*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65271 ***

 [Illustration: GLORIA AND TRIXY EXAMINED THE MYSTERIOUS PACKAGE.
  _Gloria at Boarding School._          _Frontispiece--(Page 38)_
 ]




  GLORIA
  AT BOARDING SCHOOL

  _By_
  LILIAN GARIS

  AUTHOR OF “GLORIA: A GIRL AND
  HER DAD,” ETC.

  ILLUSTRATED

  NEW YORK
  GROSSET & DUNLAP
  PUBLISHERS

  Made in the United States of America




  COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
  GROSSET & DUNLAP




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                PAGE

      I  MIXED BAGGAGE                      1

     II  TELLING TRIXY                     15

    III  MEET MAGGIE                       25

     IV  THE TALISMAN                      36

      V  JACK’S SUDDEN DEPARTURE           48

     VI  SMOLDERING FIRES                  57

    VII  BRONCHO BILLY                     70

   VIII  ALMOST A TRAGEDY                  81

     IX  FROM ICY WATERS                   97

      X  JACK’S STORY                     109

     XI  A NEW ANGLE                      124

    XII  A TRIBUTE                        136

   XIII  SERIOUS SCHOOL WORK              147

    XIV  BALKED AMBITION                  159

     XV  STEPPY AND THE CLUE              171

    XVI  AT THE ROOKERY TEA ROOM          186

   XVII  THE SACRIFICE                    198

  XVIII  SAY IT WITH POPCORN              210

    XIX  GEMS AND MOSS AGATE              223

     XX  THE LURE OF BOARDING SCHOOL      233




GLORIA AT BOARDING SCHOOL

CHAPTER I

MIXED BAGGAGE


The dark haired girl, sitting on the cretonne couch, chuckled.

“So this is boarding school!”

No one heard her, the little clock on the corner shelf ticked away
and never “let on,” for new girls coming to that room were no novelty
to the clock. They came and went yearly, sometimes oftener, and what
difference did it make that this one chuckled? Those who sighed, or
even those who wept, always got over it in time. No doubt the dark
haired girl would get over her rather cynical defiance of Miss Alton’s
rules for lady-like deportment. Also, she might in time learn to sit on
a chair properly.

Gloria Doane really felt defiant. Boarding school always represented
restrictions to her inexperienced reasoning, and restrictions were
never a part of her chosen schedule. A sense of freedom was necessary
to her happiness.

At her Barbend home she scarcely respected the wildest coast storm, and
often thought it a lark to help life guards shoot out their boats or
rig up a buoy. But last year Gloria was “due” to go to this exclusive
school and she had not done so. In fact, circumstances wove such a net
about her that the meshes represented a most unusual story, told in the
first volume of this series called, “Gloria: A Girl and Her Dad.” But
now the net was flattened out, stretched to dry on regulation lines,
and Gloria had emerged like a fairy mermaid, changed back to an earth
maiden, and was doing such ordinary things as going to boarding school.

All this she pondered as voices roused her and a step near her door
threatened invasion.

“Trixy!” she called lightly. The step halted.

“Did you get your trunk? It’s downstairs and you will want to change
your dress before dinner, or maybe it’s supper,” surmised Trixy
Travers, the girl from Sandford, who decided to come to Altmount
because Gloria begged her to do so. Trixy was quite as fond of freedom
as was Gloria, so, ultimately, they both decided “it wouldn’t kill them
to try it for a year.” And there they were, ready to put the test to
their resolve.

“Trunks,” murmured Gloria, indifferently. “I saw one that looked like
mine----”

“In the first hall? Get that bean pole they call Sam, to lug it up
for you before the others come in. Then we can dress in our prettiest
and flabbergast the crowd.” A pulled face, quite unlike Trixy’s usual
countenance, put a period to this threat.

“Brilliant idea. I’ll go straight for the bean pole. Just hook up that
gorgeous drapery and our rooms will constitute a suite. So glad we are
together. If you were down the hall I’d surely sit on your door mat
like a faithful poodle. I just couldn’t risk trying out this exciting
life without the protection and guidance of your wisdom. I noticed Miss
Alton herself paused in a speech as you towered over her.”

“Glo, get your duds; you’ll feel better when you are out of those dusty
things,” interrupted Trixy. “I’ll go down to that cute little room
where Miss Alton holds court, and see about a telephone to mother. She
will want to know we got here safely.”

The next item of note was the entrance of the bean pole, Sam, bearing a
shiny new trunk.

“Just here,” directed Gloria. “I suppose I can keep it in my room----”

“With a cover. Miss Alton she always likes pretty covers over trunks.”
Sam shifted the little table to give more space. “There, I guess
that’ll be all right----”

“Oh, yes; thanks.” A half dollar was pressed into his convenient hand,
and Gloria did not hide her impatience to be rid of the voluble Sam. He
went. Girls were calling for him and there might be more tips.

Quickly Gloria fell to her trunk task but it did not readily give in to
her key.

“Queer, but I suppose it’s stiff, being new,” she reasoned.

The rose colored dress, that which Jane insisted was most becoming to
Gloria’s dark hair and dark eyes, would be found in the top tray of the
new trunk, and this was to be the “irresistible gown” Trixy suggested
as a flabbergaster for the first evening’s appearance.

“There!” exclaimed Gloria, as a spring of the lock indicated
surrender. “Now I’ve got it.”

But raising the cover did not disclose the expected rose voile dress.

“Of all things!” gasped Gloria. “Whatever is--this?”

She was staring at a mass of glittering beads, or spangles, that seemed
to fill the trunk tray. Just a hint of some material very green showed
beneath the glistening surface, but whatever the article might be, it
never had belonged to the girl looking at it.

She picked up an end of the material and found it heavy with spangles.
Then she noticed an envelope pinned to an edge. Scrutinizing this she
found the word “Precious” written across it, also “with care,” was
plainly inscribed upon the little square. Realizing now that the trunk
was not hers, Gloria attempted to replace the glittering stuff, but as
she did so something red and sparkling fell from the envelope into her
hand.

“Gems!” she exclaimed, gazing spellbound at the deep red glow that
seemed to absorb all the light about it. The stone was about the size
of a small bean and was cut in facets.

Frightened lest she be found in possession of another’s valuables,
Gloria quickly dropped the end of the spangled goods back into the
trunk tray, then slipped the big, red gem into the envelope through the
corner hole it had cut its way out of. She had forgotten all about the
rose colored costume, and even that Trixy was due back to dress for the
first meeting with the girls of Altmount.

“How ever could I have mistaken that trunk?” Gloria worried. “Of
course, it’s exactly like mine, but where’s the tag?”

With the lid closed and the lock snapped back she looked closer but
found no tag to identify the strange piece of baggage.

Then, shuffling in the hall and Sam’s characteristic groaning indicated
the coming of more baggage, and quickly as the door was opened Gloria
welcomed her own special new trunk, which had been purchased amid much
discussion, for Jane, the faithful, was insistent that a new trunk be
at once beautiful and useful, a combination seemingly realized in the
black enamelled article, so easily mistaken for another. The “popular
trunk for young ladies” was, apparently, very popular at Altmount.

“Made a mistake,” wheezed Sam. “T’other girl had yourn. Jest a mite
more work, but that’s all right,” hinted the hopeful handy man.

“I’m in such a hurry,” retorted Gloria meaningly.

“Oh, yes, of course. But ’t warn’t my fault exactly.”

“That’s perfectly all right. See, here’s my name on this trunk. I
hadn’t noticed the other.”

“They’re all the same to me,” chuckled Sam, shuffling off without
further reward.

When Trixy returned, Gloria was already aglow in her rose colored gown.

“Lovely!” pronounced the admiring Trixy. “If we don’t make an
impression to-night it won’t be the fault of clothes. Just look at
this. Isn’t it stunning?”

“Perfectly. Trix, you have such a modish way about you----”

“Oh, I don’t know. You are no dowdy yourself. You always look to me
like Molly Dawn, or Betty Bangle, or some other quaint character, bound
to smile and look darling.” An affectionate little squeeze illustrated
this compliment, and presently both girls were being introduced to
their fellow students. Gloria in rose color that heightened her
sparkling dark beauty, and Trixy in French blue that beckoned the
glints of her eyes.

It was a small school and boasted of the fact. Also, that its clientele
would stand the “Social test,” whatever that uncertain measure is
supposed to be, was conspicuously stated in the prospectus.

Gloria was secretly happy to be sponsored by the impressive Trixy. As a
matter of fact, no one could doubt the latter’s standing. She was tall,
a mellow blonde, the type softened with a tawny brown glow, and her
mannerisms! It must have taken generations, thought Gloria humbly, to
develop that smooth, irresistible ease and languid indifference toward
irritating trifles.

But as a type Gloria, herself, was decidedly more pronounced. She was
dark, with eyes that seemed to shoot sparks, with one dimple that
always apologized for any pout the rather boyish mouth might affect,
and withal Gloria had an air of independence sometimes mistaken for
defiance.

As various as the characters they represented were the forms of
greetings offered the new girls by those familiar with Altmount. Some
“gushed,” impulsively generous in their squeezing handshakes and
ebullient chatter, others were “stand off,” formal and “frozen,” as
Gloria secretly classed the most conservative.

Pat Halliday explained her name as coming from the same Greek word
Harriet was taken from.

“Only Patricia is so much nicer and Pat is perfectly jolly,” declared
the Grecian descendant. “I should abhor Harriet; though Harry isn’t so
bad.”

Gloria quickly found interest in Pat. She was almost red headed and
almost blue eyed, losing out by a mere shade in each instance. She
talked a lot and laughed a lot, but plainly was no poser. Taking a
place beside Gloria at table, Pat kept up a running fire of talk that
saved the new girl from any possible self consciousness. At another
table Trixy was trying to be pleasant with a girl of very different
personality. She (the other girl) raised her eyebrows instead of
uttering replies, she shrugged her shoulders haughtily and seemed
insipidly affected.

“The girl without a smile,” Gloria was promptly dubbing the ashen
blonde. Trixy, sitting near enough, was flashing secret messages back
to Gloria agreeing with the above. She was not having a very good time
with the smileless girl, that was obvious.

Miss Alton sat at the head of the table, radiating good will. It was so
important that her girls all become acquainted auspiciously. Although a
small school, Altmount claimed the distinction of “finishing,” so that
a sprinkling of high school graduates, and a few who failed to win the
honor, were to be found among those present.

Both Trixy and Gloria were covertly taking notice of as many girls
as politeness afforded glances at. There was, of course, a bevy of
“Gabbies” who scarcely paused to swallow, also, like the girl without
a smile, there were those who held off, looked important and posed for
impressions. This might have been their honest prerogative, but somehow
it seemed to natural, naïve Gloria, a bit affected.

“I do hope you’ll like it,” bubbled Pat. “We need a few good sports and
I’m sure you’re one. There’s room for more fun here if we only have the
workers.”

“I like fun,” admitted Gloria. “And yes, I guess I am used to it.” Her
brown eyes sent out a sparkling guarantee.

After tea the girls paired off and strolled about the grounds. Pat
“grabbed” Gloria, and both being of the younger set their romping went
unscrutinized. Trixy, the imperturbable, seemed determined to provoke
something like a smile from the reserved Mary Mears, but her good
natured and tactful attempts were far from being successful. Mary Mears
was wise, any one could see that. Her experience stood out like a wall,
neither to be climbed over nor broken through. She was pretty but her
skin betrayed traces of the applied arts, while her really wonderful
violet eyes worked like magnetos. All this attracted Trixy. Any one so
totally different offered her a working problem, something to find out,
to analyze and, mayhap, to conquer.

The September evening was quickening into shadows when the students
turned back to the broad verandahs and cozy porch corners.

“Hear that?” Pat asked Gloria. “That’s Jack Corday. She never stops
talking and never says a sensible thing. Flashy,” criticised the jolly
one. “Just notice her get up. But she’s a dear.”

It was impossible not to notice it. The girl called Jack (Gloria later
heard Miss Alton give her Jacquinot) did talk incessantly in a voice
that intruded everywhere, and as she promenaded up and down, dragging
along a timid new girl called Ethel, the “get up” Pat mentioned was
equally intrusive. A glaring, tiger-lily red baronet skirt, a black
silk sweater and colorful bobbed hair. Dangling from her neck was a
string of varied colored wooden beads with which she toyed constantly.

The string of beads reminded Gloria of the mistaken trunk.

“Is she a--stranger?” she asked Pat.

“Somewhat. That is, she comes and goes. I wonder Miss Alton admits her.
Jack never settles down to anything serious. She makes me think of a
big butterfly.”

“The black and yellow kind.”

“Uh-huh!” conceded Pat.

A call to the opening chorus within the assembly room was reluctantly
obeyed. “Hail, Altmount,” composed by a brilliant but unpopular girl
of the graduating class two years back, was murmured, mumbled and
otherwise abused. The faculty chimed in with more enthusiasm than
voice, and eventually the wail ended.

“Oh, let’s sing the regular college songs,” proposed Jack, slamming a
yellow book on the piano rack in front of demure Miss Taylor.

But the majority of the girls, the great majority, deserted, and left
few with Jack and timid Ethel to “try” the regular college songs. No
one seemed to have a voice or there was something seriously wrong with
the tunes, for one after the other they were “tried,” until the long
suffering Miss Taylor proposed a truce.

“Jack doesn’t seem to be very popular,” ventured Gloria to the giggling
Pat, when the trials were all over.

“She isn’t exactly, but somehow she seems to love opposition. I don’t
know her well. This is only my second term, I came last Spring, but
Jack Corday could climb a flag pole if she wanted to. She’s a wiz at
gym, but books! She has about as much use for a book as an Indian has,”
declared the accommodating Pat. “Just the same I love her.”

“My friend Trixy seems to have struck an iceberg,” further commented
Gloria. The “iceberg” being the ashen blonde called Mary Mears.

“Oh, I don’t know her, she’s new,” replied Pat. “But even icebergs
melt finally. She’s rather pretty, isn’t she?”

“Rather,” agreed Gloria just as Trixy joined her group on the corner
bench.




CHAPTER II

TELLING TRIXY


By the merest chance Gloria did not tell Trixy of the trunk incident.
Not that she had any intention of keeping from her friend such an
interesting possibility, but because--well, each time she thought of
it something intervened, until after days and then more than a week
passed, the tale seemed too stale to be revived.

Pat proved delightfully amusing, Mary Mears was mysterious and
Jacquinot Corday so spectacular that the first month at Altmount went
by without a dull day or even a lonely night for Gloria.

Trixy Travers was at the finishing school chiefly because Gloria Doane
had inveigled her into coming. As the fashionable and popular girl at
Sandford, where her father was an important manufacturer, Trixy had
enjoyed good times unlimited, but as Gloria was due to attend boarding
school and she reasonably decided there would be much more security
from either boredom or loneliness with Trixy to lean upon.

Few letters and fewer home visits were advised by this, as by most
boarding schools, during the students’ first month or two, so that
those away from home for the first time might more promptly become
inured to their new surroundings; so it happened Gloria had only
received and written two letters from and to Jane. Now, Jane, the
faithful, had for years stood sponsor for Gloria, whose mother had
died when Gloria was but a tiny child. Jane kept house at Barbend,
the original home of Gloria and her father, and when the young girl
came into Sandford to remain with her Aunt Harriet while her father
took a foreign commission from his firm, Jane Morgan went to visit her
own sister, she who had so many children that the snapshot pictures
frequently sent Jane were apt to be misleading in personalities. They
all looked alike and seemed too many for the camera.

Mr. Doane, Gloria’s father, had returned from abroad during the
previous late winter, only to enter upon a longer trip to the
Philippines. His homecoming the Christmas before added the final happy
chapter to Gloria’s adventure as a real estate expert, for with Mr.
Doane had come the young engineer, Sherry Graves, whose venture in
Echo Park proved disastrous, ruined his hopes, and all but sent him
adrift in despair. Then, the natural enemy of the pretty little park,
an underground river vein, was accidentally discovered by Gloria and
promptly turned into a harmless course by Sherry and his friend, Ben
Hardy.

The result was a boomerang credited to Gloria. These home conditions
explain the dearth of letters coming or not coming to her just now, at
the new boarding school.

There had been one, however, from her father, remailed at San
Francisco, and also a characteristic scrawl from Tommy Whitely, her
childhood friend at Barbend. Aunt Harriet had written, of course,
telling of her daughter Hazel’s wonderful progress in voice culture.
Hazel had spent the previous year at Altmount, while Gloria submitted
meekly to a confused, if not unjust plan, of giving this preference to
the “artistic cousin.”

Trixy’s letters were not quite so restricted, as she was in the
finishing class. Among the most interesting was one from Sherry, who
told of a “perfectly thrilling plan” for the further development of
Gloria’s Echo Park.

“You’ll be rich, Glo, if Sherry keeps on. He writes of perfectly fairy
like castles on your property.”

“I don’t want to be rich,” replied Gloria evenly, “but I am glad that
the poor mason and his family, the one who at first lost so much in the
work there, are finally made happy and comfortable. Of course it was
Ben’s genius in engineering that did it all.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” drawled Trixy. “It was rather queer the genius
couldn’t find that sneaky little river vein, that almost turned the
pretty park on end. A mere girl, one Gloria Doane, managed that.”

The two chums were spending the evening in their connecting rooms,
discussing the home news. A letter to Trixy received on the late mail
added zest to the discussion.

“Really, how do you like it here, Glo?” asked Trixy. She shot her feet
out in front of her with the question, and kicked over a useless little
stool in the process.

“Much better than I expected,” admitted Gloria. “Pat’s always so
jolly, then there’s the haughty Mary Mears and the breezy Jack Corday
for variety. Who could complain with all that?”

“Isn’t Pat a lark? She just bubbles over everything and, as the
boys say, gets away with it,” replied Trixy. “But Mary really seems
mysterious. I haven’t been able to pry open the reserve crust. Yet, it
doesn’t seem at all natural to me.”

“How about Jack?”

“The human pinwheel?”

“Pat says she is just about that.”

“How?”

“A wiz at gym.”

“Oh. Perhaps that accounts for her circus clothes.”

“That reminds me, Trixy. I have been wanting to tell you so often----”

“Whew! Sounds guilty!”

“Not quite. But I really have wanted to tell you,” floundered Gloria.

“Go ahead!”

“Then please listen.”

“All ears.”

Gloria tossed her head up defiantly. “One doesn’t peg confidences at
another’s head,” she pouted.

“Now, Glo, darling,” cooed Trixy. “I does truly want to hear. Be a lamb
and tell me.”

Settling anew Gloria began:

“It’s about trunks----”

“The portable, or athletic?”

“Now, Trixy!”

“But you do offer such bait for little fishes, pet, I just can’t
resist. I had trunks on my mind. The basket ball squad is considering
something like them to pad out for rough play. But tell me, like a pet,
what about your trunks?”

Trixy was irresistible. She wore the simple uniform of Altmount, the
white shirtwaist and dark blue skirt used by the older girls, and
its very simplicity set off more effectively her almost faultless
personality. With an arm around the pouting Gloria, and lips in close
proximity to a left ear, she again cooed her request for the secret.

Gloria’s own lips lost their pout in a real surrendering smile, as she
again attempted the tale.

“You see, that afternoon we came here there was so much confusion with
baggage and so little time to dress----”

“And I warned you to fix up your finest.”

“Exactly. Well, I tackled, what I took for my own new, shiny, black
trunk, and found it too hard to unlock----”

“You called in the Bean Pole?”

“No. I struggled and conquered.”

“Being you, you would.”

“But when the lid finally decided to come up I found the belongings
within not mine.”

“Oh!” Trixy fell back a little and waited. Her exclamation was merely a
polite acquiescence.

“Yes,” continued Gloria, “the top of that trunk was covered if not
filled with the queerest materials----”

“Oh! Whoozy-boozy! How mysterious! No skeletons?”

“Quite the opposite. A perfect glitter of gems----”

“Gloria Doane! And you have never told me we are harboring a pirate’s
daughter! Gems!”

“At least they looked like gems,” went on the imperturbable Gloria.
“Of course, I was all a-flutter and couldn’t possibly inspect,” (this
with an air of real importance) “but I did manage to lay hold of an
envelope.”

“Glo! An envelope! With the pirate’s address!”

“Are they so careless as to leave addresses lying around loose like
that? I thought they always used secret codes, made with pieces of
string and rusty nails scattered in a long, long trail.”

“Of course. How stupid of me. The envelope was full of rusty spikes.”

Gloria twisted herself away with an air of finality until Trixy seized
her. “Go ahead,” she implored. “Go right straight ahead. This suspense
is killing me. What was the glitter and what did the envelope say about
the secret?”

“You know, Trix, I really was a bit scared. You were off gallivanting,
and there I was all alone, with a strange trunk full of mysteriously
glittering stuff. How did I know who might rush in and accuse me.”

“Exactly! How did you know?” Trixy’s banter now toned down to real
interest. “The envelope, dear, what about that?”

“I had begun to realize I was trespassing, you know, and I just glanced
at the envelope. On it was written the word ‘Precious.’”

“Precious?”

“Yes. That and ‘With Care.’ But just as I attempted to put it back, I
had taken it in my hands of course, just as I went to put it back, a
stone fell out.”

“A gem?”

“It looked like one. A great red garnet or some sort of stone that
seemed bursting with imprisoned glow.”

“How perfectly wonderful!”

“Yes, honestly, Trix, it made me creepy. I got the fire-drop back in
that envelope as quickly as I could, you can believe me. It made me
think of an animal’s eye, not a serpent’s eye, they’re green, but the
eye of some sneaky little beast----”

“Beastie, Glo. You must call the small ones, beasties. But you are so,
so graphic, you give me the shivers. Are you sure there are none of the
beasties crawling around here now?”

“But I haven’t told you about the spangly things,” persisted Gloria,
ignoring the frivolity. “They didn’t seem to be on gowns. I couldn’t,
in the moment, make out what the article was. All I saw was glitter and
sparkle.”

“What color was it?”

“Many colors, I thought; but red shone through. You see, Sam came back
just as I got the trunk shut. I wouldn’t want to have been discovered
snooping into another girl’s stuff,” declared Gloria.

“But whom could it have belonged to?”

“That’s an interesting question, don’t you think so? Just imagine what
sort of girl would bring that here?”

“Exactly. But you watch little Trixy solve the mystery of the trunk
full of gems!”

“I’m quite willing to,” agreed Gloria, with a weary little sigh.




CHAPTER III

MEET MAGGIE


Two days later Maggie, who swept rooms and talked a lot, also counted
hairpins, picked from the dust, and bewailed her own constant loss
insinuating a present need, this Maggie, with a season’s new broom and
last year’s dust pan, a basket of dusters, brushes, and in the bottom
such articles as the girls donated on her rounds, well, anyhow, she
came in to clear up Gloria’s room.

“This bein’ a double,” analyzed Maggie, “I’ll have to have it free.”

“Free?” repeated Gloria.

“Yes. I could do it whilst you’re in class, but I like to keep these
new curtains well shook and that makes considerable flare around. Ain’t
they pretty?”

“Very.”

“Then, jest pick up your precious stuff, I allus calls the little
things precious, and whilst you’re out this afternoon--you will be out?”

“Yes.”

“Whilst you’re both out I clean. I allus thinks this is the prettiest
‘sweet’ in the house. Ain’t it now?”

Gloria was hurrying before the wavering broom. Her “precious stuff”
would be easily gathered and then she might escape from Maggie’s gossip.

“About the hairpins now, where shall I put them?”

“Oh, keep them,” smiled Gloria. “You see I never use any.”

“That’s so. Ain’t I stupid. Since the bobbs came in it seems to me that
hairpins is harder to get. Stores even, don’t allus carry them.” She
retrieved a brown lock of hair that was trying to get down her back.
“And my hair’s such a nuisance. You don’t wear nets either?”

“No.”

“What a comfort. I’ll put any baby pins and such right--where should I
put them?”

“You won’t be apt to find any,” said Gloria, wondering what next Maggie
might hint for.

“Well, I’m honest as the sun, Miss Alton says, and what’s on the
floor goes on the bureau, every time.” The basket and contents were
inadvertently tipped over just then, and Maggie dove after the things
that flew.

“There, ain’t that a pretty waist? Miss Davis, she’s the rich girl
that has number ten, she’s been here, land know how long, and I asked
her yesterday if this was her last year and she didn’t know. She’s the
loveliest girl, and so good-natured. I jest said I loved blue and she
gave me the waist. I think it’ll fit me.” It was held aloft midway
between chin and waistline, and Gloria said it looked all right.

Then she escaped.

And Maggie ostensibly swept the room, aired the pillows and shook the
curtains. Trixy’s room had an unusually large mirror hung from the
wall, between two windows, and whether Maggie posed in borrowed finery
or merely spent time in profitable meditation, is not relevant, for it
was her own time as well as her own work, and Maggie managed to finish
on schedule in spite of all interruptions.

When Gloria ventured back, after first peeking in from behind Trixy’s
curtains, she found things nicely slicked up.

“Good old Maggie!” she thought. “I am sure she is quite as honest as
she claims to be.”

Addressing the well dusted bureau with a few more appropriate remarks,
Gloria’s gaze fell upon a strange object.

“What’s this?” she asked aloud, for a small, glittering, bead-like
stone instantly recalled the other. That one she had replaced in the
torn envelope and put back in the strange trunk.

