, he who had been the fairest and sturdiest of the county
of Moira's girlhood, would never work again--as superintendent or even
foreman; the rest of his days must be spent in the wheeled chair sent up
by the sympathetic Miss Lewis of the Neighborhood Settlement House. It
was fixed with a contrivance so that he could move it about the small
room.

Little Beryl started school which made up for a great deal that had
suddenly been taken from her life, for mother never sat by the lamp,
now, or crocheted. She worked at the Settlement House all day and all
evening busied herself with her home tasks.

The "lucky dolly" Beryl hid away in paper wrappings. Somehow, young as
she was, she knew her mother could not bear the sight of it.

And Dale worked every day at Tony's, going to night school on the
evenings when he had used to go to the store. A tightening about the
lips, an older seriousness in the lad's eyes alone told what it had cost
him to give up his ambition to graduate with his class, perhaps at its
head.

Little Robin with the sky-blue eyes was quite forgotten!




CHAPTER III

THE HOUSE OF FORSYTH


It was a time-honored custom at Gray Manor that Harkness should serve
tea at half-past four in the Chinese room.

On this day--another November day, ten years after the events of the
last chapter--Harkness slipped through the heavy curtains with his tray
and interrupted Madame Forsyth, mistress of Gray Manor, in deep confab
with her legal advisor, Cornelius Allendyce.

Mr. Allendyce was just saying, crisply, "Will your mind not rest easier
for knowing that the Forsyth fortune will go to a Forsyth?" when
Harkness rattled the cups.

Then, strangest of all things, Madame ordered him sharply away with his
tray.

Such a thing had never happened before in Harkness' experience and he
had been at Gray Manor for fifty-five years. He grumbled complainingly
to Mrs. Budge, the housekeeper, and to Florrie, Madame's own maid, who
was having a sip of tea with Mrs. Budge in the cosy warmth of the
kitchen.

Florrie asserted that she could tell them a story or two of Madame's
whims and cranks--only it would not become her, inasmuch as Madame was
old and a woman to be pitied. "Poor thing, with this curse on the
house, who wouldn't have jumps and fidgets? I don't see I'm sure how any
of us stand it." But Florrie spoke with a hint of satisfaction--as
though proud to serve where there was a "curse." Harkness and Mrs.
Budge, who had lived at Gray Manor when things were happier, sighed.

"It's an heir they be talking about now," Harkness admitted.

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Budge and Florrie in one breath.

Up in the Chinese room Madame Forsyth was saying; "Do you think any
child of that--branch of the family--could take the place of--"

"Oh, dear Madame," interrupted the lawyer. "I am not suggesting such a
thing! I know how impossible that would be. But on my own responsibility
I have made investigations and I have ascertained that your husband's
nephew has the one child. The nephew's an artist of sorts and doubtless
has his ups and downs--most artists do. Now I suggest--"

"That I take this--child--"

Mr. Allendyce tactfully ignored the scorn in her voice. "Exactly," he
purred. "Exactly. Gordon is the child's name. A very nice name, I am
sure."

"The child of an obscure artist--"

"Ah, but, Madame, blood is blood. A Forsyth--"

"P'ff!" Madame made a sound like rock hitting rock. Indeed, as she sat
there, her narrow eyes gleaming from her immobile face, her thin lips
tightly compressed, she looked much more like rock than flesh-and-blood.

Her explosion had the effect of exasperating the little lawyer out of
his habitual attitude of conciliation.

"Madame, I can do no more than advise you in this matter. I have traced
down this child as a possible heir to the Forsyth fortune. However, you
have it in your power to will otherwise. But let me say this--not as a
lawyer but as your friend. You are growing old. Will you not find,
perhaps, more happiness in your old age, if you bring a little youth
into this melancholy old house--"

"I must ask you to withhold your kind wishes until some other time,"
interrupted Madame, dryly. "I am at present seeking your advice as a
lawyer. I have not been regardless of the fact that the House of Forsyth
must have an heir; I have been thinking of it for a long time--in fact,
that is all there is left for me to do. And, though it is exceedingly
distasteful to me, I see the justice in seeking out one of--that family.
But, it must be done in my way. My mind is quite made up to that. You
say there is a--child. I wish you to communicate with this child's
father--this relative of my husband, and inform him that I will make
this child my heir provided he can be brought to Gray Manor at once. He
will live for one year here under your guardianship. I will send for
Percival Tubbs who, you may remember, tutored my grandson. Doubtless he
is old-fogyish but from his long association with our family he knows
the Forsyth traditions and what the head of the House of Forsyth should
be. He will know whether this boy can be trained to measure up to it.
If, after a year, he does not, he must go back--to his father. I will be
fair, of course, as far as money goes. If he does--" She stopped
suddenly, her stony demeanor broken. The thin lips quivered at the
thought of that sunny south room in the great house where had been left
untouched the toys, the books, the games, the precious trophies, the
guns and racquets, golf sticks and gloves which marked each development
of her beloved grandson.

"A very fair plan," murmured the lawyer.

"You have not heard all," went on Madame Forsyth in such a strange voice
that Cornelius Allendyce looked up at her in astonishment. "I am going
away."

"You! Where?" exclaimed the man. He could not quite believe his ears.

"That I do not care to divulge." She enjoyed his amazement. "I am
yielding to a restlessness which in a younger woman you would
understand, but which in me you would no doubt term--crazy. I am going
to run away--to some new place, where, for awhile, no one will know
whether I am the rich Madame Christopher Forsyth or the poor Mrs. John
Smith. Oh, I shall be quite safe; at my bank they will be able to find
me if anything happens. Norris has had entire charge of the mills for a
long time. And Budge and Harkness can take care of things here."

"Madame," the lawyer was moved out of his customary reserve, "are you
not possibly running away from what may bring you happiness--and
comfort?"

For the space of a moment the real heart of the woman shone in her eyes.

"I _am_ running away. I might learn to love this boy and he might not be
what the head of the house of Forsyth _should_ be and I would have to
send him back. And my heart has been torn enough. It is tired. I have a
whim to find new places--new things--to rest--and forget all this."

There was an interval of silence. Then Mr. Allendyce, lifting his eyes
from the patent-leather tips of his shoes, said quietly:

"I will carry out your commands to the best of my ability."

There followed, then, a great deal of discussion over details. And,
while carefully jotting figures and memoranda in a neat, morocco bound
note-book, the little man of law felt as though he were writing the
opening chapters of some fairy-tale.

Yet there was little of the fairy-tale in the old, empty house, a
melancholy house in spite of its wealth of treasure, brought from every
country on the globe. And there was nothing of romance in the Forsyth
family which had come over to Connecticut from England in the early days
of its settlement and had left to all the Forsyths to come, not only the
beginnings of the Forsyth factory where thread was made by the millions
of spools, and the Forsyth fortune, amassed by those same spools, but
also a deal of that courage which had helped those pioneers endure the
hardships and meet the obstacles of the early days.

Her business at an end, Madame expressed embarrassment at her
inhospitality in denying Mr. Allendyce his cup of tea. Would he not stay
and dine with her? Mr. Allendyce did not in the least desire to dine
alone with his client but the Wassumsic Inn was an uninviting place and
New York was a three hours' ride away. So he accepted with a polite show
of pleasure and assured Madame that he could amuse himself in the
library while she dressed for dinner.

Left to himself, the lawyer fell to pacing the velvety length of the
library floor. This led him to one of the long windows. He stopped and
looked out through it across the sloping lawns which surrounded the
house. A low ribbon of glow hung over the edge of the hills which lay to
the west of the town. Silhouetted against it was the ragged line of
roofs and stacks which were the Forsyth Mills. Familiar with them
through years of business association, the little man of law visualized
them now as clearly as though they did not lay wrapped in evening
shadow; he saw the ugly, age-old walls, the glaring brick of the new
additions, the dingy yards, the silver thread of the river and across
that the rows upon rows of tiny houses piled against one another, each
like its neighbor even to the broken pickets surrounding squares of
cinder ground. He knew, although his eyes could not see, that these
yards even now were hung with the lines of everlasting washing, that men
lounged on those back doorsteps and smoked and talked while women worked
within preparing the evening meals. These human beings were machines in
the gigantic industry upon which the House of Forsyth was founded. Did
Madame ever think of them as flesh and blood mortals--like herself?
Cornelius Allendyce smiled at the question; oh, no, the Forsyth
tradition, of which Madame talked, built an impenetrable wall between
her and those toilers.

Staring at the gray hard line of shadow that was the tallest of the
chimneys the man thought how like it was to Madame and old Christopher
Forsyth. His long connection with the family and the family interests
gave the lawyer an intimate understanding of them and all that had
happened to them. And it had been much. Mr. Allendyce himself often
spoke of the "curse" of Gray Manor. Christopher Forsyth and Madame had
had one son, Christopher Junior. Allendyce could recall the elaborate
festivities that had marked the boy's coming of age, the almost royal
pomp of his wedding. Three years after that wedding the young man and
his wife had been drowned while cruising with friends off the coast of
Southern California.

This terrible blow might have crushed old Christopher but for the
toddling youngster who was Christopher the Third. The grandfather and
grandmother shut themselves away in Gray Manor with the one purpose in
life--to bring up Christopher the Third to take his place at the head of
the House of Forsyth.

At this point in his reflections Mr. Allendyce's heart gave a quick
throb of pity--he knew what that handsome lad had been to the old
couple. He thought now how merciful it had been that old Christopher had
died before that cruel accident on the football field in which the lad
had been fatally injured. The brunt of the blow had fallen upon Madame.
And after the boy's death, a gloom had settled over her and the old
house which nothing had seemed able to dispel. As a last desperate
resort the lawyer had suggested, with a courage that cost considerable
effort, the finding of this other heir.

Mr. Allendyce had known very little of that "other branch" of the
family. Old Christopher had had a younger half-brother, Charles, who, at
the time Christopher took over the responsibilities of the head of the
family, went off to South America where he married a young Spanish girl.
And from the moment of that "low" marriage, as old Christopher had
called it, to the investigation by Mr. Allendyce's agents, nothing had
been heard at Gray Manor of this Charles Forsyth.

