Part 18 (1/2)

”I wish you would go with me,” said Helen wistfully to her mother.

”I do not think I had better,” said Mrs. Culver. ”She asked particularly for you. Don't get excited whatever is said. I trust you to act as though I was at your side. You know, darling, that I always trust you.”

Helen burst into tears. ”Oh, mother, dear, dear mother, think of poor, poor Rosanna who has no mother at all to go to for advice!”

Mrs. Culver hugged her little girl tight, wondering if little Rosanna had perhaps gone to the young mother she had lost so long ago.

When Helen entered the library, she found that old Mrs. Horton had collapsed, and was lying on the sofa covered with a blanket. There was a chill in the large, dark room. Mrs. Hargrave, very sober and haggard looking, drew Helen to her and kissed her. Then to Helen's amazement Mrs. Horton kissed her too.

”My dear little girl,” she said feebly, ”I want to tell you that I find I have made a great mistake, and I am sorry for everything. When Rosanna comes back, I want you two little girls to be the best of friends. And I want you to ask your father to stay with me. Perhaps he will do it if you ask him. Mrs. Hargrave says that he is working on an invention of some sort. He will certainly have as much spare time to give to his studies here as he could in any business I know of. I want you to tell him all this from me.”

”Thank you so much,” said Helen in her soft little voice. Then there being nothing that she could think of to say, she stood waiting for Mrs.

Horton to speak. But Mrs. Horton wearily turned her gray face to the wall and sighed.

”Would you mind if I go up and speak to Minnie?” Helen asked timidly.

”Not at all,” answered Mrs. Horton. ”It comforts me to know that there is a child in the house. I think you will find Minnie in Rosanna's room.

You know the way.”

Again she turned to the wall as though she had parted with hope, and Helen ran quietly up the broad stairs and down the corridor to Rosanna's room. Minnie was there sitting in her little sewing chair, mending a dress of Rosanna's. Her tears fell on it as she worked.

”Don't do that, Minnie!” she said, throwing her arm around her. ”I know we will find Rosanna, and then everything will come out right.”

She sat down on Minnie's lap, and told her everything that her father had said, and all that Mrs. Horton had said, and then all about her visit with Mary and Gwenny.

”As far as I go,” said Minnie crossly, ”the sooner they get all this in the paper the better I will like it. Why, if there is one thing on earth more than another that will stir folks up it is a lost child. All the people, and the Boy Scouts and everybody will be hunting around everywhere.”

”And where do the Girl Scouts come in?” asked Helen hotly. ”They will do just as good work as the Boy Scouts will.” She got up and commenced to walk around the room. Minnie, having finished her sewing, arose too and after a moment's thought produced from somewhere a silk duster, and began wiping off the chairs and other furniture.

Helen watched her idly as she moved about the room, then the two large portraits caught her attention.

”Wasn't Rosanna's mother beautiful?” she said, staring. ”Her eyes seem to look right at you as if she was trying to tell you something.”

”I don't doubt she is, the dear saint!” said Minnie. ”You can't begin to know what a heap Rosanna thinks of those pictures. She used to want to keep flowers in front of each one the way they do in churches in front of the saints; but she didn't dare because she knew her grandmother wouldn't let her. So she used to pick posies and tie little bunches and slip them down behind the picture next the wall. She asked me if I didn't think it would mean just as much. And I know it did, the lamb, the dear, dear lamb! I told her grandmother about it too, every word.

”Why, the day you went to Fontaine Ferry--gracious, it seems a year ago!--she fixed a little bit of a wreath of sweet peas and tucked it behind the picture. It must be there yet all withered.”

Minnie went over to the picture, and taking the heavy frame in both hands held the picture away from the wall a little.

Something fell to the floor, but it was not the withered flowers.

When Minnie looked down, she stared and stared and, still staring, crumpled down on her knees, wild, round eyes on the object. Helen ran to her.

”Oh, oh, oh,” moaned Minnie, ”have I gone mad?”

On the floor tied by a ribbon, was Rosanna's beautiful hair!

For a s.p.a.ce Minnie and Helen stood as though they had been frozen.

Minnie touched the long, soft locks and again moaned but all at once Helen commenced to dance up and down.