“A gem! A real garnet--or ruby----”

There was no question as to where it came from. Maggie had found it
upon the floor, perhaps under the edge of the rug, and it must have
fallen there from the envelope marked “Precious.”

Gloria turned the stone over on her open palm. She knew little of
precious stones, but she easily guessed that this was valuable.

“What shall I do with it?”

The thought that its owner would resent her knowledge of so secret an
affair as the opening of a trunk, and the handling of its contents, was
disturbing.

“Oh, bother!” complained Gloria. “What am I going to do about a thing
like this, anyway?”

Trixy’s return was welcomed. And the discovered treasure promptly and
adequately discussed.

“Suppose you keep it for a day or two----”

“No indeed,” objected Gloria. “I have no wish to be throttled by the
pirate’s daughter.”

“But it has been here for days----”

“That’s why my head ached. This thing is charmed. Maybe a drop of some
one’s blood is sealed within the crystal,” she flippantly suggested,
turning the stone over and over, smiling fondly upon it and otherwise
showing neither fear nor distaste for the frozen “drop of blood.”

“I think it’s a garnet,” suggested Trixy.

“Why should a boarding school girl want to lug such stuff around with
her?”

“Why?” repeated Trixy. “No custom officers to dodge.”

“But in that trunk! And not even in a strong little box,” argued Gloria.

“Some girls are careless. Also some grown ups. You know how very often
real diamonds are hidden in old shoes and retrieved by honest cobblers,
who become socialists after receiving the dollar ninety-eight cents
reward,” philosophised Trixy. “Still, the girl who dropped them in her
trunk must have been in an awful hurry.”

“But why hasn’t the owner advertised on the bulletin?” reasoned Gloria
further.

“It is queer. Do you suppose Maggie knows----”

“That’s so. I’ll have to give Maggie something.”

“Better thank her for finding your bead and give her ten cents,”
suggested the practical Trixy. “Otherwise, you may not be able to make
a satisfactory accounting. Don’t let her suspect what you suspect.”

“A good idea. Listen! I hear her plaintive voice. Let’s have done with
it. Lend me exactly a dime.”

“First, put the pirate’s treasure in my jewel box. I’ll be responsible
for it and defy its evil eye--until you find the owner,” agreed Trixy
affably. Gloria borrowed the dime and thrust it upon the inarticulate
Maggie. Money, it seemed, always surprised her into speechlessness.

“And now,” decided Gloria, “I’ll take the ‘evil eye’ down to the
office----”

“Suppose it is a real secret, that the owner has some worthy motive in
hiding it.”

“Trix, you’re a regular Portia. I do hope you decide to study law. How
would you suggest I get rid of the thing?”

“Post a notice, asking the loser of a small red stone to call at this
room. We might excite less comment if we said ‘trinket’ instead of
‘stone.’”

“And have every one who lost a hair net, a hairpin, or a barrette,
calling,” objected Gloria.

“That’s so. But Maggie may see the notice and recognize her find.”

“She won’t have time to read bulletins today.”

“No, I suppose not. Then just write a simple, unsuspicious notice, and
say small red stone.”

“Peachy!” exclaimed Gloria. “Then we’ll have a chance to learn who
really is the Pirate’s Daughter.”

Trixy wrapped the vagrant stone in a piece of tissue paper and then
in a piece of tin foil from her film package, meanwhile moaning weird
incantations. Then, after waving it in the air to break the spell, she
very gingerly dropped the paper and tin foil packet into her little
jewel case.

Gloria wrote the “found notice” with directions for reclaiming the “red
stone” and was off instantly to post it upon the bulletin.

“Thir-rill-ling!” she chanted. “Suppose it’s Pat’s!”

“Or Jack’s?”

“Or just a red bead from the ten cent store?”

“I’d like to get a couple of dozen,” declared Trixy.

“Well, here’s for the bill board. Better watch out. Some one might
kidnap me.”

With a parting laugh Gloria raced off and it seemed she was back, out
of breath, and out of speech, before Trixy could close the drawer on
the jewel box.

“I feel like a thief!” she gasped. “Isn’t it horrid to find a thing so
long after?”

“As if you had been waiting for an offered reward?” laughed Trixy. “We
aren’t likely to be suspected of anything like that, so don’t worry,
lamb. I’m just all a-quiver of anticipation.”

But after lunch the little note was missing from its hook on the
bulletin and in its place was found a message sealed and addressed to
“Finder.” The girls read it in their own room behind closed doors.

The note read: “Please drop into old brass vase on teakwood stand in
alcove of west sitting room.” That was all.

“Oh,” moaned Gloria, in disappointment. “Not even to say drop what.”

“How perfectly mean,” growled Trixy.

“Suppose we don’t. We might say that it ‘must be called for,’”
suggested Gloria.

“But then,” mused Trixy, “there may be a real reason.”

“Again, noble Portia, I salute thee,” mocked Gloria. “In other words,
just as you say. But I’d hate to be fooled again. That old trunk seems
destined to add to my misery. Not that there’s much more room for
addition,” (another groan and wild, agonizing rolling of eyes) “but I
suppose we may as well drop the ‘jool’ in the vaase.”

“May as better,” amended Trixy.

“You do it and I’ll watch.”

“Foxy. Suppose some of the eagles see you. How do we know this isn’t
sort of an initiation?”

“We don’t. I never thought of that, little Brightness. As you say, we
had better follow directions, and not be compelled to wear our waists
inside out, or parade two different colored stockings. Here, give me
the pesky thing. I’ll hie me to the dump with it and so cast off the
spell.”

Almost as quickly as she had posted the letter did she “dump the thing
and beat it,” in her own inelegant language. She now stood before Trixy
making foolish faces.

“Ugh!” she exclaimed, brushing her hands to shed the imagined
pollution, “now it’s all over. And we’ve lost trace of the Pirate’s
Daughter.”

“There’s no telling,” presaged Trixy. “She may remember you in her
will.”

“And again she may not. Well, may all our ill health go with it, as
dear old Jane would say. Trixy, when do we go out to see our anxious
friends?” (This meant the home folks.)

“I dunno. But let’s stick it out for a while and then, when we do take
a little trip to Sandford, we won’t feel like a couple of hookey kids.
Not that I wouldn’t love to see my mommer right now----”

“And my--da-da!”

Reflection brought gloom. Forgotten was the frozen blood stone and the
old brass vase. Two girls sat glum, with heads down and knees up, with
chins pushed up into pouting lips, and naught but an occasional groan
or grunt giving sign of articulation.

“I dunno,” said Gloria finally. “But there’s Pat! Mum’s the word,
dearie, about the pirate’s watch guard or collar button or--paper
weight. Don’t let us whisper----”

“Not a whisper,” agreed Trixy.

So Pat never knew what she had missed, and didn’t even guess that she
had missed anything.




CHAPTER IV

THE TALISMAN


“What was that?”

“What?”

“I heard something. I felt the door open.”

“You’re dreaming. It isn’t daylight yet. Turn over and try the other
side.”

“Honest, Trixy,” Gloria raised her voice a trifle, “I did hear
something. I am going to get up and look around.”

She did. It was daylight but not yet very bright, as the late fall
morning was tardy in asserting itself.

“The door is open!” exclaimed Gloria. “I am sure I shut it.”

“I have always told you to lock it,” Trixy reminded her.

“But I hate bolted doors. They make me feel I’m being locked in a
jail.” Gloria shut the door almost noiselessly, and then turned on the
light.

“Nothing missing, that I can see----”

“Then, please, go back to bed,” begged Trixy from the other side of the
curtains. “I do hate to lose the last half hour.”

“Sorry,” Gloria went to the window and looked out at the early lights
and shadows. Then she quietly stole back to turn off the light that
hung over her dresser.

As she raised her hand her eye fell upon a strange object. There was
something, a small, white paper packet on the pin tray.

“Trix!” she exclaimed excitedly. “There’s something here----”

“What?”

“Get up. Let’s look. It has been slipped in the door and left on the
tray.”

There was no mistaking the seriousness of her voice. Gloria meant what
she was saying, so Trixy tumbled out of bed and joined her before the
dresser.

“It’s heavy,” she said.

“Open it. You’re not afraid of it?”

“Of course not, but I am surprised. I hope it’s no more blood
stones----”

“Just that. From the Pirate’s Daughter, I’ll bet! Hurry and let’s see!
I’m quivering with----”

“Come over on the bed and spread out something,” suggested Gloria. “I
don’t want the jools to roll under the rug this time.”

They both sat under a carefully spread pink coverlet, and then, very
gingerly, Gloria opened the little package.

“Maybe some trick,” she guessed, still delaying inspection. “I hate to
spoil our fun by finding some pop-corn, maybe.”

“Oh, do give it to me,” begged Trixy impatiently. “If it’s pop-corn I’m
not going to waste any more time over it.”

“A’w right,” agreed Gloria affably. “Half the responsibility is yours,
don’t forget that.”

The white tissue paper was carefully unfolded, and then there was
disclosed a little necklace, made of some dark, queer beads.

“Oh-oo-ho!” squealed Gloria. “More queer stones! And look! Here’s a
note!”

Eagerly scanning what was written in back-hand on a piece of plain
white note paper, the girls found this:

  “TO GLORIA: I beg you to accept this trinket. That which was
   found was very precious to me. Won’t you be generous enough to accept
   this without question?
                               IN COG.”

They read it again. Gloria coiled the necklace around on the palm of
her hand until it looked like a little black snake. Then she gave it to
Trixy.

Held up to the light Trixy thought it looked like agate. Her father,
she said, had a ring, his grandfather gave every boy in the family a
moss agate stone each cut from the parent specimen, and this little
necklace had one stone at least that looked like agate.

“But these,” pointed out Gloria, “they just look like Egyptian beads
I bought at our fair. Don’t you know those you always liked? Black
pearls, or some imitation?”

“But these are each different?”

“Yes. Sort of home-made affair. Who ever could have wished it on me?”

Both girls sat there thinking. Each turned her head, this way and
that, cocking ears up as if some myth in the air might explain the
mystery, the necklace was passed back and forth automatically, but
neither offered to try it on. It was about big enough to slip over the
head, and the more they scrutinized it the better they liked it.

“It’s so odd,” conceded Gloria.

“Not as odd as its circumstances,” said Trixy. “Why in the world would
a girl want to be so mysterious? Seems to me sort of sensational.”

“And so wounds your social soul,” teased Gloria. “Never mind, dearie,
when I drag in the Pirate’s Daughter from her den, it may be in the
attic here, you know, and when I tame her so that she’ll eat out of my
hands, I fix it up to include you in our trip to her father’s cave. He
must be richer than old Captain Kidd to raise such a crop of gems or
illuminated spangles, as I glimpsed in that trunk. Now, why couldn’t In
Cog have sent me a little jewelled apron or a bedizened girdle to wear
to the dingus? You know we are invited?”

“Yes.” The “dingus” or regular social affair exclusively for the pupils
of Altmount, did not, at the moment, offer distraction.

“It seems to me we ought to detect a queer girl, easily. She is
queer, of course, or she couldn’t think this way. She had to follow
her own line of reasoning, and you’ve got to admit that’s queer,” said
Trixy, philosophically. “Therefore she must be queer. Now, who is the
queerest?”

“Impossible to select,” joked Gloria, “they’re all so queer. Pat’s
funny, Jack’s funny, Jean’s snippy, little Helen is just the kind of
girl to get an awful crush on one. She goes about with her eyes and
mouth at half mast, ready to weep or laugh at the crack of a whip; but
even at that she’d never have sense enough to plan all this. Well,
Ixy-love, you may wear my jools whenever thou wisheth, and be sure to
note the effect. They may give you chills or you might get a fever, or
even that black, squarish little stone may exert a beneficent influence
on the snippy Jean and make her perlite, for once in her sour life,”
Gloria’s manner is not transferable to words but it was flippantly
funny. “Perhaps we better start a new diary, the diary of the hoodooed
necklace,” she suggested, and would have turned a somersault right then
and there, had not Trixy grabbed her left leg ‘on the wing.’

“And I guess we may as well crawl out and get into a shower,” she
continued, “before the infants rub their sleepy little eyes into the
early sunlight. Though it looks like rain. I couldn’t say anything
pretty without sunlight. There’s the seven-thirty bell. Would you ever
believe it was more than five A. M.?”

The necklace lay on the pink coverlet while the two girls locked arms
and swung back and forth like a pair of solemn Arabs. Anent nothing,
they embraced always in that fashion, and the signal to halt was
usually the realization of urgent duty. It was now time to dress.

“Scrum-bunctuous, anyhow,” decided Gloria. “Just think of all that’s
happened a-ready. I cracked open a trunk, had a precious stone hid
under my rug for nearly a month, returned it by way of a moldy old
vase, got a note from an In Cog and was the recipient of a coal miner’s
souvenir, the last strike settlement maybe; all this and nothing more
at Altmount, quoth the raven. Never-more! There! When it’s first worn
by either of us I fully expect a sensation.”

“Why don’t you put it right on and go down to breakfast? If a girl
should notice it you might have just cause for suspicion.”

“You put it on, if you want to,” retorted Gloria. “This isn’t my
day for necklaces. I have already decided to wear the ugly and
uncomfortable sailor’s noose, prescribed.”

But all the day and for sometime thereafter both girls were ever on the
alert to detect a clue to the original owner of the little talisman.
Many strings of beads were significantly fingered and admired, but
without provoking a tell-tale flush of admission, and as often as the
opportunity could be made, Gloria or Trixy talked about foreign stones,
especially dark ones with little light streaks running through. But at
the end of a week both girls were forced to admit “no progress.”

“Tell you what we’ll do,” proposed Gloria. “Just let’s forget it. Put
it away and wait. Some day the culprit will betray herself. Then, if
we are not parties to some dark plot that includes hiding the queen’s
jools, we’ll be lucky kids.”

“Just as you say,” agreed Trixy. “But don’t forget to-night is the
night we are supposed to celebrate. I hope you can express a note of
interest in this here Altmount without straining your conscience.
Me--I’m beginning to like it.”

“It is picking up,” admitted Gloria. Both were assuming facetiousness.

There was, however, plenty of interest, “without straining consciences”
at the dance. The fine old assembly room was gay with colors of many
classes no longer otherwise represented, there was a very creditable
orchestra composed of seniors and girls in the finishing classes, but
more than these mere details, the personalities of all those present
came out for the “acid test” according to Trixy.

Friends paired off, and groups assembled. Pretty gowns were praised
with wordless glances of approval, new dances were demonstrated and
various local peculiarities shown, even Pat declaring that the new
position was quite like the “old fashioned way her mother had always
insisted was the only correct way,” and so on passed a happy evening,
at the boy-less dance, after which, like the spreading of a map, the
personalities of students stood revealed.

No silly stunts nor traditional initiations were countenanced at
Altmount, not since that rather disastrous event, still talked of, but
no longer risked. It was the night one girl got locked in a closet and
another climbed from the third floor window on a rope of bed sheets.
Both were “laid up for repairs,” and a stringent rule against all rough
play or initiations was the outcome.

But there were even now some secret affairs held in junior or soph
quarters, usually followed the next day by pronounced fits of
absentmindedness in class. Neither Gloria nor Trixy had been invited
to any of these. First years usually were not, quite contrary to the
regulation college customs.

“That’s because they want a chance to find out Who’s Who before taking
one into their exclusive circles, I suppose,” Gloria remarked to Trixy,
after listening for the best part of an hour to a report given by
Janice. She had been asked by Jean’s contingent. She had the advantage
of belonging to a family whose ancestral trees were knotted by colonial
ties.

“But so far as I could gather,” scoffed Gloria, “it was an amateur
fudge party, and the fudge got badly scorched, so I guess we didn’t
miss much.”

“And, whereas it is against the rules to light little stoves in rooms,
and the perpetrators are apt to be censured, I guess we are well out
of it,” also scoffed Trixy.

“But they have to break rules, that’s the main idea,” Gloria explained.
“Yet, it must have been pathetic to see the dear things trying to get
fun out of the wicked pastime of making fudge on pin trays. I’d love to
have had a view from a convenient distance.”

“We’ll see if we can’t hire the real kitchen, some evening,” suggested
Trixy. “We’ll ask the faculty, invite them, I mean.”

“And all the kitchen staff,” added Gloria. “That would be fun. And the
fudge will run a far greater chance of being fit to eat.”

This was held to be a brilliant idea and worth working out. So it
happened that the domestic science class took on a new group of pupils
unawares, and not only did Gloria and Trixy hold a fudge party in
the kitchen a few afternoons later, as their part in the new year’s
activity but the idea spread, until pop-corn drills and taffy pulls
in the kitchen became almost common. Then it was that entertaining
afterwards, in rooms, while despoiled of the precious rule breaking,
offered real opportunities, and as a hostess Trixy became decidedly
popular, while Gloria and Pat achieved marked success as floaters.

But such ordinary school happenings were mere calendar incidents, and
like the calendar, interesting only to those who mark the days.




CHAPTER V

JACK’S SUDDEN DEPARTURE


It was Pat who spread the news. A messenger boy had come late in the
night with a telegram for Jack, and now, today, the day after the night
alarm, Jack was gone!

“Some one sick or a sudden death?” hazarded Gloria. It was about time
for a class and the conversation was necessarily snatchy.

“Jack doesn’t seem to have folks, at least, no one comes to see her,”
explained the entertaining Pat, catching her blue barrette in a clump of
hair much beyond its capacity.

“We’ll miss her,” spoke up Trixy. “I like Jack; she’s a positive cure
for the blues.”

“Isn’t she? Jack is a lark, even if she does dress like--a fire sale.”

Gloria didn’t smile. Pat should not be encouraged in such criticism,
especially now that Jack was gone and could not defend herself.

But after the morning classes and just before lunch, it was impossible
for either Gloria or Trixy not to overhear a little stronger criticism
than Pat’s harmless remark was intended to convey.

A group of girls behind a screen in the lavatory were even more
critical and less considerate.

“Did you hear the row?” asked one.

“Did I? Thought the house was afire,” from another.

“Such a voice! That woman must be a perfect tyrant. The way she shouted
at poor Alty.”

Gloria coughed loudly and meaningly, but the girls in the wash room
rattled on.

“Couldn’t a’been her mother?”

“No--a Steppy, Jack calls her.”

“But why drag her away like that? In the middle of the night.”

“Family affairs,” tittered a new voice. “Wasn’t it dramatic?”

“Can’t say I think so, in an open hall and at midnight,” some one
grumbled.

“But she wired first.”

“She should have sent the fire department first. Poor Alty was almost
choked with indignation.”

Trixy slammed down the shoes she was attempting to clean, but her
warning was altogether misinterpreted, for Jean Engle popped from
behind the screen and claimed both Trixy and Gloria as additional
debaters.

“We’re just talking about poor Jack,” gurgled Jean. “Isn’t it
a shame she had to go away? She must perfectly dread her old
‘Steppy’--stepmother, and now she’s dragged her off again.” An
uncertain sigh ended the pretended sympathy.

“Too bad she isn’t long distance eared,” joked Trixy, with a shade of
subtility. “I’m sure she would be flattered with such championship.”

“I don’t care,” persisted Jean, not to be quelled in her efforts at a
little excitement. “Jack never gets a chance to become interested in
her work, and I suppose if she flunks at exams there’ll be no more
mercy shown her than----”

“Hear! Hear!” broke in Arline Spragg. “Can any one imagine our Jean
casting such precious bread upon the waters----”

Arline paused. A step outside gave warning and all eyes turned toward
the opening curtains that divided the “lav” from a small rest room.
Mary Mears’ form was now framed in the shadow. Her face was white, her
deep set, violet eyes seemed almost black, and there was no mistaking
her whole attitude as one of consternation.

Trixy was the first to find speech.

“Hello, Mary,” she said quite casually. “We are enjoying the most
popular indoor sport, backbiting.”

“Yes!” Eyebrows lifted and shoulders shrugged.

“You know poor Jack is gone,” chimed in Jean Engle. “Dragged away in
the night by a horrid Steppy----”

“Steppy!”

“Uh-huh. That’s what Jack calls her. We’ve never, any of us, seen her,
but have all heard her. She’s that sort, vulgarly noisy----”

Poor Mary’s blonde head had gone higher and the white face seemed a
shade more pallid as Jean gabbled on. Disgust, nothing less, except
perhaps a hidden fear, was expressed in her haughty attitude, and
somehow she reminded Gloria of a handsome animal trapped by refined
cruelty.

“I hate gossip,” Mary said, crisply.

“You do!” retorted Pat. “Well, it’s a necessary evil here. We have to
do something, why not gossip?”

“When a girl’s back is turned?” Mary qualified.

“But it isn’t about Jack, it’s the old lady. She must be a shrew. Can’t
we say that about her when she wakes us up in the dead of the night?”
Pat retorted.

“And we are really defending Jack.” This from Jean.

Gloria, being a newcomer and also in the “freshie” class, held back
from the discussion. Exchanging glances with Trixy, both had plainly
shown surprise that Mary should have appeared so haggard. Even her
usual studied calmness was replaced by nervous little jerks, one of
which caused her to drop and shatter the drinking glass.

“Oh!” she gasped. “How stupid of me!”

“Let me pick it up,” offered Gloria kindly. “Trixy says I can walk on
glass, just because she saw me walk over clam shells at home. Anybody
here ever bathe from a shelly beach? I have one at my native dock.”

This sally mercifully changed the subject, and beaches sandy, beaches
rocky, or beaches shelly, were soon being discussed from as many view
points as there were persons expressing them.

Mary beamed gratitude upon Gloria. It was her first unbending,
and perhaps because the approval was not easy to obtain, Gloria
appreciated it more fully. She twinkled understandingly.

“I hate to be a nuisance,” Mary said rather humbly, “but my hand must
have been wet and the glass slipped. Do you report damages to the
office?”

“Don’t you dare!” thundered Pat. She was now all primped and pretty
and ready for the walk or hike, as she termed the proposed exercise
scheduled for the afternoon. “If you start anything so honest as paying
for a broken drinking glass, I would feel absolutely bound to tell who
broke the glass dish----”

“Hush, Pat. You perpetual gabber. We all hated the dish. It was too
small for cookies----”

“All right, Becky dear. Don’t get excited. I’m not on my way to the
office.”

Gloria had gathered up the splints of glass and skillfully dropped them
into the marshmallow box Mary held to receive them.

“You’re a dear,” murmured the pale girl. “But I shouldn’t have let you
do it.”

“You couldn’t have stopped me,” retorted Gloria. “Don’t you know how
stubborn I am? When I take a notion----”

“Come along,” interrupted Trixy in an undertone. “Going to hike, Mary?”

“I’m afraid not----”

“Oh, do,” begged Gloria. “There’s nothing like it for nerves, and you
have a headache, haven’t you?”

“A little. I didn’t sleep well. Guess I’m not quite fit for this quiet
life----” she smiled quizzically.

“Isn’t it awful?” interrupted Trixy. “I don’t know whether to bless or
blame Gloria for dragging me here. But not being a quitter I suppose
I’ll stay.”

“If you don’t, I don’t,” declared Gloria. All three had separated
themselves from the others and were now on the porch ready for the hike
and awaiting the leader.

“Really, don’t you like it here?” pressed Mary gently. She might not
have seemed so pale but for her black satin dress. She always wore such
dark colors when the uniform was not required, whereas then the other
girls just melted into color glory.

“We are rather spoiled, I’m afraid,” admitted Trixy. “Little Glo has
lately distinguished herself as an engineer; that is, she discovered a
river the engineers had overlooked, and what hasn’t happened in the way
of good fortune since that eventful day!” Trixy intoned reminiscently.

“How interesting!” Mary said politely.

“Since you’re telling tales, Trixy, I might add----” drawled Gloria,
“that the engineer, the young, handsome and all that sort of thing
young fellow, is a special friend of yours. There is the barest
possibility she misses him----”

“Glo!”

“And he’s gone off again following my dear dad! Way out Philippine
way----”

“Just for that you shan’t see my letter!”

“A letter! From Sherry?”

“Sherwood, please. He has outgrown Sherry. Want to see his stationery?”

The inscribed envelope (from Trixy’s pocket) was passed around. Gloria
read it backwards and forwards, made fun of it and approved in the same
breath. Then it was handed over to Mary.

“Why!” she exclaimed, “that name seems familiar. Was he abroad last
year?”

“Yes. Were you?” asked Trixy simply.

“Yes, that is--yes,” floundered Mary, and a hint of confused color
touched up the pale cheeks.

“How jolly! Did you really know our noble Sherry?” demanded Gloria
quite enthused.

“Oh, I wouldn’t just say that,” Mary answered with a return of her
usual restraint. “One meets others while travelling, and sometimes we
see names on the hotel lists----”

“But we must tell Sherry,” Gloria rattled on. “Trixy, do you mind if I
write?”

“I’ll put in a little censored note----”

“I’m sure he has never heard of me, of Mary Mears,” declared Mary,
just as Miss Alton, otherwise “Alty” and little Miss Taylor, otherwise
“Whisper” appeared and marshalled forces for the four mile hike.

There was opportunity for confidences along the way, and Mary’s
attitude was seriously discussed by the two girls from Sandford.

“She’s high-spirited,” declared Trixy.

“And touchy,” added Gloria.

“I can’t just see why she acts so offish.”

“Seems to keep the brake on every minute.”

“Afraid of hills--sliding, I mean.”

“Into reality. I’ve thought of that.”

“She’s a splendid contrast to Jack, isn’t she?” concluded Gloria, as
the hikers halted at Van Winkle’s Spring. Then Old Rip entertained most
royally.