It had cost considerable money to trace him down but, accomplished, Mr.
Allendyce had with satisfaction tabulated the results in his neat little
note-book. Charles had died leaving one son, James. James had one child,
Gordon. They lived at 22 Patchin Place, New York City.

The thought of the fairy story flashed back into the lawyer's mind. He
knew his New York and he knew Patchin Place, where poverty and ambition
elbowed one another, and squalor stabbed at the heart of beauty. This
Gordon Forsyth had his childhood amid this, lived on the rise and fall
of an artist's day-by-day fortune. Now he would be taken from all that,
brought to Gray Manor, put under special tutorage, so that, some day he
could step into that other lad's place. If that didn't equal an Arabian
Night's tale!

"I'll go down to Patchin Place myself. I'd like to see their faces when
I tell them!" he declared aloud, with a tingle within his heart that was
a thrill although the little man did not know it.

Harkness coughed behind him. He turned quickly. Harkness bowed stiffly.
"Madame awaits you in the drawing-room."

The little man-of-the-law's chin went out. "Madame awaits--" Poor old
Madame; she would not have known how to come in and say "Let us go out
to dinner." There had to be all the ceremony and fuss--or it would not
have been Gray Manor and Madame Christopher Forsyth.

"All right. I'll find her," Mr. Allendyce growled. Then he was startled
out of his usual composure by catching the suggestion of a twinkle in
the Harkness eye which, of course, should not be in a Forsyth butler's
eye at all.




CHAPTER IV

RED-ROBIN


For twenty-five years Cornelius Allendyce had worn nothing but black
ties. On the morning of his contemplated invasion of Patchin Place in
search of a Forsyth heir he knotted a lavender scarf about his neck and
felt oddly excited. Such a sudden and unexplainable impulse, he thought,
must portend adventure.

With a notion that all artists were "at home" at tea time, Mr. Allendyce
waited until four o'clock before he approached his agreeable task. At
the door of 22 Patchin Place he dismissed his taxicab and stood for a
moment surveying the dilapidated front of the building--with a moment's
mental picture of the magnificent pile that was Gray Manor.

A pretentious though slightly soiled register just inside the doorway,
told him that "James Forsyth" lived on the fifth floor, so the little
man toiled resolutely up the narrow, steep stairway, puffing as he
ascended. It was necessary to count the landings to know, in the dimness
of the hallway, when he reached the fifth floor. He had to pause outside
the door to catch his breath; a moment's nausea seized him at the smell
of stale food and damp walls.

But at his knock the door swung back upon so much sunshine and color
that the little man blinked in amazement. A mite of a girl with a halo
of sun-red hair smiled at him in a very friendly fashion.

"Does Mr. James Forsyth live here?" It seemed almost ridiculous to ask
the question for surely it must be some witch's cranny upon which he had
stumbled.

"Yes. But Jimmie isn't home. Won't you come in?"

Mr. Allendyce stared about the room--a big room, its size enhanced by
the great glass windows and the glass skylight. Everywhere bloomed
flowers in gayly painted boxes and pots and tubs. And after another
blink Mr. Allendyce perceived that there were a few real chairs, very
shabby, and a table covered with a cloth woven in brilliant colors and
some very lovely pictures hanging wherever, because of the windows and
the sloping roof, there was any place to hang them.

The young girl closed the door, whereupon there came a gay chirping from
birds perching, the bewildered lawyer discovered, in various places
around the room quite as though this corner of a tenement was a
woodland.

"Hush, Bo, hush. They're dreadfully noisy. They love company. Won't you
sit down?"

Mr. Allendyce sat gingerly upon the nearest chair. His companion pulled
one up close to him. He perceived with something of a shock that she
limped and at this discovery he looked at her again and drew in a quick
breath.

Why, here was the oddest little thing he had ever seen. He had thought
her a child, yet the wide eyes, set deep and of the blue of midnight,
had a quaint seriousness and understanding; in the corner of her lips
lingered a tender droop oddly at variance with the childish dimple of
the finely moulded chin. Though the girl's red hair--like flame, as the
lawyer had first thought, gave her an alive look, the little form under
the queer straight dress was diminutive to frailty.

"Who are you, my dear?"

"Robin Forsyth. Jimmie calls me Red-Robin because I hop when I walk."

"Is Jimmie your--"

"He's my Parent. Do you know Jimmie?"

"N-no, not--exactly." The little man was wondering how his investigators
had failed to report this young girl.

"Jimmie ought to be here soon. He went out to sell a picture to old Mrs.
Wycke. She wanted it but she wanted it cheap, Jimmie says. But we didn't
have anything to eat today so he took the picture to her and he's going
to bring back some cake and ice cream. We'll have a party. Will you
stay?"

"Good heavens," thought Allendyce, startled at her astonishing
frankness. He reached out and patted the small hand.

"You are very kind. Does your Jimmie sell--many pictures?"

"Not many--I heard him and Mr. Tony talking. Mr. Tony's his best friend.
If it were not for me Jimmie'd go away with Mr. Tony. Mr. Tony writes,
you see, and he wants Jimmie to illustrate for him."

"And where is your brother Gordon?"

Robin stared. "My--brother--Gordon?"

"Yes. Gordon--"

"_I_ am Gordon."

"You!"

"My real name is Gordon but Jimmie doesn't like it. He always said it
was too formal for a little girl. So he calls me Red-Robin and he says
he'll never call me anything else. Why do you look so funny?"

For Mr. Allendyce seemed to have crumpled together and to be quite
speechless.

"Don't _you_ think I'm too, oh, sort of insignificant, to be Gordon? I
like Robin much better."

The lawyer did not hear her. Here was a fine balking of all his and
Madame's plans. The Forsyth heir! That that heir should be a girl had
never entered their calculations. And a little lame girl at that; Mr.
Allendyce suddenly recalled how Madame had worshipped the splendid
manliness of young Christopher the Third.

"Is there anything the matter with you, Mr.--why, you haven't told me
your name!"

With a tremendous effort Cornelius Allendyce pulled himself together. He
flushed under the wondering wide-eyed scrutiny of his companion, who
reached out and laid a small, warm hand upon his.

"You're not ill, are you?" with solicitude.

"No--no, my dear. No, I am not ill. But I am upset. You see--I came
here--well, I call it--a most interesting story. Up in Connecticut
there's a small town and a very big mill which has been there for ever
so long, heaping up millions of dollars. And there's a very big house
there that looks like a castle because it's built of gray stone and is
up on a hill--it has everything but the moat itself. And an old lady
lives there all alone." The lawyer paused, a little frightened at a wild
thought that was persistently creeping up over his sensibilities. It
must be the lavender tie or the witchery of the flowers and the absurd
chirping birds.


"Oh, that's the old Dragon!" cried Robin, delightedly, with a chuckle as
though she knew all about the old lady and the lonely castle. "That's
what Jimmie calls her--poor old thing. Jimmie says she must be
dreadfully unhappy in that lonely old house after all that's happened
there."

"Do you--do you mean that--you _know_--"

"About those rich Forsyth's? Why, of course. That's Jimmie's pet
story--about his terrible relatives."

"But your father has never--"

"Seen her? Oh, no. Jimmie's very proud, you see. And he thinks one good
picture is worth more than any old fortune or mill or anything. Oh,
Jimmie's wonderful. Why, we wouldn't trade our little home here for two
of her castles! Jimmie couldn't paint if he were rich. He says money
kills genius. Only--" She stopped abruptly, flushing.

"Only what, my dear--"

"I ought not to rattle on like this to you. Jimmie says I
am--sometimes--_too_ friendly. I suppose it's because I don't know many
people. But I wish I just had a _little_ money. You see _I'm_ not a bit
of a genius. I can't paint like Jimmie or sing like my mother did--or do
a single thing."

Now Mr. Allendyce suddenly felt so excited that he wriggled on the
rickety chair until it creaked threateningly.

"If you had money, Miss Gordon--what would you do?"

"Why I'd run away." She answered with startling promptness. "Oh, I don't
mean that I'm not happy here. I love it. And I adore Jimmie. But I'm a
girl and I'm lame, so I'm a--a millstone 'round Jimmie's neck!"

"What in the world--"

"_Promise_ you won't ever tell him what I'm saying. Oh, he'd feel
dreadfully. You see it's just that. He feels sorry 'cause I'm lame and
he won't believe that I don't mind a bit--why, I can run and do
everything--and he won't ever go anywhere without me. And an artist
shouldn't have to be tied down; I heard Mr. Tony say so, once, when
Jimmie was very blue. He didn't know I heard. Now Mr. Tony's going off
for a long cruise in the South Seas on a sailing boat and he wants
Jimmie to go with him. He's going to write stories and he says if Jimmie
sees it all he will make his fortune painting pictures. And he can
illustrate the stories, too. And Jimmie won't go because he won't leave
me. Don't you see what I'd do if I had some money? I'd run away
somewhere and tell Jimmie that he must go with Mr. Tony."

Mr. Allendyce sprang to his feet and paced up and down the room. In all
his life the world had never seemed so full of youth and color and
adventure as it did at that precise moment; his cautious soul fairly
burst with imaginative daring.

"Miss Gordon--that's what I came for. I mean, I came to tell this Gordon
Forsyth that the old lady, Madame Forsyth, wanted him to come to Gray
Manor to live--for a year. He's to be tutored there. And if at the end
of a year he is a--"

"But there isn't any he! Gordon's me."

"I know. I know. But a Forsyth's a Forsyth."

"You mean--_I_ might go to--the castle--"

"Yes, why not? Madame--and I--just took it for granted that you were a
boy, because of your name. But our mistake does not make you any less a
Forsyth or less a possible heir--" The thought was a full-fledged idea
now!

"Who _are_ you?" broke in Robin, excitedly.

"I am Cornelius Allendyce, attorney for the Forsyth family. And I am--if
your father consents--your future guardian."

"Oh, Jimmie'll _never_ consent, never!"

"Why not?" pressed the lawyer. "You say you have no--particular genius
to be killed by--money."

