The Girl Scouts at Home Part 9

The car rolled away, and Rosanna and Minnie went into the big, cool hall.

On the table was a letter addressed to Rosanna in her grandmother's stiff, precise handwriting. Rosanna took it up with a sort of groan.

"That's to tell when she is coming home, of course," she said. "I won't read it until I am all undressed. Everything is going so beautifully and I am learning such a lot and having such a lovely time that it doesn't seem as though I could bear to have it come to an end."

"I think you ought to read your letter, Rosanna," Minnie said. "I don't believe in leaving things. You expect bad news in that letter and you are having a horrid time all the time you are getting ready for bed. You couldn't feel any worse if you opened it. And suppose there was good news in it? Then you would wish you had found it out before, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose so," said Rosanna listlessly.

She sighed and, taking the letter, tore off the end of the envelope and commenced to read. The second sentence caused her to cry out. She turned to Minnie, hugged her, and cried, "Oh, Minnie, you are so wise! Just listen to this!" The letter read:

"My dear Granddaughter Rosanna:

"What news I have had from home leads me to believe that you are well and being nicely cared for.

"Since this is the case, I feel that it will be possible for me to remain here in the East for a few weeks with your Uncle Robert. He is not ill, you understand, but is run down and nervous from the effects of his wound and many trying experiences abroad. He is fussing because he has lost track of a soldier friend of his, the man who saved his life.

He is doing all he can to trace him, as he feels--and of course so do I--that we could never do enough to repay the debt we owe him.

"About yourself, I hope you will have a good time. Do not forget to practice. Mrs. Hargrave spoke of seeing a very interesting child at our house. I am very glad you have found among your acquaintances one whom you would like to make your friend. I can trust you, Rosanna, to choose wisely. And I am glad to see that Mrs. Hargrave says that this Helen somebody comes of an old Lee County family. I cannot read the name. Mrs.

Hargrave is a very careless penman. Always write distinctly, Rosanna.

It is one of the many marks of good breeding.

"Your Uncle Robert sends his love. He is anxious to see you.

"Your loving grandmother,

"VIRGINIA LEE HORTON."

Rosanna read the letter twice.

Then she turned and looked at Minnie. "It's good and bad too, isn't it, Minnie? You know Helen is _not_ one of the Culvers of Lee County, but she is just as good and sweet as though she belonged to all the Lee County Culvers in the world. Minnie, what shall I do?"

"You must do what you think right, dearie," said Minnie, her kind, wise eyes searching the girl's face. "I can't tell you what to do. You must decide for yourself. It's one of the biggest things in the world to learn; that is, to decide what is right and wrong without someone telling us."

She kissed Rosanna good-night and left the room. A moment later she returned. "Mrs. Hargrave just telephoned, dearie, that she wants you and Helen to take luncheon with her to-morrow." Once more she bade the little girl good-night, and Rosanna, tired out, fell asleep before the door was closed.

She did not see Helen the next day until time for luncheon, but when she waked up she found a book lying beside her bed. Helen had sent it over to her. It was all about the Girl Scouts, and their rules and duties and pleasures, and Rosanna found it hard work not to sit down and read instead of taking her cold bath and dressing herself. Then after breakfast came the history lesson and the music and dressing again, and when Helen, very crisp and dainty, came in ready to go to Mrs.

Hargrave's, she found that Rosanna had not had time to read a single line.

Mrs. Hargrave lived three houses away, and the children felt very important and fine, especially Helen, who had never been asked to luncheon with a grown-up lady before. Her eyes grew round when they entered the house. It was so dim and cool and "old timey" as Helen put it.

Mrs. Hargrave always dressed in the latest fas.h.i.+on for old ladies, yet somehow she always looked as though she belonged to another day and time. When she drove about the city she scorned the modern automobile.

She went in the spickest and spannest little carriage drawn by an old, sleek and still frisky roan horse with a gold mounted harness and her driver was a colored man as haughty and aristocratic looking as Mrs.