CHAPTER VI

SMOLDERING FIRES


“Altmount” was so named from the fact that the Alton family had
settled, built and managed the mount for more than four generations.
The original homestead was now the smallest of the three imposing
structures that clung to the hillsides, and was used to house the
youngest pupils of the select school, while in a splendid stone and
shingle structure recently built, and unquestionably an important
executive building for the seminary proper, were domiciled Gloria and
Trixy.

Gloria might have been relegated to No. 2 known as the Wigwam, from a
curious Indian legend attached to it, but somehow the influential Trixy
succeeded in keeping her friend with her. Not quite sixteen, country
life and natural fondness for healthy exercise had developed Gloria
into the attractive personality termed “wholesome,” but comparing this
with the uncertain ages and equally uncertain types about her, very
often the “sweet sixteen” was mistaken for seventeen or even greater
“teens.”

Now, Pat was seventeen, and she might have been classed among the
“little ones.” She was small, round, dimplely and “bubblely.” It would
be hard to imagine Pat ever supporting with dignity her real title,
Patricia Halliday. Jean Engle was tall and willowy, and wore brown
braids in a coronet about her head. She had rather a sharp tongue,
and unfortunately her friends laughed at “her cuts.” The comparative
isolation of boarding school naturally drew out and magnified each
girl’s peculiar traits, so that what might have seemed rude in Jean at
home was hailed as “good fun” at Altmount.

It was she who suddenly checked Gloria’s laughter. The departure of
Jack had not yet ceased to be a subject for gossip, when a group of the
girls were squatted around the Sentinel Pine, the only one tree upon
the spacious grounds allowed to foster from year to year the carpet
of pine needles about its roots. These were not raked up because they
formed so splendid a little rest ground for the fortunate girls who
“got there first.”

“You’re not a bit like your cousin,” announced Jean out of a clear sky,
favoring Gloria with a critical look at the same moment.

“You mean Hazel?” floundered Gloria, sensing objection in Jean’s pert
remark.

“Of course. Hazel seems so--oh, so sort of--well----”

“Do say it, Jean. Glo will forgive you,” broke in Pat
characteristically.

“Oh, you see,” interfered Trixy, “Hazel is temperamental. She has a
voice. See how short a time she stayed here. Just a brief year----”

“Where is Hazel now?” asked Blanche Baldwin.

“She is at home when not at the conservatory,” replied Gloria. “Hazel
really has a promising voice.”

“Ye-ah,” drawled Pat, with an uncertain smile and an impolite gulp.

“But I meant that, somehow, you don’t seem a bit like Hazel--in your
ways,” came back Jean without so much consideration as a direct address
with Gloria’s name to soften it.

Gloria bit her lip. Pat bit hers so hard it dragged the dimple out of
her chin. Trixy, as usual, knew just what to say and she said it.

“Hazel has rather sophisticated ways for a girl brought up in Sandford.
But then, it has always seemed to me, that big town folks are apt to
overdo it; like strangers trying on the Boston accent.”

Gloria smiled at Trixy’s adroitness. She had deliberately turned the
interests from Gloria’s possible mannerisms to Hazel’s. Still, a
suppressed little twinge tugged at her consciousness. Was she different
from the other girls? Were her tom-boyish, country ways rude or even
rough?

More than once she had noticed surprised eyes staring at her when
impulsively she had said or done something as she might have done at
her old Barbend home, when Tommy Whitely would have shouted with glee
or Mildred Graham chuckled delightedly. But no such result was achieved
at Altmount. The girls there, with the exception of Pat and perhaps
one or two others, all seemed bent upon outdoing their companions in
correct social behavior.

A sort of pairing off followed the discussion of Hazel’s ways. That
she had a wonderful voice all were willing to concede, but just what
Jean meant by her comparison with Gloria was not clear, at least not
satisfactorily clear to Gloria, or her special friends, including Pat.

The school cliques, inevitable, were again being set in motion. Clubs
or Sororities were forbidden, as they had been the cause of more than
one bitter quarrel among the girls in past years, when the faculty had
tolerated the Bluejays, or the Social Sixes or even the Gabfesters,
but a girl like Jean is sure to lead in a subtle way. Her pronounced
opinions are always easier to accept than to combat, and just now she
was “making up” something quite “clicquey.”

“The deceitful thing,” murmured Pat, when girl after girl slipped away
from the pine needle carpet to follow Jean’s unspoken suggestion. “And
she ate more of our pop-corn than any other three eaters added up.”

“Was she a great friend of Hazel’s?” asked Gloria. Her dark eyes were
glinting under rather fluttering lids, and a “set expression,” as good
old Jane would have described it, seemed to have suddenly burned out
Gloria’s happiness fuse.

“Jean is always pals with the airified ones,” said Pat, answering
Gloria’s question. “The way she eats them up makes me--suspicious.”

Trixy broke into a genuine laugh. Pat could say the wisest things in
the queerest way.

“But I notice she didn’t gobble you up,” went on Pat to Trixy. “How
come?”

“Do you suppose I am in the way?” Gloria had not yet found a smile and
was plainly pouting.

“Silly baby!” chided Trixy. “If you really have saved me from anything
like that----” sweeping a hand toward the departing contingent, “then
indeed, I am more than grateful.”

“Oh, I have it,” exploded Pat. “Let’s get up an opposition!”

“To what?” inquired Trixy.

“To--to Jean, of course.”

“I wouldn’t satisfy her to do anything of the sort,” sniffed Gloria.

“But don’t you see they are planning something?” asked Pat.

“Who cares?” retorted Gloria. “I’m getting sort of homesick, I guess,
but I just would like a whole day away from--all this.” A suspicion of
tears dimmed her eyes.

“You have been a perfect lamb, Glo,” declared Trixy, winding her arm
about the younger girl’s shoulders in sympathy. “Never made a mite of
trouble.”

“But you are sort of used to--to changing about, aren’t you, Glo?”
asked Pat, quite innocently.

“Why, Pat, what do you mean?” demanded Gloria, sensing an undercurrent
to the last remark.

“Oh, I don’t mean you have been to other schools, or that sort of
thing,” returned Pat, brightening up in alarm at Gloria’s tone, “but
you see, Hazel was--talkative, and she told everybody how you lived at
her house, and about--your mother being dead and all that.” There was
no mistaking Pat’s own sincerity.

“So that’s it!” A wave of understanding flooded over Gloria. “They
think I lived on Hazel’s folks! Poor relation----” bitterly.

“Gloria Doane, I won’t have you getting such foolish notions in your
pretty head,” interrupted Trixy. “If folks don’t know what you and your
dad have done for Hazel and her folks, it is only because you are both
too high principled to let it be known.” Trix’s eyes were now flashing
and her open defense of Gloria was just what any one knowing Beatrix
Travers would have expected.

Gloria smiled cynically. “Just the same, Trix, those girls have no use
for the cousin Hazel has told them all about. Not that I mind, really,
for I have all I care for, but somehow--Oh, what’s the use?” she broke
off sullenly.

“Rudeness is the meanest sort of cut, always,” took up a new voice just
as quiet Mary Mears glided up to the little party, from behind the
hedge that outlined the path.

“Oh, hello, Mary!” greeted Pat. “Come along and join the wake. You’re
welcome,” and she made a place on the big low cut stump.

“I always thought boarding school was composed of sets, little
clicques, you know,” continued Mary, “now I’m sure of it. Of course,
I’m on the very outer rim----”

“Nothing of the sort,” spoke up Trixy with spirit. “If we care to we
may, very easily, have a better, if not bigger, crowd than Jean Engle
has. I hate to start things, but as Pat says, there’s no use standing
still and applauding their efforts. What do you say, Mary? Shall we
organize?”

“I’d love to, but----”

“Now forget the ‘buts’ and let’s!” exclaimed Pat joyfully. “I’ve been
in the dumps since Jack went. Never knew how much I depended upon Jack
for amusement,” her voice trailed off. “Poor old Jack! I wonder where
she is and--why?”

Gloria had not raised her head and therefore could not see the swift
change that swept over Mary’s pale face. Trixy again intervened.

“If we organize what is to be our object?” she asked.

“Fun,” snapped Pat.

“Of what sort?” persisted Trixy.

“Oh, every kind. We can’t exactly effect riots in this retreat,” mocked
Pat, “but we might get up some highly interesting rows. There’s nothing
like a real, tip-top scrap to set the feathers flying.” An anticipatory
chuckle gave warning of Pat’s active intentions.

“But really, Trix,” spoke up Gloria, “I have no idea of making a martyr
of you on my account. You don’t belong in our baby class and we all
know perfectly well that the other girls are crazy to get you in their
set, but well, I don’t blame them really, for not wanting to bother
with me.”

A ripple of delicious laughter was Trixy’s reply.

“Oh, if you feel that way about it----” began Pat merrily.

All this time Mary appeared to be listening abstractedly. Gloria’s face
was serious, with quite an unusual expression for her, but Mary always
serious, now seemed actually depressed. The late November day was warm
and glowing as any in October, and shadows shot through the giant pine,
making murky haloes about the heads beneath. Altogether conditions
conspired toward plots and intrigue. It had taken just that long for
the usual hikes, lake pleasures, tennis and such sports to lose their
interest, and now with the brisk, crisp air of winter’s foreshadow,
the pupils at Altmount, naturally, swung to more original forms of
recreations.

Pat had been doing most of the talking since Jean so pointedly gathered
her chums to other stamping grounds. Of course, Trixy did her best
to banish Gloria’s ill humor, the result of that remark from Jean
concerning Hazel’s and Gloria’s mannerisms, but the cloud was still
there, just as Mary’s moody aloofness was more pronounced as she
attempted to hide it.

“Then we’re to have a clan,” repeated Pat. “We’ll ask all the girls who
are not manacled to Jean’s ankles.”

“Really, Pat, it wouldn’t be fair to take Trixy from the seniors,”
interrupted Gloria.

“Say, Glo!” in quick succession interrupted Pat. “Whatever has come
over you? Why the martyr’s crown?”

Gloria swung her chin around and up high in mock contempt. “I was never
sure I’d like boarding school,” she remarked evenly. “Now I know I
don’t,” she declared emphatically.

“Just because catty Jean Engle digs----”

“No, Pat, that isn’t it. It’s because I’m not the sort that fits in.”

“You’re not the sort that follows the crowd,” broke in Trixy, “but you
do fit in, Gloria. Any one can follow the band wagon,” declared Trixy
with unmistakable scorn.

“What made you jump so, Mary?” asked the outspoken little Pat. “Do you
hate band wagons worse than ‘pizen’?”

“Yes,” said Mary quite helplessly, and even Gloria stared in surprise.

“Seems to me we better adjourn, as the lawyers say ‘sine die.’ We are
having such a deplorable time,” concluded Trixy. Even her good nature
could be tried too far.

Gloria got to her feet first and looked resolutely at the big building
on the hill top.

“Don’t go hating it,” cautioned Trixy, kindly sensing her emotion.

“No, indeed. I’ll have to--conquer it now,” replied Gloria bravely.

“I wish I could feel as you do,” remarked Mary. She was the gloomiest
of all.

“How _do_ you feel?” demanded Pat.

“Like running away,” admitted Mary, her lips drawn tight.

“But you wouldn’t! Mary, have you had a sorrow?” asked Trixy
impulsively in an undertone.

A quivering lip left words unnecessary.

Trixy linked her arm into Mary’s and the long delayed confidence was
under way.

“She’ll cut you out, first thing you know,” warned Pat in Gloria’s
nearest ear.

“For Trixy’s sake I hope she does,” declared the sullen girl who even
turned aside from Pat’s good-natured arm.

This was the stage of boarding school life usually classified as “the
reaction,” and upon just what course the girls would now take depended
much of the year’s pleasures or disappointments.

That Gloria and Mary were alike disappointed was very evident, but the
cause!

Gloria’s highly sensitive nature was feeling keenly the slights aimed
at her by Jean’s contingent, but why Mary Mears should go from the
quiet stage to the actual melancholy was puzzling every one.

Would she confide in Trixy?

Would Trixy ever choose any one in Gloria’s place?

And above all, what was the reason that Jacquinot Corday left school
several times during the term?

Inquisitive, carefree, little Pat seemed to thrive on the possible
replies to such questions, but Gloria’s own heart was too heavy for
speculation. She longed for the freedom that lent personal activity,
she hated doing things because they should be done, and she was
unconsciously preparing for an attack. The smoldering fire is sure to
blaze up sometime.




CHAPTER VII

BRONCHO BILLY


“But it isn’t like you to mope, Gloria,” reasoned Trixy, with a
suspicion of reproof.

“I know, Trix, but I just feel I am--country!”

“If you mean natural, I’ll agree. The city has a knack of artifice. But
why you should let a word from that feather brain, Jean, so affect you?”

“It wasn’t that alone. I’ve felt ever since I came that Hazel had
branded me as the poor relation, the little orphan Annie----”

“Oh, Hazel isn’t really mean----”

“No, but she’s so high and mighty that her very compliments sting,”
argued the miserable Gloria. “Truly, Trix, I don’t care a rap for
myself, but I’ve been selfish about you. They didn’t ask you to ride
yesterday, I noticed.”

“I had a glorious canter before their old horses were out of the
stalls,” flung back Trixy. “I hate riding in a crowd. It’s like
travelling with a party. Every move is subject to the schedule,
prearranged. Besides, I made a discovery while out on my run, and if
you are a good girl I’ll disclose it to you.”

“Be a lamb and tell me the glad tidings,” coaxed Gloria. “I’m just
dying for something new. Don’t you hate the rules and regulations that
put us asleep, wake us up, feed us, think for us----”

“Gloria Doane! You little wild oriole, with your black head and
new sweater!” laughed Trixy. “I’m afraid you really do need the
Altmount discipline. You have been such a free little creature all
your life.” Trixy looked absently out the window over the wavering
trees, some already leafless, others gorgeously colorful. She was
remembering Gloria Doane at her seaside, Barbend home, and again
recalling the heroic Gloria, who a few months ago, had fought her way
out of a flooded house, where with the little boy, Marty, she had
become imprisoned. This was the great adventure related in “Gloria”
and comparing the girl of such adventures with the one Trixy now
confronted, it was not unreasonable indeed to find her rebelling,
straining at the silken cords of Altmount’s restrictions. But
Trixy’s life had been very different. The child of wealth is born to
responsibilities, and they scarcely ever include escapes from flooded
cellars, or the rescue of frightened children surrounding helplessly
sick mothers.

“You know, Gloria,” spoke Trixy again, “there really is a lot to learn
here. We couldn’t expect to find everything rosy, that would mean
deadly monotony.”

“Oh, I know I’m horrid to grumble,” promptly admitted Gloria, “but I
do like to do things. There seems so little to do here except follow
rules.”

“Why don’t you put on the charmed necklace? That might precipitate an
adventure,” suggested Trixy.

“Put it on! No, indeedy. I’m glad it’s on your side of the curtain,”
declared Gloria, “for I do get strange fancies concerning the thing.
The more I try to solve the mystery of the original owner, the further
I get from it. Do you suppose there is some one here not really a
pupil----”

“Maggie?” mocked Trixy.

“No. Of course not Maggie. But there are rather queer folks sauntering
around. There’s the official mender, for instance. That one who wears
a wig to hide her shaved head, according to Pat. Now, she might really
own a trunk, and those home-made beads look rather like her. Just
imagine me wearing a gift from her.”

Trixy laughed uproariously at the possibility, and she finally decided
with Gloria, that the necklace had better be kept in seclusion.

“But I had an adventure this morning,” again promised Trixy.

“Tell me about it,” begged Gloria. “Was there a nice woozy old tramp in
it or, mayhap, a plumed knight?”

“Neither. But let’s take our constitutional. These walls--might have
ears,” cautioned Trixy.

“So secret as that! Goody!” Gloria executed a little skip over to the
curtained closet, snatched her cap off a hook and clapped it on her
head. “Every one seems late this morning,” she remarked. “We can have
the birch lane all to ourselves. Hurry and give me the thrill. I’m
famished for it.”

But as they tried to slip out, more than one hail from peekers in
doorways demanded to know whence and why, and evading the rebound of
Pat, who dashed into the “lav” and intended to dash out again, was not
altogether a simple matter. In fact, the tower stairs were finally used
as a means of escape.

“Hurry!” whispered Trixy. “The side door is open.”

“Tell me!” begged Gloria. “I’m fairly quivering with expectancy.”

“It’s about Jack,” began Trixy, catching her breath.

“Is she back?”

“She must be. I saw her before breakfast.”

“Where?”

“That’s my story, but you’re spoiling it all with your unromantic
questions. Please, as the witnesses say, let me tell it in my own way.”

“Proceed,” ordered Gloria, with a flourish of her free arm.

“You know I went out very early----”

“I do.”

“But I didn’t waken you. I heard you breathing awake long before.”

“Yes, I was awake. Really, Trix, I’m afraid I was a bit homesick. But
never mind me. Can’t you feel me tr-r-r-em-bell, awaiting your story?”

“Walking at this pace is an absorbing occupation,” objected Trixy.
“Let’s sit down and talk like civilized folks.”

A squat on the big rustic bench under the Twin Oaks didn’t look very
civilized, but it was better for confidence than was racing.

“I was just turning in with ‘Whirlwind’ (he’s a lovely little horse,)
when I saw or rather heard a party trotting along from the Sound Road,”
began Trixy. “They were on a regular trot and coming like the wind. I
pulled to one side to let them pass, and that put me behind the line of
low cedars. They couldn’t see me but I faced them----”

“Who?”

“I only recognized one. Jack. You should have seen her! She looked like
a poster girl.”

“Jack!”

“Yes. Her hair was loose, it must have fallen from under her hat, a
brown felt, and her habit! It wasn’t a habit at all, but shirt and
trousers like a regular little Broncho Billy!”

“Our Jack----”

“Yes, indeed. I might not have believed my eyes if my ears hadn’t
helped. Just as her horse swung into the lane she called to him. It
was certainly Jack’s voice,” declared Trixy, still mildly excited over
the unusual encounter.

“And who was with her? You said others----” prompted Gloria, foreseeing
an interesting escapade in Jack’s assuming the rôle of a Broncho Billy.

“Yes, there was a woman and she also was an expert rider, besides--now
get a good long breath, Glo, you’ll need it,” warned Trixy. “The other
member of the wild rider’s troupe was a perfectly stunning looking
young fellow.”

“Oh, how delightful! Oh, how exciting,” sighed Gloria. “How ever has
Jack kept such a plot all to herself?”

“Perhaps she hasn’t. You forget we are comparative strangers.”

“And out of the confidence club,” a hint of yesterday’s bitterness
flashed through that remark.

“But what particularly struck me,” resumed Trixy, ignoring the
cynicism, “was the wonderful mounts, the absolute expertness of those
three riders. They certainly are professionals,” she insisted.

“Oh, I have it!” exclaimed Gloria. “My trunk mystery! Jack belongs
to--to a troupe!”

“A troupe!” For a moment Trixy was mystified.

“You know,” insisted Gloria, “the strange trunk I opened? And all
the--glittering stuff?”

“Oh, yes. Of course. You--we have never solved that mystery----”

“And Jack is always so sort of spectacular! Oh Trix, do you really
think she might belong to a circus?”

“A circus! How ever could a circus performer get into Altmount?”

“That’s so. This is rather an exclusive place. I recall that your
mother had to vouch for me.”

“Gloria Doane! You are a perfect little simpleton! No one had to
_vouch_ for you. Your own mother attended one of the Alton schools
and her name was an excellent voucher. All my mater had to do was
to----”

“Say she knew me, and my dad, and all the rest of the family!” Scorn
mocked the words.

Trixy tossed her head back impatiently. Gloria’s humility was plainly
far from genuine, but she swung quickly to her friend’s side and threw
an affectionate arm around her.

“Darling Trix,” she whispered. “I am getting to be a horrid prig, I
know it. Just plain vanity, of course. But for mercy sakes, tell me
about Jack’s chariot race. We’ll have to go indoors directly and I
haven’t heard half.”

“There really isn’t any more to tell,” replied Trixy. She smiled
forgiveness into Gloria’s eyes, however. “They had ridden a long
distance, that was evident, and I just wish you could have seen what a
raving beauty Jack looked.”

“War paint.”

“Strange I never thought of that, I do believe she might have had some
queer color on her face----”

“What fun!” cried Gloria, springing to her feet and threatening to
dance. “Do you suppose we’ll see her in all her togs? Which way did she
go? Didn’t you even shout at her?”

“No, to your last question but I couldn’t keep track of the others. I
was so surprised when I recognized her I couldn’t even shout. Besides,
all three seemed very serious. I would not have dared break in on them.
Who, do you suppose, the woman was?”

“Her Steppy, of course, stepmother, you know. It is she, according to
friend Pat, who drags Jack away in the night. Perhaps she does, too, if
she’s a trouper,” reasoned Gloria.

“Well, at any rate, Glo, I guess we have discovered something. I know
you’ve been aching for it, and I feel, somehow, a chunk, a good sized
chunk of your special brand of excitement has actually arrived.”

“You don’t mean that Jack will come out and declare herself!” exclaimed
Gloria. “Perhaps we won’t see or hear another word about it.” That
possibility brought gloom.

“But others saw her,” reasoned Trixy. They were now retracing their
steps and about to meet a group of girls also returning from their
early morning exercise.

“Who saw her?” asked Gloria.

“I don’t know just who it was, but certainly some very slim girl dodged
me, as I walked back from the stables. It looked a bit like Mary.”

“Oh, we’ll ask her,” declared Gloria. “At any rate Mary’s getting so
friendly it would be nice to sort of take her in our confidence. Don’t
you think so?”

“Well----” Trixy paused. Then continued: “Suppose we don’t say anything
for a while and just see what happens. I wouldn’t want her to start
anything sensational, you know.”

“Oh, of course. There, you see, I would have blurted out the whole
fantastic story and perhaps made a mortal enemy of the picturesque
Jack. After all, Trixy, I am country and green, don’t you think so?”

“Have it your own way,” replied Trixy with a light laugh. “I don’t
intend to go on forever telling you what a darling you are.”

But she looked as if she might go on doing so for quite a while longer.




CHAPTER VIII

ALMOST A TRAGEDY


An unusual amount of school work filled the day beyond possibility of
moods, broods or other tantrums. Gloria was not so temperamental as to
neglect her work for “blues,” whatever the cause or however deep the
shade. She was no baby, and was too proud to do otherwise than very
well in any school records.

There were, reasonably enough, many spots unfinished in her preparatory
work, for Barbend, like other country schools, embraced only such work
as seemed to afford the best opportunities for the largest number,
and few there were who prepared for high class boarding schools. Thus
Gloria now found herself filling in many recreational hours with
special tutors in sheltered corners of gloomy rooms. All of which added
to her growing uneasiness, for Gloria was the type that loves to soar,
like the butterfly, but a single prick in a delicate wing is sure to
bring down the joy bird.

Yet Jack’s rough rider adventure promised a thrill. Lessons would be
disposed of as quickly as their importance would allow, and then Gloria
would, first look for Pat and then, perhaps, they both might look for
the romantic rider of the mountain trail.

The prospect whipped up Gloria’s lagging spirits to the bubbling
point. She sensed mystery, she hoped for a real lark, somehow all
the restraint of Altmount seemed mere atmosphere in the secret
contemplation of that one, fearless girl, with that handsome young
man and the “Steppy,” possibly with all the fairy tale attributes of
horrid gray hair, a witch’s face, a crone’s raspy voice and everything!
How perfectly delicious! A story fit for any one, even the insatiable
Pat. So it was that all day, in spite of the extra drill preparing for
tests, Gloria involuntarily made pictures of Jacquinot Corday, the girl
bareback rider, champion circus performer, etc.

“Just imagine Jean and her crowd actually associating with a circus
rider,” she ruminated. “And wouldn’t Pat howl gleefully!”

She longed to talk it over with Trixy, but the difference in their
grades meant almost complete separation of the chums during the school
hours, and even Pat must have been critically busy, for not a glimpse
of her red head broke the sombre shadow of Gloria’s horizon all the
long day.

Nor did Jack herself appear on the scene. After lunch and before the
second afternoon period, Gloria deliberately sought out Pat. She was
discovered in a head-on collision with a large, green covered book,
whose make up indicated helps for the helpless, “trots” for the weary,
and suggestions for those struggling in the tangled ways of English Lit.

“Hello, yourself!” mumbled Pat, anticipating a greeting. “Yes, I’m
nearly dead, how do you feel yourself?”

Gloria laughed outright. “Poor old Pat!” she soothed. “What’s the worst
thing in life just now?”

“That old goggle-eyed dame that’s supposed to teach us Lit., but really
blasts our young dreams with her crazy ideas of original work.” Scorn
fairly sizzed through the ill chosen words. “The idea of giving us such
a theme as ‘Modern Cynicism! Its effect on Youth.’ Now, if you ask me
what is the effect of cynicism on youth, I would just answer ‘Mary
Mears.’ She’s the result of that effect.”

“Oh, Pat, cheer up!” quoth Gloria. “Have you seen Jack?”

“Seen Jack?” incredulously.

“Yes. She’s back, isn’t she?”

“She isn’t, is she?”

Gloria laughed. “I heard she was----”

“And I heard she wasn’t.”

“Honestly, Pat, joking aside, isn’t Jack back?”