"Would it mean that I'd have to give Jimmie up forever?"

"No, my dear. Indeed no. Madame's plan is that you are to go to Gray
Manor under my guardianship to live for a year. At the end of that time,
if she is satisfied--Why, your father would simply give up any claim--"

"Oh, you don't know Jimmie. He'd never do it, unless--" she paused, her
eyes suddenly wet, "unless--_I_--gave _him_ up. All his life he's made
sacrifices and given up things for me--big chances. So now--couldn't I
run away with you--and then write and tell him?"

The Cornelius Allendyce who had lived up to that moment of crossing the
threshold of this fifth-floor witchery would have scorned such a
suggestion as "ridiculous! ridiculous!" But the Cornelius Allendyce of
the lavender tie saw mad possibilities in such a step. Take the girl to
Gray Manor and settle with Mr. James Forsyth afterwards.

[Illustration: "COULDN'T I RUN AWAY WITH YOU?"]

"Couldn't I?"

"Why--yes, if you think your father would accept the situation--when he
knew."

"Oh, I'd tell him he _had_ to, that he must go away with Mr. Tony. And
he'd go. But, Mr. Allendyce--I couldn't go tonight. I just couldn't let
Jimmie come back with the ice cream and cake and maybe a pumpkin pie
and--not find me here. Our parties are such fun. If you'll come tomorrow
at three o'clock--I'll be ready. But what will the Dragon say when she
sees that I'm a girl?"

Mr. Allendyce suddenly laughed aloud. The whole thing was so very
simple. Madame only waited a telegram from him to set forth upon her
travels. Why let her know that Gordon was a girl until the year had
passed?

"We will not worry about that, my dear. Madame is going away. She will
not be back at Gray Manor for a long time. I will call at
three--tomorrow. I trust you will make your Jimmie understand. You know
this is a very unusual step--there are some who might call it
abduction--"

"Oh, Jimmie wouldn't!" assured Robin. "Not when I tell him why I'm
running away."

Robin had answered him so indifferently that Cornelius Allendyce felt her
mind was working out a plan for the morrow. He gave a last look about
the room as though he wished to carry away a perfect impression of it,
then patted the girl on the shoulder.

"Here is my card and the telephone number of my office. If you decide
that this step is--too irregular, if perhaps we ought to talk with your
father first--"

"No! No!" cried Robin. "That would spoil everything!"

Down in the street Cornelius Allendyce waved off a persistent taxi
driver, deciding that he needed the vent of exercise to bring him back
to earth. And as he hurried along he felt a curious elation, as though
for the first time he enjoyed a zest in living. As a lawyer his life had
been necessarily cut-and-dried; there had been little room for
adventuring. And now, in a brief half-hour, he had let himself into the
wildest sort of conspiracy. (He stopped suddenly and mopped his
forehead.) He was planning to deliberately deceive Madame Forsyth, to
steal a young and very unusual girl from her parent--and, to assume the
guardianship of this same runaway. Where would it all end?

But in that half-hour just past something must have happened to the
little man's conscience for even after the startling summing up, he
laughed and walked on with a step lighter than before.

       *       *       *       *       *

Back on the fifth floor of the old house in Patchin Place Robin leaned
over the table writing a letter. Her task was made the more difficult
because of the tears which blinded her eyes.

"Jimmie, I love you more than anything in the world but I am going to
run away and leave you. I am going to the Dragon. She wants an heir. I
am going to live in the castle and have a tutor. And my guardian is
going to be the Dragon's lawyer--he's ever so nice and fathery--so you
see I will be looked after as well as can be. Jimmie dearest-darling,
you must not worry about me or try to make me come back for I'll be all
right and you must go away with Mr. Tony and paint lots and I'll be so
proud. And please, please Jimmie, make Aunt Milly promise to take care
of the birds and the flowers for they mustn't die. And you will write to
me, won't you? Good-bye, Jimmie, don't forget your hot milk at night.
Yours always and always, Red-Robin."

She had just signed the letter when James Forsyth opened the door. She
thrust it into her pocket as she turned to meet him.

"Oh, _Jimmie_!" she cried, for under his arm he carried the picture he
had taken to sell to Mrs. Wycke.

"She didn't want it," he explained, testily.

The girl had been well schooled in disappointment; not the slightest
shadow now crossed her face.

"_Someone_ will, Jimmie," she declared, brightly, taking the heavy
package from him. "And you said yourself Mrs. Wycke couldn't tell a
chromo from a masterpiece. We don't want her to have our picture anyway.
I'm not a bit hungry--are you, Jimmie? Let's sit here all cosy and you
read to me--" and thinking of the note that lay in her pocket, she
reached up very suddenly and kissed her Jimmie to hide the break in her
voice.




CHAPTER V

JIMMIE


Robin found running away amazingly simple. Poor Jimmie, at her urging,
went out quite unsuspecting. She was so excited and there was so much to
be done at the last moment, that she had no time to think what the
parting with all she loved so dearly must mean to her.

Promptly at three o'clock Cornelius Allendyce tapped on the door. His
face was very red and moist and his hand, as he reached out for Robin's
bag, shook, but Robin did not notice all that; she slipped quickly
through the door and shut it behind her, as though fearful that at the
last moment she might find it impossible to go.

Out in the thin sunshine, whirring through the traffic of the crowded
streets, neither spoke for breathlessness. Cornelius Allendyce stared at
the buildings and swallowed at regular intervals to steady his nerves--a
trick he had always found most helpful in important legal trials. Robin
kept her eyes glued on the back of the taxi driver's head but he might
have had two heads and one upside down for all she noticed. Her hands in
her lap were clenched very tight and her lips were pressed in a
straight, thin, resolute line.

But as they kept on past Forty-second street and headed toward Central
Park West the lawyer explained that he was taking her to his own home
for the night.

"My sister will make you quite comfortable. Tomorrow we will go out to
Wassumsic." He did not say that it was important, too, to give Madame
Forsyth ample opportunity to get away from Gray Manor.

Robin drew a long breath and relaxed. It had taken so very much courage
to run away that she had little left with which to face her new life.
Tomorrow it might be easier.

Miss Effie Allendyce took her under her wing in a fluttery, mothery sort
of a way with a great many "my dear's."

"I suppose," the lawyer had said, looking at the two, "you, Effie, will
have to get Miss Forsyth some clothes tomorrow--"

"Clothes," Robin cried, astonished. "I--brought some."

"Well, you probably ought to have some other kind. You see, my dear, you
are a Forsyth of Gray Manor now." He turned to his sister. "Effie, can
you get all she needs--everything, before tomorrow at three o'clock?"

Effie's eyes danced at such a task--indeed, she could. She knew a shop
where she could buy everything that a girl might need.

"Well, I'll leave you two to make out lists. Isn't that what you have to
do?"

So, for a few hours the making of these amazing lists kept Robin's
thoughts from that little fifth floor home and Jimmie. Miss Effie began
with shoes and finished with hats, with little abbreviations in brackets
to include caps and scarfs and all sorts of things. "It is very cold in
Wassumsic," she explained, "and you will live a great deal out of doors.
It is very lovely," she added, making a round period after "sweater."

And there was another list which included a wrist watch and a writing
set. "They can send on most of these things," she pondered.

Robin slyly pinched herself to know that she was still a
living-breathing girl; all seemed as unreal as though she had slipped
away into a magician's world.

But the lists completed, dinner over, alone with her new guardian, an
overwhelming loneliness swept her. Cornelius Allendyce, turning from a
protracted study of the blazing fire, was startled to find the girl's
head pillowed in her arm, her shoulders shaking with smothered sobs.

"My dear! My dear!" he exclaimed, very much as Miss Effie would have
done.

"I--I can't help it. I tried--"

Poor Robin looked so very small in the big chair that remorse seized
Cornelius Allendyce. How could he have taken this little girl from her
corner, shabby as it was?

It was not too late--

"Miss Gordon," he began a little uneasily, wondering what guardians did
when their wards were hysterical. "My dear, don't cry, I beg of you.
Come, it is not too late to go back. We will explain--"

Robin lifted her head. "I--I don't want to go back. But I was thinking
of Jimmie. He must be awfully lonesome--now. You see you don't know
Jimmie. He depends on me to remind him of things like his hot milk. And
just at first, it will be hard. But, no, no, I don't want to go back."

"Then I would suggest that you go to bed. You are doubtless very tired
from the excitement of everything. And tomorrow will be a busy day--and
an interesting day."

Robin drew herself slowly from the chair. She limped over to the divan
upon which Cornelius Allendyce sat. Her eyes were very steady, dark with
earnestness.

"I'm ashamed I cried. I won't do it again. But I want you to know, oh,
you must know, that I'm not going to Gray Manor because of all those
clothes and the money or anything like that. There could not be anything
at Gray Manor as nice as Jimmie's and my bird-cage. But I want Jimmie to
have his chance--"

Left alone, Cornelius Allendyce found himself haunted by Robin's "Jimmie
must be awfully lonesome." What a strange pair--the quaint old-young
girl living in a world which circled around this father--the father, by
the girl's own assertion, "depending" upon the girl. And little Robin,
scarcely more than a child, realizing that she hindered the man's
development, talking about giving him "his chance" and at such cost--and
promising that she would not cry again. "There's bravery for you!"
muttered the lawyer aloud.

He believed that Miss Effie's lists of finery and knick-knacks held
little attraction for the girl.

He recalled Madame Forsyth's scornful "that other branch of the family."
Yet this James Forsyth and Gordon had lived for years and often in want
in New York City, and had never approached Madame for as much as a
penny. Robin had said Jimmie couldn't paint if he were rich. Could he
paint if he lost her?

Suddenly Cornelius Allendyce had a vivid understanding of the tie that
bound these two. And it was unthinkable that this man would let the girl
go and do nothing. Yet it was not of any possible embarrassment _he_
might suffer that Cornelius Allendyce thought at this moment; it was of
the heartbreak of the father. He had not considered him at all; carried
away by a mad impulse he had let himself listen to a child and had lost
his own sense of justice. Why, it had been rank robbery! He must go to
this man at once. Muttering to himself he went in search of his hat and
coat.