Hargrave herself; perhaps a little more so.

She advanced to meet the two little girls with a charming manner that made them curtsey their very prettiest and caused them to feel more important and grown up than ever.

During luncheon Mrs. Hargrave said:

"Will your brother return to college now that the war is over, Helen?"

Helen looked up in surprise. "I think you have me mixed up with some other little girl, Mrs. Hargrave," she said. "I have no brother."

Mrs. Hargrave stared at her guest. "Are you not Lucius Culver's youngest child?" she questioned. "The Lee County Culvers?"

"No, Mrs. Hargrave," said Helen. "I am John Culver's daughter."

"Another family," said Mrs. Hargrave and changed the subject politely by asking Rosanna what she had heard from her grandmother.

Helen sat thinking. She was a straightforward, honest little girl, and somehow she felt as though she was sailing under false colors as far as Mrs. Hargrave went. She felt sure of Rosanna; Rosanna did not care whether she was poor or rich, and it made no difference at all to her that Helen's father worked for Mrs. Horton. But some people were different, Helen reflected. Twice Mrs. Hargrave had spoken of Helen being one of the Culvers of Lee County, and Helen wondered if it would make any difference to the fine old lady sitting there in her soft, s.h.i.+mmery silks, with the long string of real pearls about her neck if she thought the little girl sitting there as her guest was living over a garage back of Mrs. Horton's elegant home. It puzzled Helen and troubled her. But try as she might, not once did the talk turn so she could bring in what she felt she wanted Mrs. Hargrave to know. It just _wouldn't_ come about.

After luncheon was over Mrs. Hargrave took the children and showed them some of the strange and curious things about the house.

Then she had a delightful suggestion to make. She herself was obliged to go down town to see her lawyer and she thought it would be very nice for the girls to come for a little ride. To Rosanna, used only to automobiles, and Helen who rode most of the time in street cars, the idea of riding along after the proud gold-harnessed, frisky old horse in the spick-and-span carriage was a treat and an adventure. Making themselves politely small and quiet, sitting on either side of Mrs.

Hargrave, they went trotting down Third Street, turned by the big white library building, and continued down Fourth Street where they eyed the crowds, read the giddy signs in front of the movie houses and looked at the window displays.

While Mrs. Hargrave talked to her lawyer, the girls sat in the carriage and pretended that they were grown-up ladies.

When Mrs. Hargrave came out, they started up Fourth Street.

"Do you know," said Mrs. Hargrave, "this is the first time in all my life that any little girls have visited me without their mothers? And I have had the _nicest_ time I think I ever had. I want to remember it always." She gave the signal to stop, and asked the children to get out.

"There is something I want to get here," she said, and led the way into a big jeweler's shop. The two girls stopped to look at the rings in the case near the door, but Mrs. Hargrave called them. "I need a notebook and pencil and I thought you would like to help me select it. I am a rather fussy and very forgetful old lady."

She did seem fussy over that notebook, but finally chose a dainty gold one with a square in the center for initials. Attached by a tiny gold chain was a slender pencil with a blue stone in the top.

Then, to their amazement, the clerk laid two others exactly like it on the counter. Three just alike!

"I think it would be nice for us all to remember our pleasant day, don't you?" asked Mrs. Hargrave, smiling. "I want to give you each one just like this one that I am getting for myself. Then we will think of each other whenever we use them."

Helen lifted Mrs. Hargrave's delicate old hand and laid it against her cheek.

"Oh, Mrs. Hargrave," she cried, "I will _never_ forget you. I don't need the notebook, but it is too lovely, and I will keep it as long as I live."

Mrs. Hargrave's eyes filled with tears. "Bless your heart!" she said.

CHAPTER X

The very next day Mrs. Hargrave was called into the country to see a sick cousin. She telephoned Minnie before she left and told her that she felt that things were going along as well as anyone could possibly expect, and that she was delighted with Rosanna and her little friend.

This message distressed Minnie for she was just about to go to see Mrs.

Hargrave.