“No joking to put aside. I hate to repeat, considering the English Lit.
and google-eyed Rachel Sander’s hopes for real stuff, but choose a new
style, Glo, and come right out frank and honest. Tell me what you mean
by your bag full of question marks. Who saw Jack and when?”

“Why----” The word was drawled to hide rather than to disclose any
meaning.

“Now you’re holding back,” declared the keen witted Pat, deliberately
folding over a half page of the big book. “What do you know about Jack?
I am almost dead since she left. Jack is a human blotter, wipes out
all the day’s blots with her dashing surprises. There, I almost went
literary that time, didn’t I? Although I could see Jack making more
blots than she obliterated. Another good word,” with ready pencil
noted, “and I’ll stick in some place if I have to obliterate Rachel
with it,” declared Pat. “Meanwhile, Glo, I’m waiting to hear the news.”

“That’s exactly what I came for,” flung back Gloria, “and you haven’t
even asked me to sit down.”

“Do.”

“Where?”

“Oh, I’m rather crowded,” with a supercilious glance at her untidy
room. “You see, every one comes in to help me and they eat my fudge,
look in my mirror, try my powder and Blanche Baldwin tried my comb.”

“May I try your trunk?”

“Certainly. Help yourself, although that’s a perfectly brand new trunk
and it almost got lost in the shuffle. Wait, I’ll fix the cover nice
and smooth. There,” and as she shook the Indian blanket to replace it
as a cover, Gloria saw a black enamelled trunk, exactly like the one
she had opened by mistake!

“Your trunk--is just like mine,” she said, as naturally as her surprise
permitted.

“Really? I thought I was very much ahead in trunks,” said Pat, easily.
“Although I believe the salesman did say the style was going merrily.
Glad my key is registered, if it did give me a lot of trouble when I
lost it by taking too good care of it.”

“Registered?” Gloria repeated, recalling her experience with the same
key fitting the two trunks.

“Yes. That’s a feature of this trunk, and if yours is like it don’t
lose your key. There is only one of a kind made, a little difference in
each lock, I presume, so the owner is supposed to be key proof. But why
this digression? Do you think I am interested in mechanics rather than
in Jack?”

“No,” said Gloria, recovering her composure. That trunk mystery seemed
to be burying itself deeper daily. Of course she never dreamed of
little Pat being a “pirate’s daughter,” but the sudden view of a trunk
apparently just like the one in question, had startled her. Now, she
must appease Pat’s curiosity without divulging even a hint of Trixy’s
early morning adventure, and this would be no simple matter, Gloria
knew from experience.

“I’m scared to death of the exams,” she admitted, by way of
introduction. “It seems to me, I have done nothing for weeks but try to
patch up holes in my prep. work. I wonder if I shall ever be able to
stand the college entrance exams?”

“Don’t try. Isn’t this hard enough?” The “trot” book came in for a
demonstrative slam.

“But I want to go in for science,” explained Gloria. “You see my early
training----”

“Oh, ye-ah, so early you’ll forget it before the educational day is
half over,” prophesied Pat. “But about Jack. Let’s go hunt her up. I’ll
bet she’s got a wild story to relate, and a wild story would just about
save my life this very minute.”

“Don’t tempt Fate,” cautioned Gloria.

“Tempt Fate! I’d bribe the dear old thing if I knew what she liked
best. Come along, Snooksy. Let’s hope for the best, or worst, if you
feel as I do about it.”

“But your English? Didn’t I interrupt----”

“A real mercy. When Patricia Halliday goes in for cramming, I tell you,
chile, she sure does cram. Oh boy!” The chuckle that verified this also
repudiated it, as Pat said, according to one’s viewpoint.

The search for Jack began with a little twittering whistle along the
corridor, leading up to “fourteen” the number on a partly opened door.

“You’re right. The prodigal has returned,” whispered Pat, dodging
past Jean’s door and actually bending double as she sprinted past Edna
Hobb’s. “Plugging away” for the quarterly exams meant that rooms might
hide the anxious students in their safest corners.

But the open door proved a false alarm. Jack was not found within.

“She has been here,” reasoned Gloria. “Here’s her bag and there’s her
hat.”

“Surest thing. She may be down telling it all to Alty. Let’s peek,”
suggested Pat.

Gloria’s critical eye swept the room. No sign of rough-rider outfit was
in sight. Instead, there were the tweed top coat, the smart rainbow
sport hat, and a very much beaded one piece, brown silk jersey dress.
Jack was noted for showy clothes, and they were always of a very good
and costly quality.

Beads suggested the trunk secret to Gloria’s mind, and even the brown,
slinking, silky gown, that should have been put away in a box, and
wasn’t, hinted the iridescent grandeur that lay so helplessly in the
top of the strange trunk. That, and the big gem labelled “Precious” in
the envelope, and the consequent necklace all were now recalled.

“Yes,” she was deciding, “it surely must have been Jack’s trunk. But
what could the materials have been used for? And if the stone in the
envelope really were precious why should it have been left to the
uncertain travel of ordinary baggage?”

In line with that secret reasoning Pat uncannily remarked:

“You know, I have always thought Jack is just hiding something with all
her show off. I wouldn’t wonder but she’s as deep as a well underneath
the surface.”

“Why should she hide anything?” Gloria asked. They were on the second
landing and now safe from possible interruptions.

“The Steppy, you know. She surely is a queer one. You just ought to
hear her pass remarks, about one o’clock A. M. in the lower hall with
the mezzanine floor lined with listening ladies! What the girls don’t
guess isn’t worth considering. Guessing is their one strong line. But
I like Jack, you know, Gloria, and I’m not catty enough to join in the
slaughter.”

“I can’t see why girls are so--so snobbish,” returned Gloria.

“Born that way, like hare lips,” said Pat, now ready to “peek” in the
office door, which, like others, stood ajar.

“Oh!”

Both girls exclaimed, for instead of peeking in the door they almost
collided with demure little Miss Taylor.

“Looking for Miss Alton?” she asked agreeably.

“Oh, no,” replied Pat. “The fact is, we are trying to (whisper) dodge
her. But have you seen Jack Corday?”

“Why, no. She is away, is she not?”

“Was, but isn’t,” answered Pat. Gloria was not yet so familiar even
with the amiable Miss Taylor as to join in the repartee.

“Oh, is she back?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Gloria did say that. She felt
obliged to say something, and she smiled audibly to heighten the effect.

“When you ought to be poring over your books. Well, I haven’t seen Jack
and I’m in charge of the office,” announced Miss Taylor.

“Oh, is Alty away?” squealed Pat.

“Tem-por-air-i-ly!” Miss Taylor was not much more than a school girl
herself.

“The berries!” cheered Pat. “Come along, Glo, and continue the
hunt. If Jack is in Altmount we’ll find her! Let exams take care of
themselves for a while,” and she dragged the willing Gloria along, out
through the heavy doors, down the deserted path making straight for the
gym.

“If she’s around she’ll surely be walking a ceiling or resting up
on double flips. She’s the queerest girl. Hard work is her idea of
loafing.”

All this increased Gloria’s suspicion. It sounded too much like circus
ability to be anything else.

But no Jack was found in the gym, either walking ceilings, or doing
double flips.

“Well, perhaps she is in some corner of the Wigwam, safe in the arms of
the babes,” suggested Pat, rather disconsolately. “Let’s give up the
hunt and go along the lake drive for a change. I really must work hard
to make up some points, and perhaps a real lively walk will tune me up.”

“I need one myself,” agreed Gloria. “How is this pace?”

“Suits me. You do take lovely long steps for such a little girl.”

“I’m not little. I expect to be tall and imposing like Trix, some day,”
announced Gloria.

“Isn’t the air wonderful?” Patricia Halliday was getting a better
complexion with every stride.

“This is one fine feature of Altmount,” declared Gloria. “Even Barbend
of my fairy childhood dreams, was not better supplied with beautiful
walks.”

At a rapid pace the two students confronted the brisk November air. It
was exhilarating, delightful.

Then suddenly both halted! Neither spoke but gasped.

Upon the bank of the lake, in the narrow strip of green that folded the
path from the water were--garments!

“Jack’s sweater!” gasped Pat.

“And her--tam!” added Gloria.

Startled they stooped over the glaring green coat and hat.

“How could they come here?” breathed Gloria.

“She must have brought them. But where can she be?”

Somehow a coat and hat by the side of a lashing lake seemed ominous. No
more joking about Jack’s uncanny athletic ability. Neither suggested
she might be up a tree, or----

“Oh!” screamed Gloria. “I see a canoe paddle. Pat, look!”

“Away out in the torrent!” gasped Pat. “Oh, Gloria, if----”

“And see! There’s--the--canoe----!”

“Empty!” brave little Pat seemed suddenly helpless and leaned, for a
moment, on the terrified Gloria. A rush of horror seized them. What if
Jack----

“Pat! What shall we do! Can you swim?” cried Gloria.

“Swim! In that ice water?”

“But if we could reach the canoe! She might be near it!”

“Gloria Doane! Don’t you dare think of such a thing.”

“I’ve got to, Pat. I’m a safe swimmer, and the canoe is not so far out.
Here, help me out of my things, I’ll bring the canoe back, at least.”

“Gloria!”

But the next moment there was a splash, then the waving up and down of
lithe, white arms, as stroke after stroke took Gloria further from land
and nearer the drifting canoe.

The impetuous act had been prompted by an irresistible impulse. Gloria
Doane of Barbend, the seaside town, knew well the price of a moment’s
delay against the water’s cruelty, and neither the current nor the icy
lake could restrain her.

Pat watched the flashing arms and the small dark head, fascinated. Then
she screamed, wildly, shrilly, until the terror in her voice penetrated
the hills and reached the very walls of Altmount.

Distracted she screamed again and called for help, until presently
answering voices bore down, and girl after girl came racing to the
lakeside.

All eyes focussed upon the speck in the water, but now Gloria was
beside the canoe and the girls waited breathlessly.

To get into a canoe from the water is an expert’s task, but Gloria was
that. She placed herself in direct line with the crescent bow, put both
hands up, one on either side, and slid in like some humanized fish.
What she then saw appalled her.

A mute figure lay on the bottom of the boat!

And the white face of Jacquinot Corday seemed frozen there in deathlike
immobility.

“Oh,” choked Gloria. “Jack! Dear Jack!”

But the drifting little bark still clipped the waves playfully,
innocent of the danger now so fearful to Gloria.

“Oh!” she gasped, “what shall I do? No paddle!” But water like fire
must be met with heroic measures, and with a strength surprising to
herself she managed to rip loose two slats from the side of the canoe,
then quickly she slipped from Jack’s inert form a thin white skirt.
Jabbing each slat through this she constructed a sail, and holding them
in place above her, she felt the wind take hold and drive them forward.

Not until she had veered the boat on its direct course toward shore,
did she have opportunity to look critically upon Jack.

“Jack?” she called anxiously. Then she saw one limp hand raised feebly.
She peered down closer but there was no further movement.

Jack was not dead but unconscious!

She must be revived, quickly. The girls upon the bank were shouting,
calling, but Gloria edged up carefully. Then she cupped a handful of
water and splashed it upon the deathlike features.

Just a fluttering of the eyelids rewarded this test. Then Gloria took
her sail in both hands, held it bravely to the breeze and drove back
to the shore, where frantic companions awaited, helpless.

“Oh!” yelled Pat, “didn’t--you--see--”

“I have her! She’s here!” called back Gloria, sailing in like some
heroic war maiden, clad only in her thin underslip, but unmindful of
the dripping water and the cutting frosty air.

“Gloria!” came a blend of voices.

“Be careful,” she answered. “I guess--she has--fainted!”

 [Illustration: GLORIA HELD HER “SAIL” WITH BOTH HANDS
  _Gloria at Boarding School._               _Page 95_
 ]




CHAPTER IX

FROM ICY WATERS


“Here, Gloria, get into this and run! We’ll take care of Jack.”

Trixy gave this order, with it wrapping a heavy coat around Gloria, who
was still standing in that pitiful little wet slip.

“I’m all right,” she declared, chattering.

But Pat was almost hysterical. “She’ll die! She’ll get pneumonia! And
Jack! Oh, Jack must be dead----”

“Here, Pat, chase along with Gloria and don’t let her stop, do you
hear? Race her like a horse, right up to the house. Keep her blood
pumping----”

“All right,” agreed Pat, grasping Gloria’s hand and starting off with
her. Action was what she needed.

Meanwhile Jack had opened her eyes, dazedly and so unlike the happy,
mocking girl she had been in that time, now so hard to recall, but
only a day or two ago.

Quickly her companions made an emergency chair of willing arms and
carried her up the short cut, directly to the side door of Altmount.
Her tawny head rested against Trixy’s shoulder, and it was Mary Mears
who held Trixy’s hand beneath the helpless form. Mary’s face was alight
and eager, her manner was quickened into expert generalship, and
even the absorbing emergency did not prevent Trixy from noting this
startling change. Then, there was jolly Pat gone off into hysteria,
blaming herself for not being able to do anything else. Naturally
Gloria had done the rescuing. Her childhood training at the water’s
edge in Barbend gave her skill, while her own instinctive courage
provided the inspiration. The other girls were shouting, wailing,
gasping and were otherwise “plain silly,” so useless, so confusing, but
Mary Mears, _she_ was suddenly the executive.

“We’ll have her around all right presently,” she said calmly to Trixy.
“Keep the girls back, Norma, we’ll go straight up.”

Within the house they laid Jack down, very flat, upon the floor, and
again the girls were banished, although the procession from the
lakeside was loathe to disband.

Little Miss Taylor was too frightened to do more than approve of the
efficiency shown by Trixy and Mary, and even the cynical Jean Engle
looked on in unstinted admiration.

An hour later Jack lay on her own bed, blinking painfully.

“Wasn’t I the goose----” she mumbled.

“No, indeed,” replied Mary. “You were uncannily wise. If you hadn’t
slipped down, like a tired bird, into the safety of that nest when
you felt the dizziness coming, you most certainly would have slipped
overboard. But there’s nothing to worry about now, you will be as fine
as ever in a day or two.”

“Mary,” she whispered, “could I just speak to Gloria? I won’t
talk--long.”

“Wouldn’t I do?” Mary’s voice was plaintive. She seemed so eager for
the sick girl’s confidence.

“If you don’t mind, Mary, I want Gloria--to do something for me. She’s
so----”

“Oh, all right, I know. Of course,” agreed Mary. “But Miss Taylor
insists upon quiet until you have been looked over by the doctor.”

Jack turned wearily upon her pillow, and at the mention of “doctor” a
deep frown gathered upon her still pale face.

“It really isn’t anything to be alarmed about,” she sighed. “I was
simply tired, went out for a bracer in the strong air, and somehow----”

“We know, dear,” soothed Mary. “But with Miss Alton away, of course,
Miss Taylor must be extra careful.”

Her voice droned down to a lull, for the patient was dozing off as if
from exhaustion. While Mary and Trixy were attending to Jack, another
scene was being enacted down the corridor.

In Pat’s room, where she insisted Gloria be taken, a rather noisy
operation was being performed. The “rub down” being administered was
vigorous to the point of violence.

“Leave me a hoof!” wailed Gloria. She was trying to retrieve “the hoof”
Edna was working on.

“Think we ought to roll her?” suggested Blanche who had taken part in
the other features of the reviving orgy.

“Just to show our appreciation,” inserted Jean. The last of the pure
alcohol was solemnly poured over two refractory feet, the same being
pinioned by Patsy, who held a useless basin beneath.

“Oh, now, girls!” begged little Ethel. “No fair! She’s tired and warm
as toast. Look at her cheeks!”

They were well worth looking at. As were Gloria’s dark eyes, “shooting
stars,” according to a delighted little “freshie,” Naomie, who managed
to slip in during the excitement. And Gloria’s head tied up in Pat’s
best silk banner, the red one, brother Tom sent from his school, gave
the prostrate but by no means quiescent Gloria, a very spectacular
appearance, indeed.

Finally, the alcohol exhausted and some of the practitioner strength
along with it, Pat, the leader, called a halt. They had been rubbing,
drying and according to the patient, bouncing Gloria around from pillow
to cushion, and between times to the floor, for fully an hour, so
delighted were they with the excitement, and determined to make a good
job out of it, and the result was now a case of glow.

“Putting the ‘glow’ in Gloria,” chuckled Pat. She was reacting from her
frenzy of hysteria and would be at “concert pitch” for days to come.

“Let me up! Help! Don’t smother me! There! Where’s my own duds?”
begged the girl surrounded by “her admiring friends.”

“Oh let’s,” lisped Ethel. “Let’s put her in that glorious red robe.”

“Say!” snapped Pat, “if you put any more glory in this bird she’ll
flutter off to paradise. I’m so glad my name’s plain Pat.”

Nevertheless, the red robe was being applied. Then, a pair of silly
little satin mules, with gold tassels, were put on Gloria’s feet, while
an uncertain throne was erected among cushions from many adjacent
rooms, and some further off down the hall. Thereon was installed the
heroine.

“If I live to be a hundred I’ll never forget it,” declared Pat. “To see
her come sailing in with poor Jack’s petticoat at full mast----”

“Is she all right?” broke in Gloria. The surrounding mirth only
followed an assurance of Jack’s favorable condition, and even now a
scout was kept busy running up and down the hall, reporting snatches of
words or indications, surreptitiously gathered from the crack at Jack’s
door.

“Sleeping nicely,” announced the outpost, Janet Thornton. “And the
doctor’s about due. Mary is still with her.”

“Mary?” repeated Gloria.

“Yes. One more strange thing that has developed on top of the
accident,” explained Jean, who never missed the critical aspect of
anything, “is the evolution of Mary. She’s as wise as an owl, as quick
as a wink and----”

“As strong as a lion,” finished up Pat, smacking her lips gleefully.

“I always thought she was posing----”

But Jean got no further. She was wilted by the flash of the many
condemning eyes.

“Be human, Jean,” whispered Maud Hunter. “The idols are changing. Can’t
you see Glo, Trix and Mary are the new trio?” Maud was just human
enough herself to enjoy the dethronement of Jean.

“What I can’t fathom,” returned Pat, who had propped herself up on
Gloria’s left and was now licking a home-made lollypop, “is why you
dashed out, risking life and limb, after what seemed to be an empty
canoe? Why, I ask you?”

“Just the sailor’s instinct of rescuing anything helpless on the
water,” said Gloria quietly. “The canoe seemed to be having a good time
but it couldn’t make shore----”

“Comes of being born a hero! A real, natural hero,” interjected Edna.
“I have always heard that the----”

“Needle of a mariner’s compass always points north,” paraphrased Janet.
“Edna, we can’t exactly build bon-fires and have parades until Jack is
able to tell her story, so save some ammunition.”

“Jack’s story!” repeated Edna excitedly. “Oh, what a thrill that’ll be!”

“Why?” interrupted Pat, immediately on the defensive. “Was there
anything thrilling in going faint in a canoe?”

“But why the canoe?” This was from Jean in her most caustic tone.

“Why not the canoe?” flung back Gloria.

“In November?”

“Certainly, or in December if one cared to,” Gloria slipped away from
the most becoming cushion as she defended Jack. “For my part, I think
water sports in the cooler weather lots more fun than in the broiling
summer time.”

“Uh-huh!” chanted Pat. “We see you do. Has that cake of ice melted off
your left biceps yet?” A lunge at the biceps went after the answer.
“Gloria Doane, star swimmer of Lake Manypeaks, champion rescuer of
floating canoes, and otherwise, notwithstanding and all the same, a
fairish sort of girl----”

“Here, Pat, get your breath!” ordered Gloria forcibly, checking the
flattering outburst. “We haven’t any more alcohol, and you’re too lumpy
to rub easily.”

“Now, there,” choked Pat, “you spoiled my speech. I was going to
say---- What on earth was I going to say?”

“You said it,” retorted Jean. “We were discussing the unusual procedure
of canoeing in winter. Gloria was for it, you know, but then, Gloria is
from a sea coast town, aren’t you?”

“If she hadn’t been, I just wonder when and how we would have found
poor Jack?” That from Pat settled Jean’s attempt at the usual “country
girl” slur. Gloria turned her head up regally, however, and a couple of
sniffs from her sympathisers were aimed directly at Jean. Somehow Jean
couldn’t stay good natured long enough to even encourage the mood.

A commotion in the hall brought every girl up alertly.

“The doctor’s come----” lisped Edna.

“Come? Just with Jack now?” asked Gloria.

“And gone,” continued Edna, without a break in her voice.

“What did he say?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Is she all right?”

“Can’t we go in now?”

“Is Mary still on guard?”

“What’s Trixy doing?”

“Has Alty come back?”

“Oh, say,” protested Pat. “What is this, anyway? A spelling bee? Go
ahead, Neddie. Tell us all you know and don’t strangle under it.”

“All I know is,” went on Edna, panting from the importance of her
message, “Mary came to the door and told the kitchen girl----”

“Her name is Tillie, Edna,” volunteered Janet.

“All right. Mary told Tillie to fetch a hot foot bath----”

“Oh, maybe it’s pneumonia.”

“Shut up, Ethel. Go ahead, Ned,” ordered Pat.

“I don’t think it’s pneumonia, for I heard Jack laugh----”

“Oh, they do sometimes,” Gloria swallowed her own chuckle. “A laugh
really isn’t a serious symptom.”

“Now, don’t tease Edna when she’s just panting with sheer exertion and
trying to answer your silly questions,” interceded Blanche. “If some of
you had to duck in and out that hall, under doctor’s bags, hot water
bags, and steaming hot baths----”

But Edna was through. She knew when she was being teased and she hated
it. Not another word could any one, even Gloria, coax or cajole out of
her.

It was getting late, almost dark, and the excitement was now
momentarily subsiding. In Jack’s room Miss Taylor, Trixy and Mary were
all trying to reconcile her to obey the doctor’s orders.

“An overstrained heart,” the gray haired man had pronounced the case,
and “positive rest, no physical activities, not even prolonged walking”
went with his directions.

Jack protested. She had had such spells before and always rebounded in
a day or two. Why all the restriction?

When Trixy, over at a far end of the room, inadvertently heard Dr.
Briggs ask what special effort had brought on the attack, she wondered
about that early morning wild ride, down from Mount Major. But Jack
had not admitted it, in fact she replied to the doctor that nothing
more than just “a played-out feeling” could have been responsible. And
she had taken the canoe ride to brace up, she felt the need of strong
currents of air, but they, evidently, were either too strong or she was
too exhausted to do otherwise than “keel over.”

When the doctor had gone and it was possible for her to get a word with
Trixy, Jack managed to repeat the request she had made to Mary.

“I must speak with Gloria,” she whispered, while Trixy smoothed a
pillow. “Won’t you fix it--for me?”

And Trixy nodded an unmistakable assent.




CHAPTER X

JACK’S STORY


As the real alarm subsided a tendency to withdraw “within themselves
and gloat over the whole delicious thrill” (from Pat’s pronouncement,)
was shamefully evident.

Tests and exams furnished a reasonable excuse, so far as loyalty to
Jack and the now idolized Gloria, was concerned, yet the interruptions
imposed by some of the most studious and dependable, seemed to threaten
traditions of Altmount and possibly shift the honors.

Gloria was determined to come out first in the English tests. Reading
under her father’s guidance from childhood, she had easily acquired an
advantage over the average student, and she felt confident now that her
essay would have a fair chance of winning first.

To send it to dad! To have him read his own thoughts, as he used to
give them to me! All his original ideas and his real pet theory of
woodland relations! She was working hour after hour upon the theme, and
it would be done in time. The contest would close in two days more and
when tests were over there would still be time for some extra polishing.

Then Jack’s accident interrupted.

And now, the evening after, Jack wanted to talk to her “all alone,”
Trixy said so.

“My own special thrill,” she replied to Trixy. “But I do hope it will
not be too secret to share with you--and Pat.”

“And Mary,” added Trixy. “You have no idea, Glo, what a girl Mary is.
I’m going to invite her out to Sandford with me after exams are over. I
believe we will have a week, and they houseclean while we are gone.”

“Well, I’ll run along to Jack,” Gloria said. “Somehow I sort of
hate----”

“Oh, you needn’t worry that she’ll gush over the heroic rescue,”
interrupted Trixy. “Jack is as sobered as if she had just dashed
through the rapids. There is, plainly, something worrying her. I hope
she won’t transfer the worry to you, little girl,” affection warmed the
sentence, “for I’m just as proud and a bit more proud of you than are
any of the others. After all, you are my own special little Gloria.”
The flushed cheek was pressed with Trixy’s eager lips and for a few
moments they became again the chums they used to be, before Altmount,
the fashionable boarding school, had imposed its estranging influence.

“Trixy,” breathed Gloria, “you do love me--a little?”

“A lot. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Oh, you know, I can’t forget Jean’s idea of a country girl!”

“Queer you do forget mine.” Another frank embrace from the “wonderful
girl born to gentility” was bestowed upon Gloria. “But run along to
Jack. We have posted signs to keep the coast clear, so improve the
shining moments. And oh, Gloria,” as her little friend attempted to
leave, “be careful to agree with her if you possibly can. The doctor
was none too sure of her condition.”

“I’ll promise everything but my one chum,” said Gloria, “and neither
Jack nor Mary can have her.”

“Nor my little Glo girl, either,” returned Trixy, still beaming her
affection. “Somehow, I’ll be rather glad to have her all to myself for
a little vacation. But aren’t we ‘crushy’?” laughed the older girl
affecting a foolish pose.