       *       *       *       *       *

For the third time the little lawyer climbed the flights of stairs at 22
Patchin Place. And this time, so eager was he to square himself with
Robin's Jimmie, he ran up the steps. He knocked twice and when no one
answered he opened the door quietly and walked in.

A man sat at the little table, his head dropped in his outflung arms.
Cornelius Allendyce knew it was Jimmie. Another man stood over him, his
face flushed with impatience. "Mr. Tony," thought the lawyer. He was
evidently just drawing breath after a heated argument.

"Pardon my intrusion, gentlemen. I knocked but I do not think you heard
me." Allendyce stopped short, for his usual measured words seemed out of
place at this moment. "I am Cornelius Allendyce," he finished humbly and
guiltily. "I came back to--explain."

James Forsyth made a lightning-quick movement as though he would spring
at the little lawyer's throat. Mr. Tony held him back.

"Jimmie--wait. Let him talk."

"It was Miss Robin's wish to slip away without telling you. She said
you would not let her go and she had quite made up her mind to give
you--what she calls--your chance. She has an idea that she ties you
down--"

Jimmie choked as a sob strangled in his throat. His anger suddenly
melted to abjection. Mr. Tony laid a comforting hand on his shoulder and
turned to the lawyer.

"The girl is right. She's a wonderful little thing. She always could see
further ahead than her Dad. I have been telling my pal that this is the
best thing all around that could happen--a fine bit of luck for
everyone. Robin will go up to Gray Manor and be as happy and safe as can
be and her father can travel and work--the way Robin wants him to. Robin
took rather unusual means to gain her end but--well, she knew what she
was doing."

Jimmie turned to Cornelius Allendyce and studied his face with a
desperate keenness.

"She isn't like other children," he began slowly. "Poor little crooked
kiddie. She's sensitive. I've kept her away from everything that could
hurt her. I've tried--to make up to her. I thought she was happy; I did
not know she guessed--or knew--"

Mr. Tony had taken a few steps down the room. He wheeled now and came
back with a set expression on his face as though he had to say something
disagreeable and must get it over with.

"Jimmie, suppose, just for once, you look your soul straight in the
eye--honest. Now isn't it the artist heart of you that's hurt by Robin's
crooked little body--and not the child? Don't you keep her shut up in
here because, when people stare at her--_you_ suffer? Have you been fair
to her? Oh, yes--you love her, all right. Well, then, let her go. Robin
thinks she's giving you your chance--well, _I_ say, give the girl her
own."

"I tell you Robin's different--she doesn't want money or clothes!"

"Well, pretty things--and good food--can make even a 'different' girl's
heart lighter. Come, old man, go off with me on this cruise and work
your head off and at the end of the year--if Robin's not happy there,
well, you can make other plans. I'm like Robin, I believe that give you
a year, you'll do something rather big."

James Forsyth suddenly lifted a face so boyishly helpless, so defeated,
that Allendyce's heart went out to him. He understood, all at once, what
little Robin had meant when she had said, "You don't know Jimmie!" He
certainly was not like other men.

"I feel such a--quitter. I promised Robin's mother--I'd make up to the
child for her being lame--the way _she_ would have, if she'd lived. And
I've failed. Why, only last night she went to bed hungry." There
followed a moment of tense silence, then the man went on dully, in a
tone that implied yielding. "I suppose I may know all the circumstances
that led up to--this."

Cornelius Allendyce proceeded to tell everything from the day of his
interview with Madame to the moment of his consternation upon
discovering that Gordon Forsyth was a girl and not a boy. He repeated
word for word Robin's and his conspiring; he described their flight and
Robin's break down in his library.

"She had not lost courage--oh, no. But she was thinking of you. She was
afraid you'd forget to take your hot milk at night or something like
that," he finished simply.

There were other details for the lawyer to explain to James Forsyth,
having to do with allowances and schooling. Then, when everything had
been said that was necessary to be said, James Forsyth rose wearily.

"If that's all, I'd like it if you two would leave me here--alone." He
held out his hand to Mr. Allendyce. "Understand, if she's not happy--"

"Our agreement ends."




CHAPTER VI

THE FORSYTH HEIR


Harkness' mother had once lived in an English duke's family and Harkness
had been brought up on stories of the ceremonious life there. Therefore
he considered it quite fitting that he should take upon himself the
planning for the reception of the Forsyth heir.

"I say it do be a pity Madame could not 'ave waited," he grumbled to
Mrs. Budge. "To 'ave the poor little fellow arrive here alone don't seem
right. But Madame says 'Harkness, you'll do everything--'"

"Everything!" snorted Mrs. Budge, who had just come down from dusting
the "boy's" room. The familiar "clutter," as she had always called it,
had roused poignant memories, so that her wrinkled face was streaked now
and red. "'Pears to me most you do is talk--and talk big. It's Harkness
this and Harkness that! To be sure _my_ mother was a plain New England
woman--"

"Now, Budge, now, Budge," interrupted Harkness, consolingly. "No one as
I know is going to dispute that your mother was a plain New England
woman. And we're not going to quarrel at such a rememberable moment, not
we. And we're going to give Mr. Gordon a welcome as is befitting a
Forsyth. At the appointed hour we'll gather at the door--you must stand
at the head of the long line of servants--"

"Long line of servants! And where do you expect to get them, I'd like to
know? Things have been at sixes and sevens in this house ever since the
gloom came. And that new piece from the village ain't worth her salt's
far as work goes."

Poor Harkness had to recognize the truth of what Budge said. Since the
"gloom" things _had_ been going at sixes and sevens--inexperienced help
called up from the village to fill any need. He was not to be daunted,
however; there were the gardener and the undergardener and the chauffeur
and the stableman and they had wives who might be induced to put on
their Sunday clothes and join in the ceremonial--all in all, they could
make a fair showing.

Into the plans for the dinner Mrs. Budge threw herself with her whole
heart. There must be young turkey and cranberry sauce, and a tasty salad
and a good old New England pumpkin pie, which she would make herself,
and ice cream and little cakes with colored frosting--oh, Budge knew
what a boy liked.

And Harkness would brighten the great dark hall with bitter-sweet and
deck the gloomy rooms with flowers--he knew what was proper for the
coming of the heir of the House of Forsyth.

"Like as not," Budge said, "'twill be the end to this curse."

So the two old retainers, their hearts full of hope for a new happiness
over Gray Manor, labored until the old house shone and bloomed for the
coming of Gordon Forsyth. And a few minutes before the hour of arrival,
the gardener and the undergardener and the stableman and their wives
came in, breathless with importance; Chloe, the old colored cook,
appeared in a brand new turban and 'kerchief. Mrs. Budge, her gray hair
brushed back tighter than ever, donned her black silk which she had not
worn since young Christopher's eighteenth birthday and took her place at
the head of the line just a foot or two behind Harkness who, of course,
had the honor of opening the door.

Mrs. Budge, however, watched the service door at the end of the long
hall with fretful eyes. "That piece," she confided to Harkness, the
moment not being so important as to still her grumbling, "said she
wouldn't come in. And when I told her she could just choose t'wixt this
and the door she said she wouldn't dress up, anyways. Impertinent chit!
Thinks she's too good for the place. Things _have_ gone to sixes and
sevens--"

Harkness was holding his watch in his hand. And just as he shut it with
a significant click, a tall dark-haired girl in a plain gingham dress
slipped into the room and took her place at the end of the line, at the
same moment casting a defiant glance at the knot which adorned the back
of Mrs. Budge's head.

Above the low murmur of voices came the throb of a motor.

"It's him!" cried Harkness, a catch in his voice. Mrs. Budge shut her
eyes tight from sheer nervousness. There was a visible straightening and
a rustling of the line. Then Harkness threw the door open and bent low.

On the threshold stood a small girl; her eyes, under the fringe of red
hair, wide with excitement, frightened.

Harkness had opened his lips for his little speech of welcome but the
first sound died with a cackle in his throat, leaving his mouth agape.
He stared at the little creature and beyond her at Cornelius Allendyce,
who was superintending the unloading of several bags and boxes.

Where was Gordon Forsyth?

Turning, Mr. Allendyce, at one glance, took in the situation. He bustled
up the steps, and thrust a bag in Harkness' limp hand.

"Well, we're here!" he cried cheerily, ignoring the amazement and
disappointment that fairly tingled in the air. "And a fine welcome
you're giving us!" He turned to Robin, who stood rooted to the
threshold. "My dear, these people have served the Forsyths faithfully
and for a long time. Harkness, this is Gordon Forsyth. Mrs. Budge--"

He drew aside to let Robin enter. And Robin, conscious of startled,
curious eyes upon her, limped into her new home. Harkness, because he
had to do something, closed the door slowly behind her.

"I'm sure--we were expecting--" he mumbled.

Mr. Allendyce imperiously waved off whatever Harkness was expecting.

"We hope, Mrs. Budge, you are prepared for two hungry people. We lunched
very early and the ride here is always tiresome. In Madame's absence, I
am sure you will take care of Miss Gordon and--me." There was the finest
inflection on the "miss." "I shall stay a day or two. Robin, my dear,
this is your new home."

Robin had been biting her lips to keep them steady. There was something
so terrible in the great hall, the broad stair that lost itself in a
cavern of darkness above, the brilliant lights, the staring faces. Her
eyes swept from Mrs. Budge's stony face down the line and crossed the
curious glance of the dark-haired girl in the gingham dress. Robin's
brightened, for the girl was young, but the girl flushed a dark red,
tossed her head and stalked through the narrow service door out of the
room.

Robin turned to Cornelius Allendyce and clung to his arm. He seemed the
one nice friendly thing in the whole place. And, as though he knew how
she felt, he patted her hand in a way that seemed to say, "Courage, my
dear."

Mrs. Budge recovered her tongue. "She'll not be wanting the young
_master's_ room," she said crisply. "Madame's orders--"

"I would suggest that Miss Gordon decide for herself what room she will
have." The lawyer's voice carried a rebuke that was not lost upon the
housekeeper. "Harkness, carry the bags upstairs and Miss Gordon and I
will follow."

So Harkness' reception line broke up; the gardener and the undergardener
and their wives following Mrs. Budge's stiff back out through the
service door while Harkness led Robin and her new guardian up the broad
stairway.

In the kitchen, for very want of strength, Mrs. Budge flopped into a
chair.

"Sixes and sevens!" she gasped. "I'll say that things _are_ just going
to sixes and sevens. I've always distrusted all lawyer-men and this one
ain't a bit different. Bringing a _girl_ here, and a cripple. Did you
ever hear the like?" She looked from one to the other of Harkness'
retainers and answered herself with the same breath. "You never did.
Don't know when I've been so flabbergasted. Mebbe she's a Forsyth but
she ain't a worth-while Forsyth. She ain't. As if a girl could step into
our boy's shoes." She sniffed audibly. "She don't take in Hannah Budge."

When Harkness appeared there was a fresh outburst and a reiteration that
Hannah Budge "wasn't going to be taken in by a piece no bigger'n a pint
of cider."

"Well, the girl's here--and hungry," Harkness retorted with meaning
abruptness.

A sense of duty never failed to spur poor Budge. She rose, now, quickly.
"Humph, like as not with everything else going to sixes and sevens that
old Chloe's forgot her turkey," and with a heavy sigh that fairly
rattled the stiff silk on her bosom she went off in search of the cook.

Robin found much difficulty in choosing her room for they all seemed
equally lovely in the perfection of their furnishings. She had stood for
a moment in the door of the south room that had been Christopher the
Third's. "Here's where they'd have put you if you were a boy," her new
guardian had told her. In spite of Mrs. Budge's efforts at cleaning and
dusting, a melancholy hung over the room and about all the boyish things
there was such a sense of waiting that Robin was glad to turn away.
Finally she decided upon a west room the windows of which overlooked the
valley and the hills beyond.

"Oh, wouldn't Jimmie love that?" she had cried, lingering in one of the
windows. "He loves hills, and doesn't that river look like a silver
ribbon tying the brown fields?"

The bedroom opened on one side into a sitting room with a bay window, on
the other into a tiny bathroom, shining and gleaming with nickel and
tile.

"Oh, everything's _lovely_," and Robin ecstatically clasped her hands.
"Only what'll I ever do with everything so big!"

Cornelius Allendyce laughed at her dismay. To be sure he had not spent
his life in such tiny quarters as the bird cage and he could not
understand the girl's state of mind.

"My dear, after a little everything will seem quite natural. And
remember--everything is at your command. This is your home. You are
Gordon Forsyth. You will not have time to be lonely."

Robin's serious face suddenly broke into a bright smile. She patted the
garland of roses which held back the silk hangings.

"I just had the funniest feeling, as if I were not me at all but all of
a sudden someone else. Ever since I was a very little girl I've often
played that I lived a make-believe story--I make it like all the fairy
stories jumbled together. And I fit all the people I know into the
different characters. Jimmie lets me play it because I am alone so much
and it keeps me happy. Sometimes he even plays it with me. It makes
horrid things seem nice. And Jimmie never wanted me to know the boys and
girls at school--because I'm lame, I guess--so I always pretended things
about them and gave them names. You should have seen Bluebeard." She
laughed at the recollection. "And now I'm going on playing. I'm the
little beggar-maid who awakens to find her self in the castle. Do you
suppose there's a fairy godmother somewhere? And--a prince?"

And Cornelius Allendyce who had never read a fairy story in his life,
let alone acted one, laughed with her.

"Yes, this is another chapter in your story."

"Oh, and don't you wish we could just peek to the end and see how it all
turns out? But that isn't fair. And we couldn't--anyway."

Her new guardian shook his head. "No, we couldn't--anyway."




CHAPTER VII

BERYL


A bell tinkling somewhere in the house wakened Robin the next morning.
Through the flowered chintz curtains of her window the sun shone with a
warmth out of all keeping with the time of the year, throwing such a
joyous glow about everything in the room that she rubbed her eyes to be
sure she was not dreaming.

The evening before, everything had seemed so strange that Robin had not
been able to take in small things; now an immense curiosity to explore
Gray Manor, and the grounds that were like Central Park, and the little
town, and the hills around it, seized her. She slipped her feet out of
bed and into the satin slippers which had been one of Miss Effie's
purchases. She dressed with feverish haste, rebuking herself for having
slept so late, for her new wrist watch told her it was after ten
o'clock.

Ten o'clock--why, on Patchin Place the morning was almost over at that
hour, the streets about thundering with the work of the day. And here it
was as still as night, or as--a church on a weekday, Robin thought.

Dressed, she opened the door of her room very quietly and peeped
curiously out. And there in the wide hall, dusting an old highboy, was
the girl with the dark hair.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Robin, delighted at the encounter.

The girl stared for a moment. She was tall and thin; her eyes so
intensely blue as to look black and startling in their contrast to the
whiteness of her skin. They were brooding, smoldering eyes and a too
frequent scowl was making tiny lines between the straight black
eyebrows.

"Isn't this the wonderfulest morning?" Robin advanced, stepping nearer.
"What is your name? I'm Robin--I mean Gordon Forsyth."

"I know that. My name's Beryl but I guess it doesn't make much
difference to you what I'm called. The man who came with you's waiting
downstairs."

In spite of this rebuff Robin lingered for a moment, hopeful of a
pleasanter word. But the girl Beryl shouldered her duster and marched
off, head high.

"I'm going to find out more about her right off," determined Robin as
she went in search of her guardian.

The big rooms below, like her own room, looked very different in the
morning light, even cheery. Mr. Allendyce greeted her with a smile and
Harkness' "Good-morning, Miss Gordon," had pleasant warmth. It was fun
to sit in the high-backed chair before the shining silver and the
flowers and to choose between grapefruit and frosted orange juice. So
fascinated was Robin that she forgot for the time, her interest in the
girl she had encountered upstairs.

"Well, what do you think of Gray Manor in daylight?" asked Mr. Allendyce
as the two walked into the library.

"Oh, it's more like a great castle than ever. But it isn't--half as bad
as I thought it was." When Robin caught the amused twinkle in her
guardian's eye she added hastily: "I mean, it isn't gloomy and sad at
all. It's so beautiful--and I love beautiful things."

Mr. Allendyce thought suddenly that it was the first time for a long
time _he_ had seen these rooms when they had not seemed overhung with
melancholy. But he checked any expression of the thought; instead he
took Robin on a tour through the library and drawing rooms, pointing out
to her the treasures which had been brought from every corner of the
world. There were rare tapestries and bronzes, and tiny ivory carvings
and tables inlaid with bright jade and old crystal candelabra, and
quaint chests and wonderful paintings and rare old books. As he told the
story of each, Cornelius Allendyce marvelled at the girl's quick
appreciation and intelligent interest. Her Jimmie had evidently gathered
travelled people about him and Robin had been always a sharp listener.

Then Harkness interrupted their pleasant occupation by appealing to
Robin for "his orders" with such a comical solemnity that Robin had
difficulty suppressing a nervous giggle. Her guardian came to her rescue
with the suggestion that they drive about the town and the mills, have
an early tea and an early dinner and dispense with luncheon.

"Must I tell him every day just what I want?" thought Robin, in dismay.

The girl's active imagination could well picture the imposing motor
which came to the door as a coach-and-four, resplendent with regal
trappings. And, cuddled in the wolf-skin robes, flying over the frosty
roads which wound through the hills, it was very easy to feel like a
princess from one of her own stories.

Only the mills spoiled her lovely day. The evening before they had
loomed obscurely and interestingly but in broad daylight they were ugly.
The great chimneys belched black smoke into the beautiful blue of the
sky; the monotonous drone of many machines jarred the hillside quiet.
Everything was so dusty and dirty--even the tiny houses where the men
lived. Robin, brought up though she had been in Patchin Place, turned in
disgust from the dreary ugliness about her.

"Does it have to be like that?" she asked her guardian.

"Like what?"

"Oh--dirty. And so dreary. And noisy."

Her guardian laughed. "I'm afraid it does. Work is mostly always
drab--like that. And you see it has grown like a giant. There--there's
the giant for your fairy story, my dear. And giants are usually ugly,
aren't they?"

"Yes, always." Robin spoke with conviction. As they rode on she looked
back over her shoulder. "I'm glad we can't stop today. This ride has
been so lovely that I'd hate to spoil it by--seeing the Giant up close."

"Giants are very powerful. And usually very rich." Cornelius Allendyce
enjoyed the fancy.

"Yes--and they crush and kill, too."

"But didn't a Jack climb something or other and overcome one of them in
his lair?"

At this Robin laughed and then forgot, for the time being, the mills and
the dirty houses; when Mr. Allendyce hoped Mrs. Budge would give them a
very big tea party, she realized she was hungrier than she had ever been
before.

So full had been each moment of her first day at Gray Manor that it was
not until she sat curled in the big divan before the library fire, a
book of colored plates of Italian gardens across her lap that she
thought of her determination to know more of the girl who had called
herself Beryl.

Harkness stood at the long table putting it in order. Harkness seemed
always moving things about just so as to put them back in place again.

"Mr. Harkness."

"Yes, Miss Gordon."

"Do I know everybody here?"

"Why--I'm sure--What do you mean, Miss Gordon?"

"I saw a young girl last night. And I met her in the hall today. Who's
she?"

"That's a person from the village, Miss Gordon. I don't know as I've
heard her name. Budge mostly calls her a piece. I don't think Budge is
satisfied with her."

"You mean she works here?"

"Yes, Miss Gordon. At least now. She helps Budge. Budge is getting on,
you see. I don't know as I've heard the miss' name. Is there anything
more, Miss Gordon?"

Harkness had a warm heart under his faded livery and it went out now to
Robin because she looked very small and very much alone in the big room.
He had heard Mrs. Budge's hostile sputter and he knew the lawyer man was
going the next day; little Miss Gordon would be quite without friends at
Gray Manor. So he stepped closer to the divan and in a very human,
friendly way he added: "Excuse me if I'm so bold as to say, you just
count on old Harkness if you want anything, missy."