“As if something threatened to separate us.”

“Run along before I weep----”

“This time sure.”

When the door closed Trixy went over to Gloria’s dresser. As if
reflecting, uncertainly, she opened the drawer and drew out a little
Japanese basket. Removing the cover by its beaded tassel, she gazed
upon the largest and most noticeable article within. It was the string
of jade beads, sent anonymously to Gloria and which she had never worn.

“Could Jack have sent these?” she mused. “And yet----” A pause as she
fingered the dull gray green necklace. “If they are really genuine they
must be very valuable,” she reflected. “And they must have belonged
with the glittering trunk stuff that greeted Gloria’s arrival.”

She slipped the beads over her head and looked in the mirror.

“I’m glad I’m here with the little girl now,” she decided. “I’ve always
heard that the chief attraction at boarding school was the opportunity
of meeting girls from all parts of the country, but now I’m inclined to
think it is the opportunity of meeting all kinds of girls! Heigh-o!”
and the beads were slid back into the black Japanese basket with the
coral beads and brass rings. “There, I wonder if my little black beauty
will ever wear these?”

At Jack’s door Gloria was listening. Miss Taylor was just about to
leave and she greeted Gloria pleasantly.

“It’s lovely of you to come and sit with her for a few minutes,” she
said, “because I know you are working so hard on exams. I heard what a
fine outline you handed in to Miss Sanders.”

“Thanks,” said Gloria. “You know I love English, so it’s a pleasure to
work in Miss Sanders’ class.”

The little lady slipped away smiling. It was very evident she had faith
in the work Gloria was doing, and her manner clearly implied it was
very good work indeed.

But Jack was waiting.

“Gloria!” exclaimed Jack, before the girl just coming in had time to
offer her own greeting. “Gloria Doane, my rescuer!”

“Bosh!” flushed Gloria, hating the flame in her cheeks. “I had the best
swim ever. The best I’ve had since I came up here.”

“Oh, I know. You’re sure to duck compliments; all the same, you saved
little Jack’s useless life.”

“You would have drifted in----”

“Not possibly. The wind cut straight for the falls, and queer
thing--say, Glo,” she broke off, “sit down, do. Right here beside the
bed. I’m all set for a lot of whispering.”

This was Jack. She smiled the twisted little quirk that pinched from
the corners of her mouth, and her gray eyes showed some worth while
glints in spite of the doctor’s prescriptions.

“But a canoe is a safe floater, after all,” insisted the modest Gloria.
“You might even----”

“Have gone over the falls, and landed right side up with care. Hardly.
However, I knew you were there, I almost knew you were coming, that is,
I could feel rescue, and who, other than Gloria, would have come, so
promptly?”

Gloria slipped into the chair with an air of passivity. She was not
pretending to be modest, she felt foolish against the batter of a
compliment as if it pricked her sense of duty, for, she reasoned, who
would not have gone after that canoe just as she had done, if they felt
as secure in the water as she always felt?

“And that icy cold!” again Jack recalled.

“I’ve often done it in winter, just to show off.”

Jack beamed. Her admiration was no more pretense than was Gloria’s
modesty. The buttercup boudoir cap looked “sweet,” on Jack, and her
gray eyes were beginning to reflect the return of strength.

“Fancy my going off like that,” she complained. “But I have a long
story to tell you, Glowie, so I’d best brace up----”

“Don’t, please, if you feel the effort,” begged Gloria, actually
fearful. “They say hearts are the trickiest things when they get on a
rampage.”

“I know. But I’ve got to tell you some things, Gloria. I just can’t
have my stepmother come here,” began Jack with a brave effort. “She’s
all right, and as good as gold, when she isn’t crossed; but these
girls----”

“I know. I’ve felt the sting a little myself,” admitted Gloria. “You
see, I’m an out and out country girl, and green.”

“So was Joan of Arc, and a beauty at that,” broke in the sick girl.
“Now, I’m willing to own up to a fraud, I do pretend a lot just for the
fun of ‘stringing’ Jean and her crowd. They’re such sillies.” The scorn
that surrounded the term condoned its vulgarity. Gloria smiled her own
acquiescence. Jack continued:

“I’ll have to be very personal to make myself clear,” she said. “My
dad was a very rich man--a big business man.” As she paused Gloria
dismissed the term Pirate’s Daughter as belonging to Jack. A big
business man is hardly a pirate, that is not in the usual acceptance
of the term. Therefore, that trunk full of possible loot could hardly
have belonged to Jack. Neither could she have given Gloria the queer
necklace. Somehow she, Gloria, was conscious of relief with the
conviction.

“And he left me a lot of money,” went on Jack, neither pride nor
assurance tingeing the statement. “Well,” she sighed, “you see, he
married Steppy, sort of out of gratitude. She had nursed him through a
dangerous fever, and she didn’t save herself in the task either. Steppy
is a trump, but you see----” A conscious pause. Then, “You see, she
never had any chance of education and she has always associated with
rough people, but even that can’t hurt a kind heart, Gloria.” This was
a tribute and Gloria appreciated its value.

“Yes,” she agreed, “a good kind heart doesn’t depend on circumstances
nor upon education. Jane, she’s my near-mother, she always said,
kind hearts were all the angels left us when they ‘shooed’ us out of
paradise.”

“I guess so,” sighed Jack, abstractedly. “But I’ll have to hurry.” A
furtive glance at the door told why. “You see, when dad died he left my
fortune” (she smiled) “all nicely done up and parcelled out so I could
get a little package ever so often. And he gave Steppy all she will
ever need. There’s no trouble about that, but it seems, I should have
told you at the beginning, that Steppy is a little queer, has ideas
about buried treasures and all that. Why, I’ve seen her run up to a
strange girl and ask her where she got her string of beads! Imagine,
when the girl replied icily: ‘In the ten cent store, but they’re all
gone.’”

Both laughed. Gloria wondered what the woman might ask her if she ever
saw the smoky beads she secretly possessed.

“Well, you see,” continued Jack, her cheeks now glowing with suppressed
agitation, “Steppy insists dad had a buried treasure. It’s too long
and too foolish to go into, but I must explain that’s why she comes
down here and insists I go off with her, every now and again when she
unearths what she thinks is a clue. Isn’t that really childish?”

“But she may have an intelligent reason for her belief,” said Gloria,
always eager to assist the suspected.

“That’s it. Even our lawyer, (he’s a fine young fellow, a friend of
Miss Alton’s,) even he has been deceived. She is so convincing. But now
I guess we have dug the last hole. Our mountain place is as dug up as
a ground mole farm. That was what played me out. We had to go by the
mountain trail, and so of course, we rode.”

“I see,” said Gloria, recalling Trixy’s story of having come upon the
little rough rider troupe.

“Yes, I was determined to get back here today. It’s a secret, Glo, but
I do want to come out at least pretty good in the English contest.
That’s one branch I’m not stupid in and I have the darlingest lady
aunty in Manchester, N.H. I want to show her that Broncho Billy, Jacky
Corday has one civilized streak in her variegated make-up.”

“Oh, I’m interested in the contest too,” said Gloria, impulsively. “You
see, I’ve got a dad. He’s a darling man and quite a scientist, although
he is in business. He often has articles on nature studies published in
the magazines. And I’m just crazy to show him what I can do. He’s in
the Philippines now, that’s why I’m here.”

“Oh, to have a dad! Mine was--a wonderful man.” Gray eyes blinked and
the soft voice fell to a cadence.

“Well, at any rate,” chirped Gloria, endeavoring to bring the tempo
up to normal, “I’ll race you in the essay, Jack. How much have you
finished?”

Followed a brief discussion of the contest, which was being conducted
by the Forestry Association for pupils of private schools.

“It will close, you know, in two days more,” said Jack warningly. “Do
you suppose these old ladies around here will let me work tomorrow?”

“That might depend upon how well you rest to-night. I think
I had better----”

“Oh, I haven’t really told you what I especially wanted you for.” Jack
sat up straight and assumed the most confidential air. “I want you to
phone Steppy. Tell her you are my chum, and that you have just been
talking to me, and I’m perfectly all right. Oh, you know the bunk,”
(Jack was so like a boy at times,) “simply fix it so she won’t cut down
here and--and shock the gentle Jean.”

“Pity about Jean. If I might advise, Jack, I’d just let Jean and her
crowd--whistle!”

“If she only could! But can you see what a noise her lips would make?
Whistle! It would be a sizzle. Jean’s mouth is too sour to emit
anything really jolly. But anyhow, Glo, I do hope you can forestall
Steppy. Really, I couldn’t hardly cope with her myself--just now.”

“All right. I’ll do my best,” said Gloria taking the proffered phone
number.

“I knew I could depend upon you, and you won’t mind if I ask you to
keep it all to yourself?”

“I wouldn’t think of mentioning it.” Then Gloria remembered Trixy’s
frank recital of the morning’s encounter. How could she keep secret
from her its sequel? As if Jack divined the thought she said quickly:

“Of course, you may tell Trix. She’s a dear. And there’s Mary, but I
wouldn’t care to have her know. Gloria, have you ever seen a girl with
such a complete double personality as Mary?”

“I hadn’t noticed. How do you mean?”

“Well, she acts as demure as a kitten, and she’s--oh, I don’t know how
to express it, but she seemed like something done up in a case. Her
real character doesn’t show until some emergency pops up.”

“Oh, yes. I know she was wonderful today,” said Gloria. “But then,
a lot of the girls crawled out of their shells to take part in the
circus!”

“Circus?” Did Jack wince or just appear puzzled?

“I mean the wild canoe chase with a real rescued maiden and a poor
naked Indian half frozen. Oh, Jack! You missed the time of your life.
You should have seen them rubbing me down!”

Jack laughed lightly and any possible “circus clouds” were instantly
dispelled.

“Are you sure the old heart is behaving?” asked Gloria, now on her feet
and ready to leave.

“Be-u-ti-fully. You see, there is one thing I can do and that’s ride
a horse. Wait until you see my Omar. He’s simply a beauty. I won’t
say that he didn’t fly over the hills this morning.” A rueful little
smile explained the result. “But I don’t think that hurt my heart----”
finished Jack.

“No, I don’t either. You know, Jack, you have a weakness for walking
the gym ceiling----”

“Well,” a long drawn sigh, “if they’ll just let me scratch with a
fountain pen I’ll be satisfied now. I’ve got a wonderful idea in my
essay. You see--I’ve travelled a lot.”

“I think I have quite a good idea too,” said Gloria. “I’ve never
travelled far, but a day out of doors with my dad goes right into the
heart of nature, and I’ve had that experience.”

“Good luck, Glo, I can’t win first, but I want to make a good showing.
All the girls are keen on it.”

“Yes.” Gloria had heard nothing but contest for days and she also knew
the interest prevalent. “I’ll phone right away, or is this a good time?”

“Yes, I begged Miss Taylor not to write to Steppy till after supper so
you will head her off. It will cost a couple of dollars to phone but
don’t forget I’m rich, horribly, disgustingly rich, I believe.” After
a pause Jack said, “and just reverse the charge, Steppy will love to
pay it. Dad was always just as simple as--as any of his men, and I
guess I can have a good time without putting on airs, myself.” This
was distinctly Jack, the pout, the quirked smile and the final smack
of her rather boyish lips. “But do try, honey, to keep Steppy away.
When I’m well I can restrain her, but caged up here, I can just imagine
the girls waylaying her and she would be sure to give them the family
history unabridged.”

“I’ll do my best,” promised Gloria, getting out just in time to let
Miss Taylor enter.

The office phone was not safe enough to use for the private message, so
with Trixy and an evening walk as an excuse, Gloria started off for the
village to telephone Mrs. Philip Corday concerning the condition of her
stepdaughter, Jacquinot.

But Gloria had no conception of the enormity of the task assigned her.

Mrs. Corday was, by no means, an ordinary woman.




CHAPTER XI

A NEW ANGLE


There was no time to repeat to Trixy the story Jack had told Gloria,
but the “high spots” could not be suppressed even temporarily so Gloria
repeatedly told those on her way to the village.

“And that explains the riders’ mystery,” she commented. “You see this
treasure business is supposed to be hidden in some wild mountain place.”

“It is so like the usual silly yarn, with the prospect of some similar
spectacular and impossible ending,” replied Trixy, “that really, Glo, I
could hardly work up interest in it. Can you?”

“Of course not,” agreed Gloria promptly, “I’m not interested in the
treasure hunt, but in Jack’s predicament. She’s a real little brick,
Trixy. You should hear her stand up for this queer installment plan
mother. I hope the ogress won’t eat me up over the wire.”

“Doesn’t the treasure hunt sound a little like the Pirate’s Daughter?”
Trixy said, quizzically.

“Oh, I thought of that, and made more than one leading remark in its
direction,” admitted Gloria, “but I couldn’t catch even a glimmer of
suspicion. Not that I would disturb Jack about it now, but I can’t help
wanting to know who bestowed the black necklace upon me. I almost took
the token in to our village jeweler for his opinion yesterday. But that
must all wait now. Don’t you really feel sorry for proud, high-strung
Jack, Trix? I think I would feel exactly like her if I had to hide the
weakness of some one I loved. I couldn’t let others see it to scoff.”
The black eyes threw out threatening gleams and vouched promptly for
the girl’s loyalty to a friend in need.

“Yes, it is hard for Jack to manage that sort of person. I would rather
do most anything than try to cover up relatives’ shortcomings. They
always crop out and spoil everything at the critical time,” said Trixy.

“Yes.” Gloria paused reflectively. Her father was a gentleman,
always, Aunt Harriet, Hazel’s mother was old fashioned but naturally
polite, even Jane, though no relative and really only a nurse, was
instinctively considerate. “Yes, it must be humiliating for a girl to
have to fight vulgarity,” Gloria concluded.

“And you know, Trix,” she continued, “Jack just jokes about her money.
Says it is all done up in little prize packages so that she can use a
week’s or month’s supply without counting it. Isn’t that like Jack?”

“Exactly. But here we are. I’ll wait for you at the soda counter. I
want the joy of a soda undisturbed. I may have another with you while
you swallow your favorite lime.”

“Oh, there’s Blanche, and Edna,” Gloria grumbled, catching sight of a
group of girls within the store.

“And worse yet, there’s Jean. However did they all get out here so
early?”

“Working hard on the essay, I suppose, so they came in early in order
to have a long evening. Are you going in for it, Trix?”

“No, I’m too old and grown-up for prize essays,” laughed Trix. “But I
hope you’ll win out. Of course you know that, Lambikins.”

“I want to, for dad’s sake,” replied Gloria evenly, “and I really do
love the subject. It’s no trouble at all to write it.”

“I imagine you would love it. Now slip into the phone while I flag the
others. Don’t get excited and don’t make any rash promises.”

Ten minutes later Gloria emerged from the booth, her cheeks aflame and
her eyes shining.

“Whew!” she whispered to Trixy. “That was some message. I’m not sure I
succeeded in allaying Mrs. Corday’s fears for Jack. Somehow she already
had the news.”

“Want a soda? You look puffed out,” commented Trixy, beckoning the
clerk. “Take your time, Glo, the others have all gone. Just as you
suspected, they are in for the prize. It seems Jean’s mother is a
Daughter of the Wars, and the Daughters, it also seems, are interested
in the success of the contest. And harken! If you win the prize you may
have cash or the especially struck off medal. You should have heard
what the girls are going to buy for the cash consideration,” Trixy
enjoyed the joke.

“I suppose so,” Gloria was fanning with the soda list and still
panting. Presently she said, “Trixy, there is something queer about
Jack’s Steppy. I don’t wonder Jack wants to keep her away from carping
critics. She got so excited I thought she would short circuit the
system.”

Trixy laughed. “Then you are not sure you have forestalled her coming?”

“No, I’m not.”

“It wouldn’t do Jack any good to worry about her just now. The doctor
told Miss Taylor that Jack was suffering from what is termed an
athletic heart, and she must be kept quiet. He really insinuated her
condition could easily become critical.”

Gloria sipped her soda thoughtfully. She was still flushed and
uncomfortable.

“But if she insists upon coming? There is no doubt of it she thinks the
world of our Jack, and who can blame her for wanting a glimpse of the
girl? What a shame she had to get the worst end of the news.”

“Cheer up! Here’s a letter, if you are calm enough to read it. Go right
ahead, I have one I’ll re-read. It’s from dad. Yours has a favorite
post mark, I noticed,” said Trixy.

“From Jane. Dear old Jane!” exclaimed Gloria. “I’d just love to see
her. Have I time to read this? I’ll just glance through it----”

“Do.” The business letter head was again drawn from the business
envelope and Trixy smiled over every word as she re-read.

Gloria’s face lit up like a blaze.

“Oh, she’s coming! Jane is coming down to see me! Isn’t that delicious!
Janie, the calico lady! The only woman on earth who can wear a tight
bonnet, strings under her chin and look pretty! She does. Trixy, I can
just see her landing in Altmount. I hope she comes at recreation so
every one sees her----”

Gloria was fairly dancing. Trixy had paid the check and they were ready
to leave. The prim young lady clerk was smiling broadly.

“No danger of you wanting to hide your near-mother,” remarked Trixy.
“Perhaps Jack is too sensitive. Why should she so fear to have the
girls see the woman?”

This was said as they struck the homeward stride. “Well, you see,
Trix,” replied Gloria, “she has some little kink in her mentality, and
Jack says she knows she would blurt out the family history, unabridged,
first thing.”

“Oh,” an emphatic pause drew out the single syllable until it included
a quizzical sentence.

“You see, with Jack’s money,” Gloria quickly defended. But that didn’t
explain the fear of publishing the family history. “Really,” she began
again lamely, “you would think her fortune was a joke. The way she
speaks of it. I wouldn’t wonder but she’ll do some huge thing just to
show the girls how mistaken they have been. But that isn’t half as
interesting as the coming of Jane!” Trixy’s arm stood the battery of a
powerful love squeeze just then.

“How is she coming?”

“Didn’t say, but I hope by auto. I wouldn’t know when to meet her. And
let’s hurry, Trix. I’ll have to work until all hours to have a little
time off tomorrow.” They both quickened the already lively pace. “And
of course,” Gloria rattled on, “I’ll have to tell Jack---- Dear me! What
shall I tell her?”

“The best yarn you can fix up. Remember that sick people sometimes need
poison in medicine and--shall I say good healthy falsehoods are the
same sort of mental antidote?”

“I see. Of course, I’ll try to make her mind easy. But you know, Trix,
I couldn’t get the woman to say she would wait to hear when Jack might
have a free day. She talked so much, so fast, so loud! My ears still
tingle.”

“Just tell Jack you fixed it all right----”

“And then set Sam to watch the trains! Trix, if she ever comes what
will happen to my essay? I have to retype it tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, lamb, perhaps she won’t come. I’d offer to watch for her
and corral her, if necessary, but I have a test, in physics at that,
and I’ve been plugging for nights on the stuff, but somehow I don’t get
the big idea.”

“How about Mary? Suppose we could make her understand? Oh, but that
wouldn’t do either,” Gloria hastened to correct. “I promised Jack to
tell no one but you. She mentioned Mary’s name but did not include her.”

They were climbing the second hill in Altmount grounds, and the evening
was in quite a hurry to finish up its duties, for already shadows were
plunging into Night’s canopy.

“I hope poor Jack is asleep,” remarked Gloria. She showed real
agitation now, as her task became more complicated.

“She may be asleep, for medicines often have that sort of secondary
action. Glo, love, I’m glad I’m here now. It has been rather stupid
after the wildly lovely times we had together out in the reckless
world,” she explained more fully, with a charming but most unworldly
manner characteristic of the real unspoiled girl, “and now,” she
continued, “you the little old reliable _you_ that has bewitched
me, have precipitated the most alluring episode of all, including
pirate’s daughter, hiding gem laden trunks, losing guilty blood stones
and surreptitiously rewarding the poor but honest finder with a black
jade necklace. Naturally, we’re afraid the necklace is hoodooed, but
I’m going to borrow it some day and find out.”

“Glad I was able to inject a little variety into the solitude,”
murmured Gloria, “but as far as I am personally concerned, I’d like to
thin it out right now. I didn’t count on irate stepmothers shocking
snobby school girls into fear of social contamination. There! see how
my English has improved?”

“Marvelously! You’ll surely win that prize----”

“And Jack is trying----”

“I know. I’ve been helping her a little----”

“Oh.”

“You don’t mind, Glo? I wouldn’t help her against you. But she’s
pitifully weak on spelling, for instance. It’s a strange thing that
she should be so low in grade if she has always been--in such affluent
circumstances.”

“Yes. I don’t think it’s gossipy to remark on her lack of many things
that usually come with money,” said Gloria wisely. “All of which would
point to sudden wealth.”

“Or, perhaps, to some circumstance not compatible with wealth.
Sometimes a big mill manager may really be rich and yet have to live in
a horrible district,” reasoned Trixy. Her own father was a manufacturer
and a magnate, but their home in Sandford was the show place of the
town. Yet Beatrix Travers was well versed in such limitations.

“I don’t believe it is that,” said Gloria. “It appears to me----”

“Oh, naturally it must fit in with all the other thrilling details.”
They were in the hallway, but no one seemed to be about. “Just as
we thought they are--plugging,” smiled Trixy. “I’ll make a sign for
our door while I wait for you. They might just come down on us for
curiosity’s sake.”

Gloria tossed back a smile as she took the other corridor. In spite
of her confidence with Trixy there was always a subtle something she
could not find words to express. She knew, instinctively, that Jack had
hidden more than she had divulged, she also knew that the sensitiveness
could not account for such alarm as Jack had betrayed, therefore there
was something definite Jack was bound to hide from her companions.

This line of reasoning was suddenly interrupted by Mary Mears almost
colliding with Gloria on the turn near Jack’s door.

“Oh!” both exclaimed.

“She’s asleep,” said Mary. “Did you get her mother on the wire?”

“Yes,” murmured Gloria surprised that Mary should ask.

“Is she--satisfied to wait--until Jack is stronger?”

“I think so----”

“She was--excited?”

“Mary,” whispered Gloria, drawing the girl into a nearby alcove. “Did
Jack--tell you?”

“Yes and no,” said Mary frankly. “But Gloria, I know something of
Jack’s anxiety and you need not fear you are divulging confidence. In
fact, it is really more important for me to know if Mrs. Corday is
coming here than it is for Jack.”

“For you to know?” repeated Gloria, incredulously.

“Yes,” said Mary decisively. “And if you know whether or not she is
coming, Gloria, can’t you trust me far enough to let me know?” The
voice and manner were subtly ingratiating.

“Certainly, Mary,” promised Gloria, and the next moment she was in her
own room holding her confused head in two unwilling hands.

“The waters gather,” she groaned to Trixy.

“They rush along,” finished the girl under the yellow lamp shade.




CHAPTER XII

A TRIBUTE


“But what could Mary mean?”

This question, or at least some variation of it had been Gloria’s
plaint for the better part of a half hour, and Trixy, still patient,
offered another suggestion in answer.

“There is something strange about Mary,” she said this time. “I thought
I noticed it first when she caught a glimpse of a family picture in
Jack’s room. It might have been imagination, we were all under such a
strain, but it seemed to me her pale face betrayed sudden alarm.”

“A picture!”

“Yes. Just a rustic snapshot taken somewhere in the mountains. The
stepmother, father and a couple of queer looking folks. I didn’t
scrutinize it but Mary took it to the light when she thought or
appeared to think no one noticed. She had some motive for studying the
picture.”

“Did she say anything about it?”

“Asked me if I knew who were in the group. Jack was dozing and Miss
Taylor hovered near.”

“I thought I had a first rate mystery in the Pirate’s Daughter, with
her blood stone and the gift of black pearls, but now here comes Mary
moping along, with regular melodrama. Trixy, the plot--thick-ens! Am I
or am I not the gurrull from Barbend?” Gloria rolled down on the floor
and kept rolling until the legs of the table stopped her. Then she lay
flat, arms out straight and eyes closed. Trixy dropped a chocolate drop
so near the receptive mouth it eventually rolled in.

“Oh, lovely-kins!” said the girl on the floor. “Why did I ever promise
Dame Ambition that I’d try for that old prize? I feel like sleeping
until the crack of doom.”

“No wonder. You have had what might be honestly called, a full day. Get
up on the couch and take forty winks. I’ll shake you in time to finish
that important page.”

“Hark! I hear a footstep----”

“Quick! Up on the couch and I won’t let them disturb you.”

Roughly tucked in with the brilliant Navajo blanket, Gloria squeezed
her eyes closed before the door was opened to admit Pat.

“Is she asleep?” asked the red haired one, considerately.

“I hope so,” whispered Trixy. “What a day she has had! Won’t you come
in, Pat?”

“Not if I would disturb her.” A few carefully chosen steps brought Pat
within reach of a chair. “They asked me to bring her this. Every one
chipped in.”

Gloria sat up straight. Her eyes beheld a glorious box that could
contain nothing less sweet than candy.

“Oh!” she gurgled.

“Awake?” Pat’s voice betrayed her hopes.

“I really wasn’t asleep, but _who-all_ sent me this? And why?”

“Why? Say, Glo, Mary tried to pawn her best ring to Janet for her share
in the chipping. Mary always does use up her allowance in advance, but
she was heartbroken not to have any real cash on hand. I mention it to
show the spirit. Glo, we’ll never one of us have a chance after this.”
Pat dug her sport shoes into the rug. “And to think I didn’t even have
sense enough to dip in, get wet and pretend I was for the rescue!
Well, anyways, as Tillie, the milk girl says, there’s the token of our
esteem, and we all hope it won’t make you sick. Maud Hunter selected
it and she is supposed to know what’s what in candy, because her dad
gambles in sugar or eggs or something sweetish.”

Pat had ostentatiously placed the beautiful box in Gloria’s
outstretched hands and was salaaming absurdly.

Trixy beamed. “It was lovely of the girls----”

“And that little Ethel proposed it, she was so tickled to have helped
rub your toes, Glo, or did she hold the soap? Anyways, she’s so
grateful to have had a hand in adjusting your precious person. And say,
girls, how’s Jack?”

“Sleeping, last we heard, and doing all right, we hope,” replied Trixy.
Gloria was fondling the gift appreciatively.

“She’s a lucky stude. I thought it was all over, and I’ll never forget
her face. Honest.” The tone was not now frivolous. “But say, Gloriosa,
how goes the essay? I hear you’re out to win?”

Even with the opportunity of banter made by Pat herself, Gloria
couldn’t find words to say “Run along! I’ve got to work to-night,”
instead she faltered:

“I’m afraid I’ve got an awful lot to do yet. And tomorrow may be a
broken day.”

“The girls working in the contest are to have a free day for it, didn’t
you know?”

“Yes, I knew that, but I expect company,” said Gloria, still admiring
the handsome candy box.

“Oh! May _I_ meet him?”

“You may meet _her_. It’s my near-mother, Jane Morgan. She has
been with me all my life until last year and this,” said Gloria gently.
“And I’m willing to divulge this real secret, right here and now.
Listen! I hope I shall be with her again before many more years, for
my idea of a real life, is the thatched roof, with Jane and dad in the
foreground and an ocean for a hedge.”

“Lov-ell-lee!” thrilled Pat. “And, Glo, I don’t expect you to open up
the candy, so don’t worry about an excuse. I’ll toddle along. What
report shall I make to the committee?”

“Oh, they’re dears, every one of them, and you can tell them I said so.
I wish I wasn’t so busy. I’d invite them all in and we’d celebrate. But
after all, perhaps it will be better to wait until we can fix something
up for Jack. I’ll save the prettiest pieces----”

“Hark! There’s some one coming to make sure I brought it to you and
didn’t break the seal. Give me one little kiss in that clean spot below
the freckle patch. Thanks, Glo dear, and if I live to be a hundred I’ll
never forget this day.”

So little Pat bounced out in time to prevent the invasion of the
approaching stepper.

“Even Jean,” murmured Trixy, referring to the list of donors.

“But I couldn’t trust her, for all of that,” returned Gloria, frankly.
“I think Jean respects popular opinion, and just now it seems to blow
my way. But I wouldn’t care to depend upon it for a night’s lodging.”

“Cynic,” scolded Trixy. “You know, Glo, it’s positively rash to fly in
the face of popularity. But at any rate, sit down and write. You have a
good hour left, and mayhap the diversion hath refreshed thee. Get thee
to thy task, and may Minerva be kind.”

From that time until the bell rang Trixy stalled off five attempts at
intrusion, by actual count. It seemed that even an essay contest, keen
though it was, would not hold down the curious ones.

Gloria soon forgot her own fatigue, however, in her interest of the
subject, and what between hunting up words, verifying vague beliefs in
the great out doors, identifying queer little birds with downy whiskers
over their eyes, (she had found one by the big oak tree, the queerest
bird, that might have been a horned lark, but it was so young the marks
could hardly be accepted as permanent,) these necessary interruptions
rather delayed the actual progress of the last draft of the essay. But
Gloria worked on, unconscious of draw-backs, enjoying the one task that
befell her--original writing on the one original subject: Nature in The
Great Outdoors.

“How come?” inquired Trixy, her own lamp already dimmed.

“Oh, I love it!” breathed Gloria. “The one trouble is, the theme is so
unlimited, unrestricted. I believe one could write two thousand words
on the life of a fern, it is all real, vivid and fascinating.”

“Because you know all about ferns, and hop toads and daddy-long-legs,”
said Trixy. “Now, I would find it simpler to expand on the joy of
home comforts. That’s one thing first rate at Altmount. The beds are
_swell_!”

“And I’ll join you in similar praise directly,” promised Gloria.
“Meanwhile I’ll drop the curtain. There’s no need of keeping you awake
on my work.”

“Well, you know I’d stay awake if it would do you any good, Glo. But
like saying your prayers, essay writing, according to the rules, must
be individually executed. What I did for Jack was just the roughest
suggestion, of course.”

“Poor Jack! I wonder if they’ll let her finish it tomorrow?”

“Likely, if she rests well. Physical exertion is the main restriction.”

Gloria was pondering, deeply, trying to fix up a difficult paragraph.
Trixy heard her sigh and suggested:

“Sleep over it, Glo. If you go to sleep with the snarl on your mind,
you will wake up with it all straightened out. Really. Psychologists
say so. Be careful where you hide your candy. I might walk in my sleep.”

“I wish the girls hadn’t done it.”

“Why?”

“Oh, sort of makes me feel foolish.”

“Silly. You ought to be tickled to death. That’s the loveliest box they
had at Benwick’s. And besides, I’m sure they wanted to show you how
they felt.”

“You mean that the country stigma has been condoned?” There was an even
tone of mockery in this.

“Gloria Doane, you ought to be slapped.” Trixy sat up straight to say
this and Gloria was sitting on the foot of her chum’s bed to rest up
a little before trying to sleep. “You know perfectly well no one ever
considered you--country.”

“Queer what a morbid imagination I have. But never mind, lamb. ’S’all
right. I know you love me and--and I hope I can send a good report to
dad. What else counts? And Jane comes on the morrow! Whew! I’d best be
haymaking, or whatever it is Pat calls getting to sleep. Trixy, don’t
you love little Pat?”

“’Course.”

“And isn’t Mary quaint?”

“’Squaint?”

“Oh, go to sleep, dear, and don’t let my alarm disturb you. I’m putting
it under the big bowl right at my ear. Set for----”

But the monotonous breathing from the alcove made further explanation
unnecessary.

In her own bed Gloria found sleep or did not find it within reach.
Hours, it seemed, she lay there, thinking. She changed line and
paragraph of the essay over and over again, even snapping on her light
to note some subtle phrase that might escape her memory during sleep,
if sleep ever came.

Finally, anxious for rest, she deliberately turned her thoughts to Jack.

Why was she so fearful her stepmother would divulge family matters?
What was so secret about it all?

“And she doesn’t seem to know anything about the black pearls, or
whatever the anonymous necklace is made of,” she decided. That strain
of thought travelled far before the weary girl checked it. Then the new
angle, Mary’s strange remark, came up for investigation.

“Could she have some secret interest in Jack?” Gloria questioned. “I
always fancied she hovered over her, somehow, especially since that day
in the dressing room when the girls openly discussed the loud spoken
Steppy, who had taken Jack away so suddenly.”

For some time vague fancies formed as explaining this sudden interest
of Mary’s. She remembered how outspoken Mary had been in Jack’s
defense. How she had asked more than one girl if she had seen the
Steppy. But no one had.

“And when Trixy came in from the ride,” persisted Gloria’s abused
brain, “she thought she saw someone, who might be Mary, hiding back of
the hedge, just as Jack and the other Rough Riders dashed in?”

“Now why----”

But a welcome confusion checked the answer and mercifully put Gloria’s
faith in the exact science of a well trained little alarm clock.

For a heavy day following was imminent.




CHAPTER XIII

SERIOUS SCHOOL WORK


But the alarm clock did not wake Gloria. There had been voices
during the night, subdued yet distinctive enough to penetrate her
consciousness, and now, although it was still dark, a slight commotion
in the corridor startled Trixy as well as Gloria, and both were
intently listening.

“What was it?”

“I think Jack must be worse. I heard a man’s voice.”

“Dear me. I hope not. Listen!”

“Yes, that’s the doctor’s voice. Oh Trix! If she should be worse!”
Gloria’s voice trembled with alarm.

“But it was to be expected that she might have another little spell. It
wouldn’t mean anything serious. Don’t you get up. I’ll slip on a robe
and see if I can do anything,” said Trixy.

“As if I could lie here----”

Then the sounds were lost in distant footsteps. The hall light that had
shown through the transom was dimmed, and when Trixy opened the door
everything seemed as usual.

“Wait. I’ll slip downstairs. I think I heard Miss Alton’s voice. She
must have come in on the midnight.”

“Don’t stay. I’m just frightened to death, Trix. I had such a horrible
dream.”

Terror, unreasonable, seized Gloria. Perhaps as she said, it was merely
the reflection of a bad dream, that indefinable gloom that so often
follows a troubled night, especially when body and mind have been over
exerted. But neither cause nor reason modified her dread that something
serious might happen to Jack.

Quickly getting into slippers and gown she waited for Trixy to come
back. It seemed a long wait, but was not actually more than a few
minutes.

“Nothing to be frightened about. Just a little spell, as I thought, and
Miss Alton called the doctor,” was Trixy’s verdict upon returning.

“Oh, I feel choked myself,” confessed Gloria. “I’ve never been so silly
before----” She fairly gasped. “Tell me honestly, Trix. They haven’t
taken her--away!”

“No. Certainly not. Go back to bed or you’ll be ill yourself. Are you
sure you haven’t cold from that ice bath?”

“No-no. I’m all right, but sort of dazed. Isn’t it silly? I wonder why
I should flop like this?”

“I wonder why you shouldn’t? Get back to bed, I’m boss now.” Trixy
seemed to mean what she was saying. “It is only six o’clock and you
have an hour and a half more. Land knows, you need it.” She tucked
Gloria in, robe and all, although a little kick shook the blue slippers
out and from the bed clothes.

“My teeth are--chat-ter-ring!”

“So I hear. Shall I get you a warm drink? Have you a chill?” Trixy
asked, apprehensively.

“Oh, just common nerves. The kind I had when daddy went away--and I
knew--I had to go to--Aunt Harriet’s,” stammered the girl, deep in
pillows. “But do tell me? What did you hear? Please tell me all--you
know?”

“If you aren’t a real baby after all!” half scolded Trixy, sitting on
the edge of the bed beside the shivering girl. “Well, all I know is
that Tillie was sitting with Jack when she seemed to grow faint. Miss
Alton was called and she called the doctor. He said, Miss Alton told
me, that Jack should be moved to a very quiet room and have a nurse
installed. That’s lots nicer than being carried off to some rubber
tired sanitarium.”

“Oh yes, lots.”

“I don’t suppose you can get to sleep again?”

“No, I’m sure I can’t.”

“Then just keep warm, and forget the bad dream. I often have them
myself and they seem so real I’m a wreck the whole next day. My
favorite is a horrible bloody murder with my hands dripping gore.
Though I don’t do the murder I always get mixed up in gore. Last time
I found it was Mabel’s fudge that hadn’t been entirely washed from my
guilty fingers as we turned out lights to fool Wilson.”

Gloria managed a feeble laugh. “I know what gave me the sudden fright,”
she said, now more quietly settled and almost free from the signs of
alarm. “I was just dreaming horribly that Jack called and I couldn’t go
to her. Night-marish, you know, then I actually did hear voices in the
hall and it made the thing so real.”

“And what really caused it was the repressed fear you did experience
when you saw Jack in the bottom of the canoe. While you were awake you
threw it off, but it bobbed up serenely in sleep. Well, you’re all
right now, Jack is all right so far as danger goes, but what threatens
you as something really not all right is the busy day on the essay.
Keep your eyes shut. There,” she held her finger tips over Gloria’s
fluttering lids, “and if you can’t really sleep you can rest. I’ll go
and do likewise.”

But even the eyelids rebelled after a time, and quickly as she felt at
liberty to do so, Gloria jumped up, made for the showers, then spent
fifteen minutes in vigorous exercise.

“More like it,” she exclaimed, when dressing for the free day, in such
apparel as might be worn indoors or out.

During breakfast and after, the whole place was a-buzz with queries
and opinions concerning Jack. Some insisted the Steppy had come again
and carried her off, “sick and all,” others heard the voices and knew
Jack must be “almost dying and maybe had to make her will.” Pat said
she was rich enough to have something to will, and while she, Pat,
was very hard up at the moment, she hoped magnanimously that Jack
would live long enough to spend her own money. The little joke went by
unappreciated.

Mary Mears did not appear in the dining room. Her absence was commented
upon, but Edna Hobbs passed the word that Mary would not leave Jack’s
bedside, and that Miss Alton had given permission for her to remain.

All of which might or might not have been authentic, but served, at any
rate, to keep interest keen and liven things up generally.

Again Gloria was surrounded by admiring ones, especially the younger
girls looked upon her as a real dramatic heroine, and even the box
of candy, for which she now thanked them personally, had not, they
declared, fully expressed the admiration rampant.

Finally, classes were due, students scattered, and those free for the
essay finish dove into secluded corners, hugging hopes and strangling
misgivings.

Gloria had only a few pages to correct, then she would pass it in to
Miss Sanders and it would be ready for typing. She gathered her papers
and her reference books, concentrating upon the importance of elusive
phrases, and had just begun to write when Maggie, the maid, poked her
head in the door and set forth a summons to the office.

“She wants yuh, right off, at the office,” said Maggie, brushing back
a “cow lick,” reminiscently.

“All right, I’ll go at once,” agreed Gloria, putting her petrified wood
paper weight upon the precious essay. Her dad had sent that weight to
her, all the way from the Philippines, and she always felt it was the
nearest thing to his own personal influence that she could exert.

In the office she found Miss Alton, as sweetly impressive as usual, and
she politely inquired after Gloria’s own affairs before divulging the
purport of her summons.

“And I’ve heard all about your bravery,” she smiled. “The girls are
simply inspired by your heroism----”

“Oh, it was scarcely worth all the fuss that has been made----”

“I know. To the brave all else is puny,” said the principal.
“Nevertheless, it is gratifying for me to know I have such a splendid
lieutenant to stand by my officers during my absence.”

Gloria smiled tolerantly. She was thinking of that sentence she
had been just about to indite when Maggie called. She looked up
questioningly.

“What I sent for you for,” responded Miss Alton, “was to ask your
help again. It seems little Jacquinot has implicit faith in your
discretion, and she has, has she not, intrusted to you a message she
wished sent to her mother?”

“Yes. I talked with Mrs. Corday on the wire,” replied Gloria, “but Jack
was sleeping when I returned----”

“I understand. That was entirely right. You had no need, really, to
report to the office, although as a rule, it is best to do so. Under
the circumstances, and in consideration of your excited state of mind
it was entirely excusable----”

“What, Miss Alton?” The tone and words implied some mistake of which
Gloria was unconscious.

“Why, my dear, it would have been better for you to have consulted Miss
Taylor before delivering an important message from a sick girl.”

Gloria’s face flamed--but only for a moment. The next she knew she had
borne out Jack’s wishes and that she did so in ignorance of a school
rule, or an unwritten point of ethics was not, she felt sure, to be
seriously considered. She just wished Miss Alton would let her get back
to her work.

“But now that you have been unwittingly made an emissary,” Miss
Alton’s smile was real, “it seems best to continue in that capacity.
Jacquinot, as you may know, is still extremely nervous, and the
doctor, who called early,” (unnecessary alarm was always to be avoided
at boarding school,) “ordered absolute quiet for some time. Now, I have
just received a message from Mrs. Corday. She insisted upon coming
after all. Miss Taylor, who has great faith in your resourcefulness,
has suggested that you meet the train, and perhaps in some magical way
you could turn her back. If she comes up here we shall certainly have
a difficult time in keeping her away from little Jack. She may even
question our motives.” Miss Alton allowed a very human frown to gather
upon her benign brow. “But what ever happens she cannot see Jack. She
always excites her.”

“I’ll do anything I can, of course, Miss Alton,” said Gloria, each word
sounding to her like a blast at the belated essay.

“You have today free? You are in the contest?”

“Yes, but not finished. I have been delayed.” There was no keeping
anxiety out of her voice.

“Have you much to do? I would not have you held back in your work for
any private matter,” said Miss Alton quickly. “Especially as I know how
interested your father is in your writing, and I also know what good
reports Miss Sanders already has of your work; but if you could just
meet the ten o’clock train, and in your own original way soothe Mrs.
Corday, or in some way assure her of Jack’s satisfactory condition,
then, if she must come, perhaps it would be easier for us all.” A sort
of resigned helplessness was now apparent in Miss Alton’s manner. “But
after all,” she added, “I can’t see why I should ask you to do this.
It is only because we all here seem somehow to antagonize Mrs. Corday,
in spite of our very best intentions. She is--rather erratic, but
perfectly devoted to little Jack,” declared Miss Alton, warmly.

Gloria prepared to leave. Indecision was disturbing Miss Alton. Then
Gloria said:

“I expect a friend on that same train, Miss Alton. You know Jane, my
old nurse, has not been here yet. I had word yesterday that she is
coming today, so when I meet her it will be quite easy for me to pick
up Mrs. Corday. How shall I recognize her?”

“She will be sure to hop into the yellow and black taxi. I say ‘hop’
for Mrs. Corday is extremely alert. She is positively the most active
middle aged woman I have ever known. But her training----” Miss Alton
stopped suddenly. She had no need, evidently, to discourse upon the
obstreperous stepmother’s training. “But,” she added presently, “it
will simplify matters greatly, if you can just meet the train. We shall
have to depend upon conciliatory circumstances to attend to the rest.
Thank you, dear, and I know I can count upon your discretion.”

A sense of impending gloom gripped Gloria. She felt as if her heart had
slipped off a ledge into a pool of thick, murky stuff that it couldn’t
beat its way through. She dreaded taking the temperamental woman in
hand even temporarily; she longed to have Jane all to herself for a few
hours, and she was positively feverish in her anxiety for finishing the
essay.

Now, all these hopes must be subservient to Miss Alton’s wishes. But if
it saved Jack----

“Be sure to tell me if this little commission interferes with any
personal plans,” Miss Alton said at the door, thereby robbing Gloria
of even the slight comfort to be had in a rebellious groan. As if she
could tell her? And as if she could now complain loudly and thoroughly
to Trixy!

She left the office indifferently. So much so that she totally
disregarded traffic rules, and with head bent out of the line of vision
she ran directly into Mary Mears.




CHAPTER XIV

BALKED AMBITION


The surprise of meeting Mary Mears so suddenly almost took Gloria’s
breath away.

“Oh, excuse me, Mary,” she faltered. “Glad you weren’t a lamp post.”

“So am I,” said Mary. “But, Gloria, can I speak to you a moment?”

“Mercy me! More plots!” Gloria was cynical in her despair. “Certainly
you can talk to me. I need sympathy. Have you any to spare?”

But Mary was not in Gloria’s mood. Quietly she led her into her own
room--a rare thing for Mary to do.

“You know, of course,” she began, “Jack is worse?”

“Just the expected reaction, I thought. Isn’t it?”

“I hope that is all. And--is--her stepmother coming?” It seemed
actually difficult for Mary to ask the question.

“I believe so. That is, if I can’t flag her away,” said Gloria, a
little bitterly.

“It is a queer situation,” Mary hesitated. Then, “But I can understand,
perhaps better--than the others,” she faltered.

“Why don’t you meet her, Mary? I’m sure she would listen to reason from
you,” blurted out Gloria.

“_I!_” the word ran the entire scale of surprise. “Why, _I_
wouldn’t want to meet Mrs. Corday under any circumstances.”

“Is she an ogre? May I have my precious head bitten off? Why all this
alarm?”

Evidently Mary regretted her quick reply, and now she tried to qualify.

“That was a queer thing for me to say,” she smiled, “but you know, I do
hate--to meet strangers.”

“So do I, when I’m due to finish essays, meet dear Jane and otherwise
merrily pass away the alleged free day.” Gloria tilted her head up
characteristically.

“But I just wanted to know about the trains?” Mary demurred.

“Going away?”

“Only for the day. I had a business message this morning. My time
table may be out of date,” she attempted to explain. “I believe they
change schedules in October or is it November? Well, anyway I imagined
you would know. When does the train come in and when does one go out?”

Gloria burst into a frank little laugh.

“Which way do you want to go?” she asked. “Not thinking of going up to
the back woods junction?”

“Oh, no. I’m going into Blairton. But I supposed you were going down to
meet the incoming train.” A flush of confusion spread over Mary’s fair
skin.

For the moment Gloria showed her own perplexity. What, really, did Mary
wish to know?

“Oh, do you want to go in when I go?” she asked.

“Why, I thought I could see about connections. Do you know what train
Mrs. Corday is coming on?” Mary asked directly. And then Gloria
guessed. Mary wanted to avoid being at the station when Mrs. Corday
came!

“No, I don’t exactly,” replied Gloria truthfully.

“I thought perhaps Miss Alton told you.”

What had seemed like confusion in Mary’s expression was fast gathering
into misery. She was plainly intent upon keeping out of the way of
Jack’s unpopular stepmother.

“There are two trains in,” began Gloria. “And I suppose if she doesn’t
come in on one, Jane will, and ten chances to one I’ll have to meet
both. Mary, I’m sure as shooting, that my poor little essay is going to
be stalled ‘on the high rocks of a crowded day.’”

“Oh, Gloria! You don’t mean you can’t finish it?”

“No, I don’t quite mean it, but I fear it. There have simply been
endless interruptions----”

“And now I’ve detained you, and on such a silly pretext. Of course, I
might have phoned about the trains.”

“I was glad to call,” smiled Gloria sweetly, for she guessed what ever
Mary’s anxiety might have been caused by, it must be something more
serious than finishing a prize essay.

“I most sincerely hope you will have it finished in time,” said Mary,
warmly. “I only wish I could enter more heartily into school work.”

“I can’t truthfully say I love all of it,” admitted Gloria, “but I
have always been interested in trying to write. You see, my dad does
some writing although he is in business.”

“I suppose one must inherit that sort of thing,” replied Mary wistfully.

“Every one has her own talent,” said Gloria hopefully. “If you don’t
like writing you may like----”

“Nursing. I did love to nurse little Jack. But then, you see, my own
dear mother--only lately died.” Mary turned away, biting her lip.

Instantly Gloria’s irritation gave way to sympathy. To lose a mother!
And perhaps one who was a real companion!

“Mine is gone also, Mary,” she said very gently, “but it wasn’t so bad
for me. I was very young and I have always had dad.”

“My father is far away. I barely remember him, although he attends,
through his lawyers, to my every need. He is very generous but also
very remote. I might have gone with him or stayed with mother.
Naturally I stayed with mother.”

“Was she ill long?” Gloria asked kindly.

“One year. But in that time we were together and even her illness
seemed less to me than the continuous separation we had been having
through her--profession.” This last word was hesitantly chosen.

“I hope you feel we are all as friendly as we really want to be,
Mary,” Gloria said, moving away, “and if you feel like having a good
old fashioned chat, drop into our room, won’t you? We are the champion
chatterers of the house. I must run along. Call me if you want to go to
the station when I’m going. I should think that would be in about three
quarters of an hour. Meanwhile I’ll go at the essay once more. If you
see Jack this morning, give her my love. I suppose we will be debarred
for the present.”

“No more company, is the order,” said Mary. “Thank you, Gloria, for
your--confidence. You see, sometimes we cannot be as confidential as
we might like to be. I have always longed for, yet dreaded boarding
school, and now--I wonder!” She brought her lips together in a half
smile and at the moment Gloria could not help noticing how pretty she
was.

Hurrying back to the expectant essay, Gloria kept wondering how Mary
would look in a dainty pink, and amethyst lavender or a soft green
frock.

“With her skin and hair she ought to look angelic,” was her final
decision.

Trixy was gone from the room when Gloria returned. This morning all the
girls were bent upon tests or preparations for them. With something
like real affection Gloria picked up the unfinished pages of her theme.
She scarcely felt the time passing until the half hour struck on the
big hall clock. A few more words, just a better one here or there, then
a hurried scanning, and she reluctantly dropped her pen on the glass
tray.

“Hope I can get back before noon,” she was thinking. “I can easily
dispose of Jane for an hour. She’s such an understanding dear.” This
thought was very satisfying and created a happy smile. “And one good
hour more will surely clean up the effort! Just for dad’s sake I do
so want it to be creditable,” Gloria was thinking. Then the necessary
haste forced itself upon her.

Meeting Jane for the first time since she had been at Altmount meant
fixing up, and having the day free from classes meant the opportunity
of wearing regular, not uniform, garb. Gloria quickly selected her
bright red “sleeveless,” and this over a simple white blouse would be
sure, she knew, to please Jane.

But the neck needed a red tie. She looked for one in both top drawers
but none came to light.

“A pin, oh, I know!” she almost exclaimed aloud, “I’ll wear the little
dark stone necklace. It will go just right with this red garb.”

No need to hunt for that; it always lay safely in Trixy’s little box
and from that receptacle in the corner of the drawer, Gloria now
brought it forth.

“The first time,” she reflected. “Too bad Trixy isn’t in to help me
with the ceremony.” The chain was fastened with a small circular clasp
and this did not yield readily to her finger pressure. After a few
attempts, however, the clasp opened and then she promptly snapped it
shut, and for the briefest moment gazed in her mirror.

“Sort of pretty,” Gloria concluded. “Odd, at any rate.” She
straightened the slender string of dark stones, and allowed them to lay
flat against her throat. “Jane always loved beads around my neck,” she
further reflected. “I hope she will like these as well as she did the
little blue and white ones she so hated to have me give up.”