Robin caught the kindliness in the man's voice. "Oh, thank you, Mr.
Harkness. I'll be so glad to have you for a friend. And won't you
please call me Robin? You see everyone who's ever liked me real well
called me that and it'll make me feel homey here."

"Well, just between _us_, Miss--Robin." And the old man went off with a
mysterious smile that even Budge's sour face could not dispel.

The house was very still. Mr. Allendyce was in his room writing some
letters. The early dinner had been over for sometime. Robin wondered
what Beryl was doing now and where she was--probably upstairs somewhere.

"I'll go and find her!"

This was more easily said than done for Gray Manor had wiggly wings and
corridors turning in every direction and little stairs here and there so
that one first went up and then down and then up again. Robin had almost
given up her search and had just about decided she was lost, for turn
whichever way she might, nothing seemed familiar, when she heard the
harsh, scraping strains of a violin, vibrant with stormy feeling.

"I'll find that and then maybe it'll be someone who can tell me how to
get back to the library," she thought, laughing silently at the
ridiculousness of being lost in a house, anyway.

She traced the music to a turning which led into a narrow hallway. At
its end a door stood ajar and from it a light streamed. Robin
approached the door on tip toe that she might not disturb the music,
then stood still on its threshold in delighted amazement for the violin
player was the girl for whom she was seeking.

At sight of Robin the girl flung the violin upon the bed.

"Oh, please don't stop. May I come in? I was hunting for you."

It was an absurdly small room as compared to the great rooms below, and
very bare. There was one chair which Beryl, scowling, pushed forward, at
the same time sitting upon the bed. Her eyes said plainly: "What do you
want?"

Robin ignored her unfriendliness. She sat down on the edge of the bed,
close to Beryl.

"I'm awfully glad I found you," she ventured. "You see you're the only
other _young_ person in this house. Though I never had any chums like
most girls do, Jimmie always seemed young and the birds and the flowers
and the Farri children made it--" Robin stopped suddenly, for Beryl was
staring at her with rude amusement. "I--I thought it would be so nice if
you--and I--could be--sort of chums," she managed to finish.

Beryl tossed her head as she moved away, shutting the violin in its case
with an angry little slam.

"I guess it _would_ be sort of," she mocked.

"What do you mean?" Poor Robin's heart beat furiously; it had taken all
the courage she could muster to force her advance upon this girl and
Beryl's rebuff hurt her deeply. She flushed at Beryl's scornful laugh.

"Why--we're as far apart as the poles," Beryl answered. "You're--Gordon
Forsyth. And I'm just Beryl Lynch."

Robin's eyes were like a baby's in their lack of understanding.

"I don't see--" she began but Beryl would not let her go on. Beryl's
whole soul went out in resentment at what she suspected was
"patronizing." "Not me!" she cried in her heart. And aloud: "Oh, you
just _say_ you can't see. Why I'm like a servant here. Though I won't be
that way long with that old crank as uncivil as she is. Mother didn't
want me to do it. But I wanted the money. And I'm going to stick it out,
much as I hate it--"

Robin watched the other girl's stormy face in an ecstasy of delight.
Here was a creature different from anyone she had ever known; almost her
own age, too, full of the fire and spirit and daring which she longed to
possess and knew she did not; beautifully straight and tall.

"I asked old Budge for the place. I heard she wanted someone to help her
and it was work anyone could do. Mother felt dreadfully--she said I'd
hate it. I don't mind the work but I hate--oh, feeling I'm not as good
as anyone here. When Mrs. Budge told me to put on a clean uniform--ugh,
how I hate those uniforms--and go down to the hall to meet you, I told
her I wouldn't. She 'most sent me off then and there."

"You did go, though. I saw you," Robin broke in.

"Oh, yes, I went but I wouldn't change my dress just to spite her. And I
was curious to see the boy they were all making such a fuss about. You
just ought to know how upset they were when _you_ came! Why, old Budge
talked as though it were a disgrace for a Forsyth to be a girl. I was
glad--because it fooled her." Beryl realized suddenly that she was
growing friendily confidential. She sharpened her tone. "_You'd_ better
go down before the old snoop catches you here."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," pleaded Robin.

"Like what?"

"Oh, as though we weren't--well just girls alike and couldn't be
friends. We might have such good times--"

"You _are_ a funny little kid, aren't you? And you certainly don't know
how things are run in stiff houses like this. If old Budge could hear
you! I don't mind telling you that the old cat keeps saying she's going
to watch you to see if you act like a Forsyth. So you'd better not let
her hear you asking to be friends with me."

Robin slowly rose to her feet, two bright spots of color flaming in her
cheeks.

"Why, I'll--" Her anger died suddenly and a quaint little dignity fell
upon her. She straightened her slender figure and held her head very
high. "I am a Forsyth and I shall act just as I think a good Forsyth
should and not as Mrs. Budge thinks. And please don't think I'm the
least bit afraid of this Mrs. Budge."

Beryl laughed so gleefully at Robin's defiance that Robin joined in with
her and the friendship for which she sought sprang into being--all
because of an unspoken alliance against the hostile housekeeper.

"I'll go back now--if you'll show me the way."

"They _ought_ to have signs at every turning."

"Oh, what a funny thought!" And giggling, the two tiptoed through the
winding corridors and down the stairs which led to the second floor.

"I'll see you tomorrow," whispered Robin at parting.

"It won't do--you'll see it won't do!" warned Beryl. "I haven't been in
this house two whole days without knowing what it's like!"




CHAPTER VIII

ROBIN ASSERTS HERSELF


The coming of Percival Tubbs to Gray Manor added the one sweet drop to
poor Mrs. Budge's cup of bitterness. Though he brought vividly back
heartbreaking memories of young Chistopher the Third's school days, when
she had waited each day for the lad's boisterous charge upon the kitchen
after the "bite" which was his and her little secret, she hoped to find
in him an ally. _He_ would see how ridiculous it was to have a Forsyth
girl, anyway, and especially a girl who limped around the house like a
scared rabbit, afraid to ask for a crumb. If this Gordon had been a boy,
as they had planned, another comely, happy youth, why, she could have
soon learned to love him. But a girl--how would she look sitting at
Master Christopher's desk, in his chair! Something was all wrong
somewhere, but Percival Tubbs would find out and say what's what.

With this hope strong in her breast she made excuse to go into the
Chinese room, for the Chinese room was only separated from the library
by heavy curtains through which voices could be easily overheard. And
Harkness had said the lawyer and the tutor were talking in the library.

Robin's guardian had given much thought to this interview with the
tutor. Robin's fate worried him not a little. He had, in the few days,
grown very fond of Robin, and he hated to leave her with Harkness and
Budge and this Percival Tubbs, a poor sort of companionship where a
fifteen-year-old girl's happiness was concerned.

"I must make Tubbs see that the child is different--" he was thinking
just as Mrs. Budge tiptoed into the Chinese room.

"Miss Gordon is not like other children and you'll have to plan your
school work a little differently with her," he began, speaking slowly.
"She's bright enough and knows much more about some things than most
girls her age--and nothing at all about others. What I want you to do is
to go easy; easy, that's it. I rather imagine she's always taken a lot
on her own shoulders and I don't believe she's ever thought much of
herself. If you can develop a little assertiveness in her--she'll need
it, here--"

"Yes. She'll need it here," echoed the tutor, because he thought he
ought to say something. He was a tall, lanky man whose shoulders sagged
as though something about them had broken under the strain of being
dignified; his face narrowed from an impressive dome of a forehead to a
straggling Van Dyke beard which he always stroked with the fingers of
his left hand. He was the old type of schoolmaster whom the rapid
forward stride of education had left far behind. His summons to Gray
Manor had come rather in the way of a life-saver and he did not intend
to allow the fact that the Forsyth heir had turned out to be a girl,
perturb him in the least. And so long as his rooms at the Manor were
comfortable, his food good and his salary certain, he could adapt
himself to any fool theory this lawyer guardian might care to advance.

Mr. Allendyce stared hard at the other, his face wrinkled in his effort
to say the right thing.

"Oh, let her have her head," he finished finally. And he liked that idea
so well that he repeated it. "Let her have her head. Do you understand
me? Never mind what's in the old schoolbooks. If she'd rather take a
walk than study Latin verbs, well, let her. I want her to be happy
here--happy, that's most important. You've heard of flowers that bloom
only in shelter and sunshine? This youngster isn't unlike--"

"Well, I never! No, I _never!... I never!_" Mrs. Budge's gasp, rising in
a crescendo, almost betrayed her presence. She gave a pillow a mighty
jab. As though it were not bad enough to bring the girl to the house in
the first place without paying a man a fancy price to teach her to have
her own way! "Flowers! Humph! Old fools--" Unable to endure another word
in silence she stalked off to her own quarters.

In the butler's pantry she found Beryl arranging real flowers in a
squatty Bristol glass bowl and humming gaily as she did so. Now Beryl
should have beep upstairs marking the new linen and she should not be
singing as though she owned the whole world. These two transgressions
and the sight of the bright blossoms in the girl's hand brought the
climax to the old woman's wrath. All Beryl's shortcomings tumbled off
her tongue in an incoherent flow of ill-temper. A stormy scene resulted
which left the old housekeeper spent and Beryl blazing with indignation.

Consequently, when poor Robin, depressed from her first hour with the
tutor, trying not to feel that Gray Manor was going to be a prison
instead of a castle, sought out her new friend she found her throwing
her few possessions into a cheap suitcase that lay, opened, across her
narrow bed.

"Oh, what are you doing?" cried Robin in alarm.

"I'm going--that's what. She fired me."

Robin's first thought upon awaking that morning had been of Beryl; she
had suffered the keenest impatience all through the trying morning,
longing to go in search of her new friend. She could not lose her
now--for a hundred Budges.

"Oh, I won't let you go!"