A glance at the small clock warned her the train would be due in
fifteen minutes, and that meant to call to Sam to take her to the
station, in a very small and very humble type of automobile, that he
always called “his team.” Sam would be sure to “stick around” hoping
for passengers in such a plight as Gloria found herself.

“Hop right in,” he answered, cranking as he talked. “This here little
team comes in right handy on a day like this. I jest took the little
pale girl down.”

“Oh, I forgot I promised to call for Miss Mears,” Gloria told the man
now climbing over the wheel.

“Ain’t no need. She’s went. I took her for the ten five. Land sakes!
What a bustle she was in! ’Tain’t none of my affairs, but if I was
to say anythin’ I’d jest about guess that little girl has somethin’
frettin’ her mind.”

He was rattling along and shouting vigorously to send his high pitched
voice still higher, in order to make sure that his remarks reached the
solitary passenger behind him. Gloria was discreet enough to make no
comment. Sam was never to be encouraged in anything like criticism,
and although she would have loved to know why Mary had dashed for the
earlier train, she said not a word to provoke further comment.

Sam subsided. For a considerable distance he merely groaned or grunted
as the car hit the high spots, then finally, just as the rattle box
bounced over a big “thank-e-mum” he shouted back at his fare:

“Is she sickly?”

“Why, no. I don’t think so,” replied Gloria grudgingly. It would have
been silly for her to ask, who?

“She’s so sort of unnatural like,” squeaked Sam. “Al’lus goin’ out
before folks is up and she’s so white in face and black in--figger,”
this was a long and labored speech. “’Course I ain’t supposed to
critercize, but I know a case when I see one!”

“A case?” The question was defensive.

“Sure thing. She’s a case. Mind the day I fetched the wrong trunk to
your room? Well, here we are. I never noticed the run. This little team
can go, ’specially when a feller’s interested,” Sam chuckled without
apology.

“What about the day you brought the trunks?” Gloria asked, although she
had to follow Sam around the car to do so.

“Oh, yes, I was sayin’,” he took off his old beaver hat and ran his
fingers through his shaggy hair. “You see, there was a lot of trunks a
lot alike and it was some mixup. There’s a feller that’ll want to ride
back. You goin’ to the city?”

“No. But don’t wait for me. I’ll have to take Dave’s car back. I expect
company.” An extra dime dropped into his hand with the regular fare
appeased the man’s jealousy. Dave’s car was the regular big taxi, a
chariot of a fine make gone into the livery business, as a good horse
eventually may go to draying.

The train was not in, neither had the signal dropped an arm to indicate
its coming, so Gloria had time to get her breath and ponder upon Sam’s
gossip.

“There were other trunks like mine, I know Pat’s was identical,” she
considered, “and I suppose the girls pointed out to Sam which one each
thought was her own. Mary might have been one of the number.”

Two young women blustered into the small station. They were Altmount
pupils, Gloria recognized, but she was not acquainted with either.
Taking no notice of her, they “fanfared” the ticket agent then dropped
into a seat near Gloria but which was concealed from her by a high
backed bench.

“Of course, mother’ll howl,” said one, “but to be perfectly honest, I’m
glad to escape.”

“Lots better to leave this way than to be dropped,” joined in the
other, although her voice lacked sincerity.

“I never expected to stick it out past the first term,” continued the
first speaker, “but having been at boarding school----”

“Yes, the home folks were keen on that. But, Miriam, I’m afraid I’ll
just have to go back to prep. You see, I really did lose an awful lot
of time.”

Gloria felt like a thief of their confidence, so she got up noisily and
walked to the window.

The signal dropped, the train whistled and her heart jumped.

If only Mrs. Corday would not come, and if only Jane would be sure to
come!

“What’s an essay alongside of my Jane?” she asked herself, just as the
train rumbled in.




CHAPTER XV

STEPPY AND THE CLUE


Jane came! Smartly she stepped down from the car steps only smiling
at the conductors proffered hand. Then, she had Gloria in her arms in
spite of the baggage man’s push cart heading straight for her, and
although Gloria couldn’t see past Jane’s bonnet she could hear very
distinctly. Mr. Thorpe, who had pushed that cart to and from trains for
years and years, was an intolerant, irascible old man. But this time
he was forced to turn out. The embracing pair cared nothing for his
unreasonable orders.

“Jane! Janey! Janikins!” breathed Gloria into the bonnet strings. “How
crazy I am to see you! You look--wonderful!”

“My Glory girl!” replied the woman uncertainly. “I felt as if you
had gone to foreign fields with your father. It has been the longest
time----”

“Come over here a moment,” Gloria interrupted. “I have to
look--for--someone else.” She was inspecting the few arrivals as she
said this, but no potential Mrs. Corday loomed up.

A great gulp of relief almost choked the girl. She looked again, more
critically.

“I guess she--didn’t come!”

“Some friend?” asked Jane, with a polite interest.

“No. That is she is the mother or stepmother of a friend. One of the
girls is sick and I was commissioned to meet the mother.” Each word
was clipped off and stood up straight as a spike, without so much as
leaning one tone upon another.

“Very sick?” Jane mistook distaste for anxiety.

“I had better make sure she didn’t come,” continued Gloria. “There’s a
Pullman. She might have been on that.”

“Run right along, child, and attend to your errand,” said Jane. “I’ll
go in the waiting room and straighten my bonnet--if there’s a glass.”

The porter was just picking up the stepping down bench when Gloria
turned toward the parlor car. Between her and that point Mr. Thorpe
now trundled the big baggage cart, but still, a person could be seen
coming toward the station if one such there might have been.

That she had not come seemed almost too good to be true. It was, for
just at the side of the station, where Dave’s taxi stood, Gloria beheld
a strange woman.

She was talking excitedly to Dave. The next moment she would be in his
car!

“That’s she!” said Gloria aloud, turning instantly toward the street
side of the station.

Dave opened the taxi door, the woman put up one foot----

“Dave!” called Gloria shrilly. “Wait a minute!”

“All full up!” he flung back. The woman was now spreading herself on
the spacious back seat.

“Wait!” shouted Gloria. “I--want--you!”

Her anxiety to stop him shaded her first fears. She rushed up to the
car, prepared even to jump on the running board did he attempt to start
before she could speak.

But the veteran driver, rival of Sam, and open enemy of George Thorpe,
recognized excitement when he saw it, and he stopped with his hand on
the wheel and his foot over the “gas.”

Gloria was abreast of the car. She could see the passenger, and noticed
her impatience to start.

“Well?” asked Dave. “What kin I do fer you?”

“I came to meet Mrs. Corday,” replied Gloria. “I thought perhaps this
may be she.”

Dave turned and bestowed a questioning look at the woman within the
limousine. Evidently the lady had heard Gloria’s statement for she
smiled and looked out quite sociably. Quickly Gloria followed up the
opportunity through the open door.

“Why, yes. I’m Mrs. Corday,” repeated the woman pleasantly.

Her first impression was favorable, and in acknowledgement of it Gloria
smiled her bravest.

“Oh, I’ve been sent to meet you,” she said. “Would you mind stepping
out again? I have another friend, just arrived.”

The gorgeous beaded bag was picked up from the seat, and the woman
in the Burgundy tailor-made suit, squirrel collared, and with the
elaborate hat all plumes and flotsam, easily stepped over a small
leather bag and descended to the tar walk.

Dave “looked daggers” at Gloria, but she wasn’t looking his way. She
was, instead, thanking her lucky stars that the much dreaded Steppy,
was, after all, no worse than an unnatural blonde, over dressed and
over affable.

“My dear! You came to meet me?” she gushed. “Wasn’t that sweet of you?
You’re a friend of little Jacquinot’s, of course?”

The unexpected, but welcome, amiability almost overwhelmed Gloria, but
she remembered her lines.

“Let’s go into the waiting room,” she suggested. “My friend is in
there. Dave, wait, if you wish. I suppose we will be going up presently
three of us.” This prospect conciliated Dave, for he wagged his head
pleasantly.

“Oh, he must not go,” declared the stranger. “There is not another taxi
around, and I know what it is to be stranded in a place like this. Tell
me, dear, how is my little Jackie?”

“Better,” said Gloria. “She only seems to need quiet and rest.” They
were entering the station and Jane stood waiting, beside the big round
stove. “There is my friend,” said Gloria, leading up to Jane. “Jane,
this is Mrs. Corday, the mother of one of my chums. Mrs. Corday, this
is my near-mother, Miss Morgan.”

“Near-mother? How quaint! I’m a near-mother myself----”

“Jane has been my friend-nurse since I was a tiny tot,” Gloria hastened
to interject, lest some real, personal complication might arise. “My
mother died when I was a baby. I’m Gloria Doane.”

“Gloria! _The_ Gloria! About whom Jack continually raves,” replied
Mrs. Corday. “Do let us sit down a moment and get acquainted. No chance
for anything so human up at that horrid school.”

This exactly suited Gloria. She would be able to detain Mrs. Corday
without using any of the strategy she had been so feverishly concocting.

They arranged themselves on the bench under the high window. Jane
appeared perfectly content, (Jane would,) and the strange woman, who
looked startlingly out of place in the humble station, had the grace to
affect ease, whether or not she felt it. Gloria focussed a smile and
held it.

“Now, dear,” began Mrs. Corday, “don’t mind if I’m impatient, but I
must hear all about darling Jack. You are the very girl who was with
her on the lake when she fell ill, are you not? I couldn’t mistake the
name----”

“Yes, I was with her,” interrupted Gloria, “but she just had a little
spell; the doctor said she must have over exerted herself. You know how
fond of athletics Jack is.”

“Do I not?” A full breath volleyed forth each word, but the strident
voice, the girls had complained of, was not noticeable. “Since she
was a tiny tot no one could hold Jack down. You see, I have been with
the Corday family for years,” the statement was prideful, “and I knew
the little girl’s mother very well. I travelled with them always.
Whenever there was some new feature to be tried out I was one of those
selected to express an opinion upon it.” Gloria wondered, but continued
to listen. “Yes,” sighed the very modern, very middle aged and very
stylish woman. “Yes, there were few on the road who could surpass
Philip Corday in special attractions. But go ahead, dear, what about
our little girl?”

Jane was interested to the point of abstraction. She didn’t even re-tie
her bonnet strings, and she sat back, listening comfortably.

“A plunge and it’s over with,” thought Gloria. Further delay might only
irritate.

“You see, Mrs. Corday,” she began bravely, “Jack asked me to phone you
last night, as she hated the idea of having you come up when she would
not be allowed to talk freely to you----”

“She would. The dear. She and I understand each other perfectly.” This
was addressed to Jane. “But I had to come. Her father left her in my
keeping, and a lot of silly young lawyers have been trying to get her
away from me--Go ahead dear. I ramble like the butcher in the old song.
Or was it the butcher who cut him down?” A quizzical smile spread over
the water colored features.

“Personally I believe Miss Alton is the best intentioned woman
possible,” Gloria said next, without having the slightest idea why she
said it. “But the doctor’s orders have to be followed, and you know how
responsible boarding school directors feel themselves to be,” she urged.

“I do, indeed. That’s why I have a scrap every earthly time I go there.
They boss me around as if I hadn’t been a boss myself, all my life.”
Her look of seething indignation included a “go ahead” for Gloria.

“Then, Jack thought if I could meet you and explain all this----”

“And mighty kind it was of you, you having company yourself----” Mrs.
Corday arose, premonitorily.

“I’d do anything I could for Jack----”

“You risked your life for her, they told me.” One tailor-fitted arm
went around Gloria’s shoulder, “and we’re not forgetting it. Is that
hackman out there yet?”

Every one turned and looked out.

“Oh, yes. Dave will wait,” promised Gloria, feeling for the moment
a sense of helplessness. She had made no progress in diverting
Mrs. Corday. She was determined to go to the Hall. And she was as
sure as ever “to scrap” with those who might interfere. That would
mean failure, for Gloria to really help Jack or Miss Alton. Her
resourcefulness was fading. Her head was almost achy, and her temper
not slumbering. She wanted to be off with Jane. Why not let Miss
Alton use her own talent in smoothing over the emergency? In fact,
Gloria began to reason, why shouldn’t this woman have a talk with her
stepdaughter? She was, by no means, the disturber she had been blamed
for being, if appearances could be trusted.

Then came the memory of Jack’s plea. There must be a good reason and
this need not be apparent to strangers. Mrs. Corday was showing her own
impatience.

“Don’t mind if I run along, dear,” she said. “I must get back to the
city by noon. I have very large interests to manage, very large.” She
swept humble Jane with a look of business magnitude.

Gloria’s hopes were oozing out at her finger tips. She must make one
final effort.

“I wondered if you wouldn’t just visit with me, this time,” she
suggested sweetly. “Then if Jack can see you----”

“If she _can_ see me! Of course she can see me! Nothing serious
has happened!” A new alarm spring went off with a snap. Gloria laid a
trembling hand upon the pearl kid glove.

“But you really wouldn’t go against the doctor’s orders? You know what
a simple headache can do if one gets excited; and Jack would have so
many things to tell you.” Gloria’s wistfulness was very becoming.
Mrs. Corday turned back from the door. Jane took a hand in the plot,
innocently.

“Indeed,” she said, “this girl herself can work up quite a tempest when
anything crosses her, and I’ve had some little experience with tantrum
headaches----”

“Jane!”

“Oh, I mean it, Gloria. You were no lamb to bring up.”

“Same way with our Jack. She was as headstrong as a little mule. And
she always could, as you say, Miss Morgan, work up a tantrum headache.”
A heavy sigh betrayed troubled memories. “Suppose we just go along up
and feel out which way the land lies?”

“Yes, of course, that’s what I meant,” floundered Gloria. The small
room was excessively warm, and the round pot stove like a red flannel
petticoat blown out by the explosive heat. Gloria’s coat had been
hanging loosely from her shoulders and she now shifted it to place.
As she did so the little, strange dark necklace caught fast in the
hanger ribbon at the back, and she tugged at it a moment, trying to
release it.

“Can I help you?” asked Jane putting her hand up to the offending
trinket.

“Oh, no, thanks,” replied Gloria. “The catch of this
necklace--sticks.” She gave it a vigorous tug and with a clattering
rattle the beads fell at her feet.

“Oh, I hope I didn’t break it,” she exclaimed. “It’s something new.”
Mrs. Corday was looking inquiringly, so Gloria held it towards her!

“Let--me--see!” almost gasped the woman, bending over to scrutinize the
necklace. “Where ever did you get that?”

“It was given me,” replied Gloria. She could not say by whom.

“When? Where, child, did you get that necklace?”

Jane drew up beside Gloria protectingly.

Gloria was visibly embarrassed. She looked from the mysterious beads
into the woman’s flushed face.

“We had a--sort of game,” she stammered, “and this was the forfeit. I
do not know who gave it to me.”

Speechless with excitement Mrs. Corday assumed her lorgnette. She was
actually breathing aloud in gasps.

“It--can’t be, and yet it may be!” she exclaimed finally. “The lost
clue to little Jack’s treasures----”

“A lost clue!” Jane repeated. It was her turn to inspect the beads.

“Such a long and strange story!” panted Mrs. Corday. “But if this
should be _it_!”

“What?” asked Gloria, in her direct way.

“The clue to the hiding place. It was a stone, set in a necklace! My
dear husband told me almost with his last breath!”

“Did Jack have it?” Gloria asked, deeply perplexed.

“Jack? Why no. It was Jack’s loss. She had no reason to hide the
clue, but every reason under the sun and earth to hunt for it.” The
tailor-made suit seemed to strain at the seams. Mrs. Corday sat down,
exhausted.

“Where can we go for a few minutes? I must tell you a part of the story
privately.”

“Come over to the Rookery Tea Room,” suggested Gloria, with a drowning
girl’s clutch at rescue. “There will be no one there at this hour and
we can talk comfortably.”

As they allowed the station door to shut with a bang, and Gloria
beckoned to the patient hack driver, she remembered the distant essay
as one remembers the last thought before sleep.

Jane stepped in the car first. Gloria followed, and Mrs. Corday, still
holding the suspected necklace in a firm hand, gave Dave her orders.

Compared with lost treasures and erratic women, what, after all, was a
mere prize essay? But Gloria could not crush back her fluttering hopes.

Her dad represented her world, his happiness her one desire, and to do
something worth while in her first term was her determination. All this
was involved in the prize essay, for in other studies than English, she
had found herself unequal to most of her companions. But she loved this
subject and it was almost finished, that essay. Still!

Jack lay helpless. She could not do for herself what was asked of
Gloria. And she was so keenly sensitive among the over critical girls.

Mrs. Corday was even now betraying signs of some of the peculiarities
attributed to her. She was strangely excited over that little string
of beads. Perhaps this was the hallucination Jack had spoken of so
guardedly?

With a sigh of resignation, Gloria pointed out the Rookery Tea Room.
Mrs. Corday’s eyes appeared to have taken root in the sight of the
necklace.

 [Illustration: GLORIA WAS VISIBLY EMBARRASSED.
  _Gloria at Boarding School._       _Page 182_
 ]

Spellbound was the only word that seemed to describe her condition.

Was it real or imagined?

In either case it provided a respite.




CHAPTER XVI

AT THE ROOKERY TEA ROOM


The tea room was conveniently deserted. Jane smiled gratefully at
the plate of doughnuts and the pot of tea, but Mrs. Corday would not
be tempted. Gloria could not decide whether the woman was imagining
the queer story of a hidden treasure, or whether she might have some
reasonable basis for her continued declaration.

“You see, dear,” she kept insisting, “Mr. Corday had a bad man in his
troupe.” (The word troupe surprised Gloria.) “And there was a big
diamond from India that this Turk, we called him, knew all about.
It was while the wagons were passing from one place to another that
the Turk tried to get the gem box. Many a time I saw it, but Philip
never let it leave his own care.” She sighed and looked off, past the
fanciful decorations, hand-made on the walls of the Rookery. Just then,
in spite of the artificial blemishes intended for aids, Mrs. Corday
looked really attractive. Gloria saw a fading violet tone in the large
round eyes, and the features now warped out of their original lines,
must have been comely enough a few years earlier. Mrs. Corday had
removed the gray gloves and displayed well kept hands--rather too well
kept, Gloria reasoned, but as a mounting for so many showy rings, hands
would need to be unusual.

“I always hate to talk of this because Jack has begged me to
be--careful,” continued the woman. “There was a time when the lawyers
declared I was crazy, didn’t know what I was talking about, and they
even went so far as to try to have a guardian appointed for my Jack.
Think of it!” Her eyes snapped little flashes and she sat bolt upright
as if preparing to strike at an invisible enemy.

Gloria put her hand out instinctively in a caressing way, and Jane once
more pressed the comfort of a good cup of tea, upon the narrator.

“Perhaps I do need it,” admitted the woman. “I get so worked up when I
think of those robbing lawyers.”

While a fresh pot of tea was being fetched, Gloria wondered if the fine
young man, described by Trixy as being one of the riders with Jack on
the early morning trail, could be one of the robbing kind. Mrs. Corday
sipped her tea quite daintily, and beyond the extravagance of her
attire and the gushing manner, Gloria could see little to find fault
with. But then, Gloria was simple in her own tastes, and as Pat would
say she “made generous allowance for every one.” It would have been
more accurate to say that Gloria merely understood folks better than
did the girls bent too closely upon social foibles.

While all this flashed back and forth through Gloria’s mind, the time
it took was too brief to count. It was very important for her to
acquire some correct estimate of the woman before her, to know, if
possible whether to oppose or agree with her idea that the necklace
might contain some clue to the hidden gems, if such there were, but one
consideration was paramount:

Mrs. Corday should not go up to the Hall and argue her way to Jack.
That would be too risky. So Gloria labored to detain her.

The woman finished her tea and again took up the story of the gems.
Gloria suppressed more than one smile as she recalled her own and
Trixy’s joke about the Pirate’s Daughter, for Jack was now assuming
the fanciful character in reality.

“I know you think this is very queer,” said Mrs. Corday, “but you see,
show people are always different from other folks.”

“Show people!” exclaimed Jane, pressing her napkin to her lips in
consternation.

“Why, yes. Didn’t you understand that? Mr. Corday was the owner of
the Great American Equine Show?” The widow seemed to think this fact
should have been known to any intelligent American. She extolled the
wonders of the show, declared Mr. Corday was one of the biggest men
ever connected with any circus; that his troupes were unique in their
captivating attractions, and judging from her elaborate descriptions
and her extravagant estimate, this big show must have been the loser in
not having had Mrs. Corday for its press manager.

“I had charge of all the wardrobes!” she said proudly, “and I had five
other women under me in the women’s tent. Such robes! Such costumes and
such perfectly magnificent trappings! Why, we had one little woman,
her name was Yvette Duval and she rode our whitest Arab steed. Her
trappings were really studded with stones, gems given to her by great
foreign potentates that we had performed for.”

“Did Jack have any of those things with her at school? I mean at
Altmount?” asked Gloria frankly. She was too surprised to be tactful.

“Jack have circus things with her! Why, my dear child, I couldn’t use
the word in her hearing. She detests it all, although she loved her
father dearly, and he perfectly idolized her, yet, you could scarcely
get her to come near the grounds. She’s so proud and high strung.”
During all this Mrs. Corday fingered the little necklace, pausing often
to scrutinize some newly discovered vein in a stone or color in a bead.

“Then Jack would not have had any spangled nets or beaded things with
her?” persisted Gloria, thinking of the trunk as yet unidentified.

“She has one little dark beaded dress I bought for her, myself. A
friend brought two over from Paris. Also she has a few neck beads, but
that’s all,” declared the woman earnestly. “No, Jack wouldn’t so much
as hang upon the wall one of her own dear mother’s trophies. You see
riders have so many such gifts and sometimes they are so valuable, but
Jack could never be brought to admit that her mother rode in a circus,
although she was an artist, if there ever was one and Jack inherited
her agility. Poor dear little woman! Her health failed and she went
very young.” An appropriate pause gave Gloria time to give some little
attention to Jane. But Jane was, as ever, too good natured to feel
neglected. She nibbled the doughnuts, and seemed to be content just to
be near Gloria.

“I couldn’t take time to tell you the whole story,” Mrs. Corday said
next, “but what puzzles me, now that I’ve got over my surprise far
enough to think straight, is, how any one at this out of the way school
ever got hold of these beads, if they really are the lost clue. The
reason Jack came here was because the Miss Altons knew dear Blanco, she
was Jack’s own mother, and she always wanted Jack to come here. But you
see, travelling all over the country, it was just natural she kept her
only child within reach. Jack has had a governess or tutor since she
could say her A. B. C.’s--but I’m afraid she is not overfond of regular
school work. There I go, rambling again,” laughed the continuous
talker. “But I do feel so at home with you both,” she beamed. “And if
only this is what we have all been searching for!” she held the beads
up so that the light of the table candle developed every little vein
or marking in the curious collection.

“Who would know if this really is the clue?” asked Gloria. She had
almost lost all doubts and was quite won over to the story. She did
remember, however, that deluded persons were often quite wonderful in
their powers for deluding others.

“Mr. Gilbert, he’s one human lawyer. A young fellow too, very handsome,
a friend of Miss Alton’s. He made all arrangements for Jack here,”
explained Mrs. Corday, “and he has seen the necklace with the clue
stone in it, for Philip, that’s Mr. Corday, told me he, Mr. Gilbert,
had all the particulars. But how _could_ it get to Altmount?”

“Jack never saw this, so far as I know,” Gloria said reflectively. “In
fact, I have never had it on before this morning. Isn’t that strange?”

“That’s the way things happen with you, Glory dear,” said Jane proudly.
“I’ve known your father to look for his pen knife for days, and I’d
help him too, but you would come along without looking at all and lay
your hands right upon it. Don’t you believe some folks are naturally
lucky?” she asked Mrs. Corday.

Gloria smiled incredulously. She didn’t believe it, that was evident.
But she was more mystified than ever about the giver of the necklace
and the owner of the trunk, for there was no doubt of it, she who owned
the trunk had given the necklace in reward for the finding of the big
red stone. And all this had come about from that simple incident of
Gloria’s first mistake. And even Maggie, the voluble, had innocently
contributed, for it was she who found “the bead” and left it carefully
upon Gloria’s pin tray. But there the mystery stood. Now the great
question was:

Who gave Gloria the necklace?

Jack, suspected at first, was, according to Mrs. Corday’s story,
entirely eliminated. Yet no other girl seemed a plausible possibility.
Could Jack have so deceived her stepmother? Would her dislike for the
circus lead her to ignore the hidden gems that the old Arab, chief of
the troupe, had trailed from his own country?

“That old Turk,” said Mrs. Corday, as if she had been following
Gloria’s thoughts, “made a dash to get the jewel box one night, and
only for the quick work of a couple of Jap jugglers he would have got
it. That was why Philip hid it, and he covered every trace of the spot
so cleverly (he was such a smart man) that it can’t be found except by
following the directions given in a paper to Mr. Gilbert, the lawyer.
These directions are pointed out by veins in a moss agate, and that
agate was put in a necklace for Jack. It disappeared somehow about a
year ago, and I’ve followed up every one who could possibly have come
in touch with it. I believe it was shown to one or two of the women,
but they were honest as the sun. They never took it intentionally.
Yvette Duval was one of them but she died a little later. She had a
daughter. That just gives me an idea! You haven’t a girl at Altmount
named Yvette, have you?”