"A lot _you_ could do!" cried Beryl scornfully, tears very close. "I
just can't please the old thing. But I hate to go home." She sat down,
dolefully, on the edge of the bed. "I wanted to stay until I had earned
two hundred dollars."

Two hundred dollars! That seemed such a very big amount of money to
Robin that she sat silent, thinking about it.

Beryl, misinterpreting her quiet, tossed her head. "I s'pose that
doesn't mean much to you. But it does to me--'specially when I have to
earn it." Then, with a flash of temper: "What do you know about wanting
some one thing with all your whole heart and knowing just where you can
get it and not having the money?"

Beryl made her tragedy very real and pouring out her troubles always
brought her a grain of comfort.

"I've never had a thing in my life that I wanted," she finished.

"Oh, Beryl, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry! Why, a lucky little thing like you are can't even know what I'm
talking about. That's why I said we couldn't be friends. _I've_ had to
work at home like a slave ever since I can remember. Pop's sick all the
time and cross, and poor mother looks so tired and tries to be so
cheerful and brave that your heart aches for her. And even when you're
poor, a girl wants things, pretty things and to do things like other
girls--and work as hard as you can you can't ever seem to reach them. I
get just sick of it. I thought--if I could get this money--"

"Did you want it for your mother?" broke in Robin, sympathetically.

Beryl's face flushed redder. "Well, not exactly. That's the way it
always is in books, but in life, when you're poor, it's each fellow for
himself and there's not any time for your grand sounding self-sacrifice.
I wanted it to buy a violin. That thing I've got's nothing but a cheap
old fiddle. And I can play--I _know_ I can play, or could if I could get
a good violin. I took lessons from an old Belgian who lived above us and
I played once for Martini at the theatre and he said--but what's the use
of caring? What's the use of _thinking_ about it? All a girl like me can
do is just want big things!"

"Oh, Beryl," breathed Robin, a tremble on her lips. She wanted very much
to make Beryl understand that she was not the "lucky thing" Beryl
thought her; that she knew, too, what it was to want something and not
to have it, though perhaps she had not known it as cruelly as Beryl had,
for Jimmie had always contrived to cover their bleak moments with a
makeshift contentment. "Oh, Beryl, honestly I know just how you feel. I
wish I could help you. Maybe I can. My allowance seems awfully big and I
can't ever spend it all--"

"Well, I'm not a beggar and I'm not hinting for your money," flared
Beryl.

"I didn't mean--" Robin began, then faltered. Beryl had spoken with such
real anger that she was frightened. Beryl, turning back to her packing,
gathered up an armful of clothing on top of which lay an oblong bundle.
Its wrappings were old and loose so that as Beryl flounced her burden
toward the suitcase, the content of the package slipped out and down to
the floor. Robin stared in amazement for there lay a doll in faded satin
finery.

With a short, ashamed laugh, Beryl picked it up. "_That_ old thing," she
exclaimed, in half-apology.

Robin caught her arm. "Wait--oh, wait--let me see it!"

"It's just an old doll I've kept."

"It--it looks like my Cynthia. Oh, _please_ just let me look at it. It's
like a doll--I lost, once, ever so long ago." She examined the pretty
clothing.

Now Beryl stared at Robin as though to find in her face a likeness to
the little girl who had deserted her doll.

"Lost? And I found it in Sheridan Square. A little girl went off and
left it. I waited awhile, then I took the doll home."

"Oh, how funny! How _funny_! It was me, Beryl. I'd been playing and Mr.
Tony called to me to hurry and I forgot--and you found it. Why, I cried
myself to sleep night after night thinking poor Cynthia was unhappy
somewhere."

"And I called her my orphan doll and loved her because I thought she
missed her real mother--"

"She was the loveliest dolly I ever had!"

"She was the loveliest dolly I ever saw!"

Both girls burst into a peal of laughter. They sat on the edge of the
bed, the doll between them, the packing forgotten.

Robin clapped her hands. "And to think we find each other now. It's like
a story. I went back to the park all alone that evening and would have
been lost if it hadn't been for my--" she broke off short and flushed.
She was going to tell Beryl about her play-prince but then, Beryl might
laugh and she did not want that.

Beryl's face suddenly grew grave as she smoothed out a fold of the
doll-garment.

"I always kept the doll put away. I never played with it because--" She
hesitated a moment. "That night that I found the doll was a dreadful
night. I wasn't quite six but I'll always remember it. At first mother
and I were so happy, over finding the doll and because Pop had just
gotten a raise. It seemed as though everything were going to be
wonderful and we felt as rich as could be. We called the doll a lucky
doll. And mother dressed me up in her green beads that Father Murphy,
back in Ireland, had given her when she told him she was going to marry
Pop. And we had dumplings--ugh, I've hated dumplings ever since. And
then--"

"What happened?"

"They came for Mom, some man from the hospital. Pop had been terribly
hurt. And, well--nothing's been lucky since. It's just as I said;
mother's had to work and Dale's had to work and Pop just sits in a chair
and scolds and--well, I never wanted to take the doll out when mother
could see it--after all that."

Robin made no effort to conceal how deeply Beryl's story had moved her.
"Oh, Beryl, I'm so sorry. But maybe things will change. They'll have
to--Jimmie always said, it's a long lane that has no turning. I'm so
glad it was you who found my Cynthia. It might have been some one who
wouldn't have loved her at all."

"I s'pose you ought to have her now."

"Oh, no, no. She's yours. Anyway, that doesn't matter," and Robin added
triumphantly, "because we're really truly friends now, no matter what
you say. Cynthia has brought us together."

Beryl shook her head.

"That old crank--" she began.

Robin stamped her foot in impatience. "I don't care a bit about Mrs.
Budge. My guardian told me that I could have anything I wanted here just
for the asking and he's made me the silliest big allowance that three
girls couldn't spend. Oh, I've a plan! Ought not a girl like me have a
companion? Don't they most always in books? You shall stay here at Gray
Manor as my--chum."

Beryl still looked doubtful. "I'm too young--"

"That's just why I want you. Oh, I just can't bear to think of my
guardian going away and leaving me here alone. You see I promised myself
that I'd be happy while Jimmie's having his chance--that's why I came,
you know. But this house is so big and so old and Mr. Harkness and Mrs.
Budge are so old that I know it's going to be hard not to think of
Jimmie and our lovely home and the birds. But if you'd stay it would be
easier. Oh, say you will, say you will."

Beryl stared at Robin with a suspicious scrutiny. She firmly believed
that rich people never did anything except for themselves and Robin, no
doubt, was like all the others. Yet she was such a queer little thing
that perhaps she _was_ trying to be "nice" to her and make a soft place
for her. And Beryl would not allow _that_ for a moment.

"You can study with me, too. That Mr. Tubbs isn't so very bad. And we'll
read together out of all those books in the library. And play--I never
had a real chum because Jimmie thought the girls and boys who went to
the school I did, might make fun of my being lame. Poor Jimmie, he
always minded my being lame much more than I did because he's an artist
and shivers when anything isn't perfect. You shall have a bed in my
room--there's ever so much space. Oh, say you will."

Beryl frowned, uncertainly. "I don't want a penny I don't earn. But if I
can really _do_ things for you--"

"Oh, of course you can, lots of things. But you shan't wear those
uniforms--for then you wouldn't be a girl like me. Oh, we'll have _such_
fun. Let's take this stuff right down."

It took the girls only a very little time to transfer Beryl's belongings
and to establish them in Robin's room, Beryl working mechanically,
unable to believe her good fortune. Then, at Robin's command, she
followed her while she went in search of her guardian.

Cornelius Allendyce and Percival Tubbs, sitting in a blue cloud of cigar
smoke, were pleasantly discussing the pros and cons of the tariff
question upon which they agreed, when Robin interrupted them.

"Please excuse me, but this is very important." Her breathlessness
startled the two men. "I've engaged Beryl to be my chum. I--I thought I
might be lonely here at Gray Manor. I want her to study with me, too.
And do everything. This is she."

Cornelius Allendyce's mouth had dropped open from sheer amazement;
suddenly it broadened into a grin. Here was Miss Gordon taking her
"head" at once, without so much as one lesson. He glanced at Percival
Tubbs but that good gentleman was stroking his silky beard quite
indifferently.

"I'd rather have Beryl than anyone else, 'cause she's almost my own age
and we like each other. Shall I tell Mrs. Budge or--"

"Without so much as a by-your-leave!" murmured the guardian. He surveyed
Beryl; she seemed like a wholesome, spirited sort and the idea of a
little companion for Miss Gordon was not a bad one, not at all--strange
he hadn't thought of it.

"Perhaps, Miss Gordon, you'd better tell her yourself. You must
begin--holding your own, my dear. Don't forget--ever, that you are a
Forsyth, and that name has great power over Hannah Budge."

Robin did not stop to ponder what he meant or why a twinkle shone in his
eyes. She rang the bell as her guardian indicated, then waited with a
resolute squaring of her small chin, for Harkness' coming.

"Please, Mr. Harkness, will you bring Mrs. Budge here? There's something
I want to tell you both."

Mrs. Budge, as she hunted out a clean apron, grumbled at the unusual
summons.

"The girl herself, you say?" she asked, as she followed Harkness to the
library.

Her astonishment changed to white wrath when Robin, standing by her
guardian's chair, spoke.

"I wanted to tell you that Beryl Lynch is going to stay here as my
companion. I'm going to give her half of my room so that I won't be
lonely and please set a place for her next to me at the table."

Once again Cornelius Allendyce caught the twinkle in the butler's eye
which should not be in a Forsyth butler's eye at all. But there was no
twinkle about Mrs. Budge; her cheeks puffed in her effort to speak
without strangling.

"If that piece--" she began, but she was quickly interrupted from every
side. Both Harkness and Cornelius Allendyce cried out, the one
pleadingly, the other in warning: "Careful, Mrs. Budge." Then Robin
stepped forward and slipped her hand through Beryl's arm.

"Please, Mrs. Budge, I have made Beryl promise to stay. She didn't want
to but I begged her. And if anyone is unkind to her it's just the same
as being--unkind to me. That is all," she finished grandly, with an
imperious little motion of her hand that waved the irate woman from the
room before she knew she was moving.

"Now you can't say as that wasn't like a Forsyth," asserted Harkness,
proudly, belowstairs. "If Missy wants a young lydy for a companion,
well, she's a right to the kind of young lydy she wants." But Budge had
escaped the reach of his voice.

In the library Cornelius Allendyce was patting Robin on the head.

"Well, you've won out in the first skirmish, my dear. But keep your
weapons at hand."




CHAPTER IX

THE LYNCHS


The only thing that made the Lynch's cottage any different from the two
hundred others at the mills, was that it stood at the end of a dreary
row and therefore had a window on the side of its living room which
overlooked the hills and the river.

This window was Moira Lynch's delight. Her poor, big Danny could sit in
it all day long. And from it she herself could watch the setting sun
flame over the crest of the hills and the narrow river shake off its
workaday dress and go racing into the shadows of the woods. Poor Moira,
years of heartbreaking work and worry had not changed her very much from
the girl who had liked to lie in the deep sweet grass of her dear
Ireland and let her fancy follow the winging birds into a land of
dreams.

The other window of the tiny living room looked out directly upon the
muddy road, across to the freight tracks.

It was to this window that Moira Lynch ran now, peering as far up the
road as she could see.

"Beryl's late today," she said, with an anxious note.

"Well, what if she is? Things don't run by the clock," Danny Lynch
answered testily. "You're always fussing. If it isn't the girl it's over
Dale."

Mrs. Moira ignored the edge of crossness in her Danny's voice. She went
to him, smoothed the spotless cushion at his back and put a fresh
magazine on his table.

"It's a silly, worryin' hen I am," she laughed. (But, oh, her laugh was
a tragic thing, for while her lips curved in a smile her eyes shadowed
at their mockery).

"But things seem a bit different, today," she added, apologetically.

And just as Danny Lynch's retort of derision died away Beryl burst upon
them.

Her mother needed only to give her one look to know that something _was_
different.

"And what is it, my darlin'? It's that hungry I was getting to set my
eyes on you. Two hours late you are, Beryl."

Beryl welcomed this reproach as it gave her an opportunity to impart her
good news in an impressive way.

"I couldn't get away a minute sooner. I've a new position." She was
going to say "job" but it did not seem fitting.

"What? Without so much as a word to your father and mother? And did the
likes of that old housekeeper fire you?"

Beryl had no intention of telling of her ignominious fray with Mrs.
Budge.

"I'm engaged to be a companion to Gordon Forsyth!" she answered,
grandly.

At this Moira Lynch dropped a spoon with a loud clatter.

"A companion to--that new boy who's come to the Manor?"

Beryl, recognizing that her story needed detailed explanation, slipped
off her outer wraps, threw them into a chair, kissed her father lightly
on his cheek, perched herself on the old sofa and proceeded to tell the
story of Gordon Forsyth's coming to Gray Manor while her mother listened
with breathless interest.

"And it's a girl she is--a little lame girl!"

"The queerest kid you ever saw. Not a bit snippy or rich acting. She
doesn't get at all excited over her new clothes and bossing those old
fogeys around and ordering her motor any minute she wants it. She thinks
the little place she lived in in New York is lots nicer than Gray Manor.
When you look at her you think she's a baby and then when she talks,
why--she seems older than I am! But she's funny like you, Mom; she's
always pretending things are different from what they are and giving
them names. She calls old Budge the wicked woman who wanted to eat the
two children," Beryl giggled. "And she calls the Mills a Giant."

Moira Lynch's face beamed with joyous understanding. Here was a
fellow-soul, "funny" like herself, Beryl described her; Beryl, for whom
black was always and invariably black, and a spade a spade.

"Why, she even wanted to come down here with me," Beryl finished.

There were so many questions trembling on Moira's tongue that, for the
moment, supper was neglected. Not long, however; the striking of the
clock reminded her that in a very few minutes Dale would be home,
hungry. Her mission in life, next to tending her big Danny, was feeding
her two children. For tonight she had made Beryl's favorite dessert, a
bread pudding, the eggs for which she had carefully hoarded during
several days' denial. Beryl, keeping up a running fire of talk, spread
the cloth on the centre table and brought the dishes from the cupboard.

"By'n by, you'll be too fine for the rest of us," broke in big Danny
upon their chatter, the usual discordant tone in his voice.

"Well, I guess it won't be your fault if I am," Beryl flared.
"Everything that I've gotten I've gotten for myself and I don't know of
anyone ever trying to help me."

Like a flash the little mother was between the two, a soothing hand on
the father's shoulder.

"Now don't you two be a-spoiling this night," she laughed a bit
hysterically. "Of course our girl's going to be too fine for anyone, but
it's always a-loving she'll be to her Dad and her Mommy." She declared
it with an ardent triumph. This mother who had once dreamed things for
herself dreamed them now for her boy and girl. From Beryl's infancy she
had taught her to want "fine things." And Beryl wanted them with all
her heart and, with youth's selfishness, wanted them for herself, alone.

After her father's taunt, Beryl, with sullen resentment, locked her lips
on her other pleasant experiences. Nor would she tell now how Robin had
written to her guardian to send down a real violin for her to practice
upon, or what fun it was to study with Mr. Percival Tubbs, whose ears
were distractingly like Brussels sprouts. And that she learned much,
much faster than Robin did! Poor Robin was always wondering the why of
everything.

Her mother suddenly exclaimed: "It's Father Murphy's beads you shall
wear this night, my girl. Didn't the good soul, God rest him, give them
with his blessing? Watch the potatoes while I get them."

Moira's beads had always played a significant part in her life. They
marked what she called her "blessings." Without doubt the rare bright
spots in her life shone like blessings for the dark of their background.
Years ago, when her Danny had had his accident and her world had seemed
to turn upside down until it rested, full-weight, upon her poor
shoulders, her "blessing" had been Miss Lewis at the settlement. Miss
Lewis had given her work so that she could earn money to feed her
family; Miss Lewis had sent the chair to Danny; Miss Lewis had found
cheaper lodgings and had helped her make them homelike. Another blessing
had been Jacques Henri, the old Belgian who lived above them and whose
violin had attracted Beryl as the magnet draws the iron. A lonely soul,
he had found sweet company in the child and had gladly helped the eager
fingers. Later he had come down to supper with them and Beryl had played
a "piece" for her Pop, wearing the beads in honor of the occasion. When
Beryl had graduated from the graded school she had stood as class
prophet before an assemblage of fond relatives, among them Dale and
herself--wearing the green beads. Moira had wished Father Murphy were
there to see her girl.

She clasped them around the girl's neck now with fingers that trembled
and eyes bright with the tears which were always close to them. During
the little ceremony Dale burst in like a gust of strong, sweet air.

"Hullo, everybody! M'm'm, something smells good! What's for tonight,
Mom? Salt pork and thick gravy? Fried potatoes? Good! Hullo, Sis. How
goes it, Pop?" His greeting embraced everything and everyone in a rush,
from the savory supper to the invalid father whose face had brightened
at his coming.

"What're you getting all dolled up for, Sis?"

Beryl and her mother tried to tell the story at the same time. Dale did
not seem at all impressed and Beryl was disappointed. He said he had
heard in the mills that the newcomer at the Manor was a girl, and lame,
too. He didn't know what difference it made to any of them, anyway. He
scowled a little as he said it.

Dale had his father's strong body and his mother's face of a dreamer;
his eyes were brooding like Beryl's but his mouth was wide and tender
and might have seemed weak but for the strength in the square cut jaw.

Since that time, ten years back, when he had resolutely put behind him
his precious ambitions and had taken the first job he could find, he had
been the recognized head of the family. As such he turned to Beryl now.

"I suppose you'll let this rich little girl wipe her feet on you and
you'll love it," he said with such scorn that Beryl turned hot and cold
in speechless anger.

"Now, sonny, now, sonny. Let's wait until we know the poor little
thing," begged his mother.

But for Beryl, except for the fun of wearing the beads, all joy for the
moment had fled. She had particularly wanted to impress Dale with her
good fortune. She had often, of course, heard Dale speak scathingly and
bitterly of the "classes" and the "privileged few" and the unfairness of
things in general, but she had paid little attention to it and could
not, anyway, connect it with unassuming Robin. When he met Robin, he'd
understand--and while Dale ate ravenously and talked to his father
between mouthfuls, she planned how she would bring Robin to supper the
very next time she came home, despite her vow that she would never let
Robin see how humble and small her home was.

After supper Beryl helped her mother clear away and Dale brought out his
"plaything" which was what he laughingly called the contrivance of
strings and spools and little wooden wheels he had made and which he and
his father "played with" each evening. Beryl had often wondered why Dale
seemed to care so much about it; why he spent hours and hours drawing
and figuring on bits of paper. Of course it amused the father, who,
during the day, cut the spools into tiny wheels, with a sharp
jack-knife; but it must be stupid for Dale to spend all of his evenings
over the silly thing. Beryl often lounged on the back of his chair and
listened to discover whether there was any part of the game she might
like.

Tonight Dale's interest seemed forced.

"If I could just find out what's needed _here_--" he growled, touching
the delicate contrivance. "That's the way! While I'm racking my poor old
nut, some other fellow's going to make the whole thing out!"

Danny Lynch's big hand trembled where it lay on the table. "If I had had
the learning--" he began. "I could help, mebbe."

Dale hastened to comfort him. "You don't get that stuff from books,
exactly, Pop. It comes here," touching his head. "If I only had the
money to have the thing made in metal. Oh, well, what's the use of
talking. The thing's got my goat, though. I'm thinking about it all the
time. Say, Mom, can I bring Adam Kraus over to supper some night? He
said he'd like to meet Pop and he's a good sort."

This Adam Kraus had only recently come to the Mills. He had at first
impressed the neighborhood somewhat unfavorably, for he encouraged a
suggestion of mystery, lived at the Inn, kept aloof from everyone, and
seemed to have no family. Moira's own quick thought of him when Dale had
pointed him out on the road in front of the Mill store was that "he
looked too white for a working man." But