“No,” replied Gloria. “I’m sure we haven’t, for I helped one of the
teachers make the list for the year book. There wasn’t any such name.”

“Because her mother’s things were taken from the tent when I was
attending to my sick husband. I always insist on each article being
doubly checked up so that there can be no mistake, but while I was
away Stella, my assistant, had the wardrobe in charge. Dear me!” she
exclaimed suddenly, “that hack is gone and look at the time!”

She held out her hand and displayed a very pretty wrist watch.

It was almost noon!

With a little gasp Gloria realized that her morning was gone, and with
it the prize essay faded further and further away from becoming even
a possibility. The young girl in the commercial department who was to
type it for her, would probably have given up expecting the “copy,”
which was to have been handed her in installments during the morning.
And this was the very last day! There was no hiding her disappointment,
and Jane quickly discerned it.

“What is it, Glory?” she asked. “Missed your classes or something?”

“No, I had a day off without classes,” replied Gloria, retrieving her
smile. “But I had no idea it was so late. Mrs. Corday has told us such
an interesting story----”

“I feel as if I had been shot out of a cannon,” declared Mrs. Corday,
sending a critical hand over her side hair, then smoothing down the
closely fitted lines of her smart coat. “Really, I can’t believe I’m
awake. First it was the shock of Jack’s accident, then the indignation
I felt when I believed those old Alton ladies were plotting to keep me
from her. You see, I have had so much of that sort of thing from tricky
lawyers. But the cap to the climax came when this little trinket
clinked at your feet, Gloria. I love to say the name. It is like
a--like a blessing, somehow.”

The owner of the name looked like a blessing fulfilled just then, but
she was soon forced to spoil the tableau by helping Jane with her
bonnet and coat.

Mrs. Corday seemed more agitated than ever. She insisted upon paying
the full check and Gloria noticed she left a generous “tip” on the
table for the girl in the Priscilla costume. And the natural color
surmounting the artificial in her florid face, betrayed a state of keen
excitement.

“Now, where’s that miserable hack driver?” she complained.

“He’ll be along, fast enough,” replied Gloria, wondering where they
would go this time, and hoping desperately it would not be directly to
Altmount.

“There he is,” said Jane, for faithful Dave loomed up quickly as the
party emerged from the tea room.

“Would you be willing to trust me with this, for a short time?” Mrs.
Corday asked Gloria, holding up again the much suspected necklace.

“Why, certainly. Keep it as long as you like. I only hope it does not
disappoint you in the end,” said Gloria earnestly.

“Then, I believe I’ll go straight back and hunt up Mr. Gilbert. I hate
to go without seeing my darling Jack, but if you ever knew how this
matter has haunted me! I don’t wonder they thought me crazy at times.
I dream night after night that Philip is begging me to get the big
stone he was so fond of. Because it was Jack’s mother’s, because it
had been given her by some great foreign prince, and because it has
some value greater to Jack’s family than mere money. You see,” she was
panting from the long, vehement speech, and she was ready now to get
into Dave’s long suffering taxi, “you see,” she repeated. “I feel the
charge was given me and I must fulfill it. If only this----” The beads
were now almost reverently dropped into her handsome bag--“is the clue.
How shall we ever, ever thank you?” she asked the perplexed girl, whose
cheeks burned and eyes fairly stung with suppressed emotion.

“Glory was always lucky,” insisted patient, quiet Jane.




CHAPTER XVII

THE SACRIFICE


Trixy met Glory in the hall. She appeared decidedly glad to do so.

“Where ever have you been, dear?” she demanded. “We looked everywhere
for you.”

“Why? What was the rush?” smiled Gloria, allowing Trixy and Jane time
to exchange greetings. They were well acquainted, both from the year
Gloria had spent in Sandford, which was Trixy’s home town, and the year
before that, at Barbend, Gloria’s homestead town.

“At the Rookery!” exclaimed Trixy. “I never dreamed you would be having
tea before noon. Jack’s lots better. Didn’t her mother come?”

“Better? Could she have seen--her--mother?”

“Yes, and she wanted to----”

Gloria’s look of distress checked Trixy. They were in the little
reception room, and Jane was glancing about her with apparent approval.

But Gloria wilted, and a sudden puckering of her lips threatened to
break out in stronger emotion.

“But it’s really better for Jack not to have seen her mother,” Trixy
soothed. “The doctor was here, and whatever he feared seems to have
passed over,” she explained, trying to infect Gloria with her own
smile. “Come on up and show Jane around. I’ll carry your bag, Janie,”
she promptly offered.

“You see,” Trixy continued, doing her best to entertain Jane and at the
same time to respect Gloria’s depression, “this is an off day. Those
who aren’t finishing essays are working hard on tests. I’ve just been
released.”

“And what about Glory? Could she spare all that while? I never did see
such a talker as that woman,” declared Jane. “And such crazy stories!
Though she had a way of makin’ you believe her, right enough. Glory
dear, you look fagged out. Throw yourself right down on that couch
and don’t mind Janey. My, what a pretty place you’ve got! I’m so glad
you’re real comfy.”

Gloria stepped behind the curtain and made signs to Trixy. These
interpreted meant “take care of her for a while.” Gloria’s face
pictured her keen disappointment. Tears were swimming in her eyes, her
lips trembled, she was plainly on the verge of a good cry.

“Come along, Janie, and let me show you around,” offered Trixy. “We’ll
leave Glo to straighten up some of her neglected tasks. This is a good
time to see our big study hall, and all the sacred nooks----”

“Glory dear, you’ll find the lavender in my bag. It always used to
help your headaches and I’m afraid you are brewing one,” predicted the
solicitous Jane. “There now, I’ll leave my things here on your bed, and
look around with Beatrix. You know I must get a train back----”

“Don’t talk of going back,” Gloria managed to say. “You’ve only
just got here. Don’t forget to show her the picture gallery, Trix,”
she suggested. “Some of those old ladies may have been neighbors of
Jane’s.” This was intended as a joke but it sounded more like a threat;
Gloria’s voice was so tragic.

A few minutes later the storm broke. Prone on the bed, a sobbing form
bore little resemblance to the usually vivacious Gloria.

“To lose it all for nothing!” she groaned. “Jack didn’t even need
all my--precious morning. And I wouldn’t dare tell her--about--the
necklace.”

But the sudden outburst could not be prolonged, for Jane must not see
her in this plight. Even the satisfaction of a good cry had to be
checked--Gloria got up, somehow, looked in the glass, but saw nothing.
Her eyes were still swimming, and how her throat ached!

That essay! Her first real school love! To have worked upon it so long,
and then to have met with such a stream of unavoidable interruptions!
If it had not been for dad---- But what girl does not know the pangs of
an unjust disappointment? To have made so useless a sacrifice!

Whether or not the motive was entirely flawless, it must be admitted,
that deep down in Gloria’s unexplored forces there remained a picture
of the country girl at boarding school, where unpleasant little stories
had preceded her. True, she was almost an orphan, whereas, the high
holding cousin Hazel had both parents, and many opportunities of
knowing such trifling mannerisms as are supposed to be stamped on a
girl with “finish,” but Gloria had had the big world of outdoors, with
the sea for a background and the hills for variety, and she was far
too clever to under value the knowledge of her own world in such a
chance as the prize essay afforded.

She wanted to show the girls!

And she wanted to delight her dad!

The drudgery of actually putting the proof upon paper in a simple
direct way, carefully worded and carefully spelled, (she had looked up
scores of words,) had proven greater than she had expected it would
be, but the task inspired interest as it grew, and now Gloria actually
loved the sketch, as she would have loved a journal of her happiest
days. But it would be impossible for her to finish the essay in the
short time left. The “commercial girls” were not boarders, and they all
completed their work before noon. Somehow Gloria now felt as if she
were wrapped in a cloud of crepe, black and smothering. Even Jane’s
long looked for visit was completely spoiled.

One or two spasms of rebellion finished the attack of self pity. Then
Gloria jerked herself up like a colt at the twinge of a smarting bite.

“All right,” she said to the image now scoffing at her from the mirror,
“I guess I’ll live through it.” After all, it was only a chance. The
unfinished sheets of paper would catch her eye although she was
avoiding their corner. It had been foolish to count so much on a mere
chance, she argued persistently.

But all this was not really why she was feeling the disappointment so
keenly. It was because Gloria instinctively tried her best to win in
any wholesome sport, and wasn’t it real sport to enter a contest with
girls from so many schools? To make use of a chance to express her own
original views on disputed theories?

Then, there was always her father, and his natural pride in her work.
And all future chances to do anything really worth while seemed so very
remote.

But Jack was better, she kept telling herself guiltily, for the news
brought her only a meager satisfaction. Why couldn’t the old doctor
have known? And why couldn’t old Alty have gone to the station herself
and attended to her own unpleasant business? Because the need was so
slight and the loss seemed truly crushing.

Trixy and Jane were coming back. She heard their voices, and made a
brave effort to look like herself for Jane’s sake. Deliberately she
gathered the unfinished essay and thrust it under the table cover.
That would be the end of it. There was no possibility of any time
extension, and Gloria was too big to believe in fairies.

“A lovely place, dear.” Jane expressed the opinion as she entered.
“And I’m sure you’ll do very fine work here. Have you written any more
stories?”

“Oh, stories, Jane dear,” deprecated Gloria, “those were silly dreams,
that I used to write when at home. School work is much more practical.
Sit down here near me and let’s talk.” She drew the dear old nurse down
beside her on the couch. “Jane, honey, Trixy does all she can for me,
but I do so miss you when--I get in trouble,” she snuggled gratefully.

“So that’s it, honey. You’re in trouble. Tell Janie all about it. Is
the string of beads in it too?”

“Somewhat,” admitted Gloria. “But first we must tell Trixy all about
it. You see, she’s a partner in that little mixup.”

“But your face is all--is it chapped from the wind?” Jane asked. The
outburst had left tell-tale marks after all.

“Rough treatment,” laughed Gloria, relinquishing her affectionate hold
on Jane long enough to dab a little alleviative powder on the shiniest
spots. “Have a chair close by, Trixy,” she offered presently, “and
listen to the story of the lost jools. I told you that string of beads
was hoodooed. It was.”

Trixy listened, more surprised at each startling statement, and as
Gloria related the happenings of the morning, telling of Mrs. Corday’s
positive declarations, that gems really had been hidden to frustrate an
Arab’s attempt to obtain them, she, herself, felt the tale grew more
remarkable with the re-telling.

“A circus!” exclaimed Trixy. “We suspected that from the first, didn’t
we, Glo? But how ever did Jack, dear as she is, get in here with circus
parents?”

“All explained satisfactorily,” replied Gloria. “But we can’t
cover every detail now. Jane will be dreaming of pirate’s caves
and gorgeously dressed ladies. Trix, you should have seen the much
maligned Steppy. Why, she’s a real model for the stylish-stout.
Splendid clothes, and such a lot of them, rather high colored hair
and complexion, but well done, I should say, though I’m no judge of
the art. And so far as I could discover, I found little trace of the
carping, grating-voiced female the girls all barked about. She did get
excited once or twice, when I spoke of Alty; but it seems she has a
grudge against the authorities here. Thinks they’re in league with some
lawyers to get Jack away from her.” Gloria paused and Trixy expressed
her own opinion. It included opposition to that of the other girls.

“I can just imagine how Mrs. Corday feels,” Gloria continued. “She has
not had all the opportunities of so called culture, but think what she
knows about real business.”

“That’s it, Glory,” remarked Jane. “Books and school houses give you a
good start but you’ve got to finish the race yourself. And there’s them
that wins who never had much of a start.”

“Of course,” Gloria reasoned, “she may be erratic. Didn’t you notice
how her eyes flashed and how she kept fumbling with the beads, Janie?”

“Not overly. If, as she said, she’s been a-lookin’ for that necklace so
long and she fell across it heels over head, you might say, no warnin’
nor suspicion, don’t you think she ought to be upset when the beads
dropped right off a strange girl’s neck, at her own feet on a deppo
floor?”

The girls both agreed with Jane. Then Gloria recalled another “high
spot” in the morning’s experience.

“One thing I thought queer,” she said, “was how the clue could have
been lost when it was held to be so precious. Mrs. Corday explained it
by saying that her husband was taken so suddenly ill he had not time to
put the necklace into his lawyer’s hands as he had intended to. She,
Mrs. Corday, never saw it, because it was delivered at the grounds by
the maker, just when she was obliged to leave and care for her sick
husband.”

“But who would receive and sign for such a valuable thing?” asked Trixy.

“Mrs. Corday’s assistant,” she said. “I forget what she called her. Was
it Stella, Janie?”

“Yes, I think that was it. I was so interested. My word, Beatrix, it
was better than a play to listen to. The way that woman can act, with
her face and hands.”

“Exactly,” laughed Gloria. “She acted with her face and hands. But,
Trix, she made one more interesting point. She asked me if we ever had
a girl here named Yvette Duval. It seems one of the confidential and
highly prized members of the flying horse squad bore that name. She
died and left a young daughter. While Mrs. Corday was nursing her sick
husband Mrs. Duval’s belongings were sent for. She didn’t say how old
the daughter was who was in school somewhere, but I suppose she might
be about like us. Trix,” exclaimed Gloria, suddenly, “if Jack doesn’t
know anything about the necklace and didn’t give it to us----”

“To you----”

“Well, to me, who did? Is the missing Yvette really here, and did she
pick up the necklace in her mother’s things by mistake?”

“Yvette,” repeated Trixy. “No one here with so fancy a name. The
best we can do is Bobbie, Jack, Pat, and plain every day Mary,” she
recounted.

“But I didn’t steal the necklace although I almost stole a trunk,”
declared Gloria. “Don’t forget that the trunk started all this.”

“I’m not,” assented Trixy.

“Was that a knock?” asked Jane, as a tap interrupted them.

“Miss Alton would like to speak to Miss Doane in the office,” chanted
Maggie through a crack in the door.

“Oh,” sighed Gloria. “All right,” she amended, and the mystery of the
trunk, necklace, and hidden gems was, for the time, dismissed.




CHAPTER XVIII

SAY IT WITH POPCORN


Miss Sanders, the English teacher, was amazed when she found Gloria’s
essay had not been turned in for the final reading. That was why Miss
Alton sent Maggie with the summons.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” queried the principal. “I would not have
allowed anything to interfere with such important work. You must know
we are each pledged to support the honor and traditions of Altmount.”

Each word was crushing Gloria’s already abused feelings. She had
checked her good cry but had not appeased the disturbance which caused
it, and again her lip was trembling. Couldn’t Miss Alton understand?
Were the so-called honor and traditions of Altmount higher than the
honor to a friend, and a sick friend at that? And was there any one
else who could have shared Jack’s confidence as she, Gloria, had been
forced to do?

“But I can try some other time, Miss Alton,” she said as bravely as she
could. “It really--doesn’t matter.”

“You are noble to say so,” accorded Miss Alton. “But it certainly is
too bad. Miss Sanders speaks so highly of your original English work.
Is there no way you can finish it? If it is only typing I’ll call in
one of the commercial department girls and have that done. I’ll even
delay the mail packet----”

“I’m afraid I could hardly finish it satisfactorily now,” interrupted
Gloria. “You see, I’m--a little----”

She could not finish the sentence. One big tear splashed on her cheek
and another promptly followed on the other. Miss Alton knew how much
agitation was necessary to arouse girls of Gloria’s type to tears, but
she also knew how difficult it was to quell such when once they were
aroused.

So she patted the shaking shoulders and advised a good lunch.

“You see, we are having quite a run of complications,” said the
principal, hoping to divert Gloria. “Our nurse has been called to
an urgent case, and I can’t see what I will do for some one to take
charge of Jacquinot. It is out of the question for our teachers to be
disturbed at night.”

Gloria’s mind did not shift promptly to the new subject, but, at any
rate, she was not open for any more public engagements. Even Jack would
have to be cared for independently now.

“I hope your friend, Miss Morgan, is having a pleasant day. Would you
care to have her stay over night?” asked Miss Alton, next.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Gloria brightened. “The day has
been--so confusing, I’d love to have dear Jane make a little visit. And
oh, Miss Alton,” (she was all Gloria now,) “I do believe she would be
glad to take care of Jack. She’s a wonderful nurse and just hates not
to be useful.”

“Really, could she?”

“I don’t see why not?” New interest chased the shadows.

“Why, you dear girl, it does seem you are the very soul of
resourcefulness. If she would just be within call during the night. But
are you sure she wouldn’t think we were imposing?”

“Jane knows, she never guesses,” replied Gloria, smiling away any
mistaken inference. “And please, Miss Alton, don’t mind about the
essay. Jane would say one sacrifice brings two rewards. That’s her
cheerful logic, and I’ve been brought up on it. So, after all, perhaps
there is some--reward just lurking in the background.” The speech was
unlike Gloria’s. She never affected the “smiling through” attitude,
unless she was on her way “through,” and couldn’t turn back, but now
she felt the necessity of assuming a tone of true politeness. Miss
Alton was really contrite for having delayed the essay work, and
again tried to discover a way to make up for it, but it was obviously
impossible.

“Then let me tell you, my dear,” said the woman accepting the
conclusion, “that I understand and appreciate your heroism, and whether
there is or not a reward in the background, as you say, you may always
remember, that your first real loss at boarding school entailed a
noble sacrifice. Quietly and even without there being a possibility
of applause from the girls, as was the case in the rescue from the
lake, you have given up a chance to win real distinction, for this
competition is, as you know, a notable event. But you have let it go
by for the sake of helping poor little Jack. Even she will not know
what you have given up, but your own heart and your own conscience will
be immeasurably benefited. I know this sounds like a Friday morning
lecture,” the principal smiled as she remarked, “but----” Suddenly the
“lecture” was concluded, silently with a loving arm crushing affection
upon Gloria’s unsteady shoulder while Jane’s promised reward, in the
shape of happy satisfaction, broke through the shadows.

“Thank you, Miss Alton,” murmured Gloria. “It has been worth while.”

“And about Miss Morgan, your devoted Jane,” Miss Alton changed her tone
to suit the happier prospect. “Would you really like to ask her to stay
over?”

“I should love to.”

“Then do, my dear. It will be such a help if she consents to do so, for
Jack needs little attentions, and will need them for several days. She
barely escaped pneumonia. What a blessing you found her when you did.
You are having a rather eventful career for a first year girl,” she
added, “but perhaps you have guessed that even Altmount has been more
generous in admitting pupils since our many war lessons have liberated
us socially. We have with us now girls who have longed for just the
chance we are giving them. They have always had means but----” She
paused and smiled, Gloria thought, like a picture of the modern mother,
for Miss Alton was a fine looking woman, and her simplicity of style
more directly marked her personal distinction.

What girls besides Jack, Gloria wondered, could be among those referred
to as coming under the extended social scale? Some one else must be in
the school, was she “In Cog”? Some one other than Jack must have owned
the trunk, the lost and found red stones and the necklace. But who
could that be?

“I’ll run right back and ask Jane about staying,” Gloria said, this new
thought almost banishing the essay’s disappointment. “It would seem so
like home to have Jane near,” she added. “You know, Miss Alton, she is
really my near-mother,” and there was no pretense in Gloria’s sincerity.

Imagine Jane, the demure, installed in Jack’s room, garbed in a great,
white over-all apron, and armed with authority equal to that of any
professional nurse!

She was delighted to stay, her one germ of unhappiness resulted from an
enforced idleness, for since Gloria’s home had been disrupted, by Mr.
Doane’s foreign commission and Gloria’s boarding school plans, Jane
Morgan found little to do that really satisfied her natural energy. She
had visited her sister’s home, did all she could to mend, patch and
darn for the children there, but the confusion was so different from
the quietude of Gloria’s home, that she soon found it disquieting.

“And she adores nursing,” Gloria told Trixy. “Don’t you remember how
she took charge when Aunt Harriet was sick?”

“And don’t you remember how she took charge when Marty’s mother was
sick? The time you and I became Red Cross nurses and used our best car
for an ambulance?”

This recalled an interesting incident of the previous year and both
girls now chatted and laughed merrily over the recollection.

“There goes the mail bag,” said Trixy innocently, when it was almost
evening and the eventful day was nearing a close.

“Yes, with the--essays,” said Gloria, her eyes following Sam’s car as
he rattled along down the roadway.

“Oh, Glo dear. I didn’t mean----” Trixy’s voice was contrite.

“It’s perfectly all right, Trix,” declared Gloria brushing a speck from
the window before her. “You couldn’t hurt my feelings about that old
essay if you hit me on the head with the--bloated mail bag. I don’t
mind it a bit. I’m cured, absolutely. And Miss Alton said a lot of nice
things----”

“I should think she well might.”

“She did. And I guess the dear old dad would heartily approve if he
knew--all the circumstances.”

“If it takes me a week to write it, I’ll make it my special business
to see that he _does_ know all the circumstances.” Trixy was very
pretty in her indignation.

“Well, anyhow I’ve got Jane, perhaps for days,” reasoned Gloria. “Do
you suppose, Trix, that Miss Alton did that just to be nice?”

“I do not. I know she did it to be nice to Jack, and to her overworked,
frail and otherwise feeble assistants. Did you ever see any one wilt
like little Whisper Taylor after an indifferent night?”

“She did look peaked. How do you like Jane on the staff?”

“She’s worth a dozen mere intellectuals,” declared Trixy. “But, Glo,
what are we going to do about the Pirate’s Daughter? It’s like a game
of hide-and-seek.”

“Just wait. Wait and she’ll betray herself, for she is around here some
place and she isn’t Jack, that’s certain.”

“Nor Pat, nor Jean, nor----”

“No use guessing. I’m gray haired internally trying to guess. But,
Trixy, has it occurred to you that the trail of the necklace is
rather--spoofy? How could any one trace a lost article, supposed to be
hidden in the mountains by means of a stupid string of beads?”

“It is queer. Maybe, after all, Glo, we’ve been fooled. Perhaps Mrs.
Corday really isn’t responsible.”

“Well, if she isn’t, I’m sorry for her, of course,” said Gloria, “but I
was so glad to have her grab the beads and run for that train----”

“That you don’t care whether she unearths a pirate’s cave or not.”

“No.”

“I don’t blame you. To listen to all that wild story in the Rookery
while----”

“Hush, love! The mail bag’s gone.” A fanciful little step described
as a “gambol” corroborated Gloria’s determined good humor. The essay
episode was positively closed.

“What did Jack say about not seeing her mother?” Trixy presently asked.
“You were privileged to talk with her, I noticed. That comes of having
a Nurse Jane.”

“I believe, Trix,” confided Gloria, “that Jack heard somehow about
my--blighted hope. She must have felt herself to blame about this
morning’s work, and that was why she changed her mind about seeing the
Steppy. I had a hard time trying to make her feel all right about it.
She only abandoned the essay idea herself last night. But as a matter
of fact, Trix, I had a wonderful time at the Rookery! You should have
seen the elegant Mrs. Corday!”

“Another special privilege of yours. I’m sure she was as good as a
musical comedy.”

“Better, and no offense intended either,” declared Gloria. “Well, since
the show is over, let’s go hunt up a couple of real girls. I am just
dying to hear Pat splutter----”

But they found, on the door of Pat’s room, a sign worded:

  GONE FOR THE AFTERNOON. CALL AT THE KITCHEN.

“The kitchen,” repeated Trixy.

“You started that fad,” Gloria reminded her. “It’s rather a cold day.
Maybe they’re making--soup.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad, although I would prefer hot chocolate. However,
let’s find out,” moved Trixy.

Since permission had been given to use the kitchen occasionally, a new
set of rules was promulgated. This, among items, included the following:

“No splattering allowed on range,” also, “All utensils must be
thoroughly cleaned and put away in an orderly manner. The floor must be
carefully brushed, towels or cloths rinsed and dish mops placed in the
sunniest window.” But none of this deterred the girls from having jolly
times in the big, bright room, among shining pans and mysterious tools,
queer looking utensils and assorted aluminums, although none were to be
even handled without special permission of the staff of the culinary
department.

“I smell it!” announced Glory, en route. “It’s pop corn!”

“Without doubt,” agreed Trixy. “Are we invited?”

“I hear Pat’s voice, so we are. I’ll also offer to pay for the corn. I
just have got to do something rash to wind up this perfect day,” set
forth Gloria.

A hail greeted the entrants to the kitchen.

“Say it with pop corn! We’re on the last round!” shouted Pat, “and
Maud’s ahead. Listen to her popper! It’s a regular gatling gun. If
they only knew about that when war was on! Come over here, Glo dear,
and sitteth beside me. I’m grinding out the record with this yar egg
beater----”

A volley from the egg beater announced the contest closed, with Maud
Hunter’s popper full of white puffs “without any, or at least without
many, blanks,” while her opponent, Margie Baker, blamed bad corn and an
uncertain fire for her failure to score.

“But it’s all first rate,” declared the official taster, Georgia
Graham, trying to sprinkle salt over the big yellow bowl of pop corn
and pour butter upon it, simultaneously.

“It’s the Dove’s treat,” Pat explained. “We’re all through for the day
and, my word! But we are tired! Those who haven’t been essaying have
been cramming---- How’s Jack?”

Trixy and Gloria gratefully took places on the stationary wash tubs and
received their share of pop corn on nice, clean enamel pie tins. Such
a treat could only be enjoyed in a school like Altmount, small enough
and large enough for the necessary social conditions. Twenty girls were
crowded into the kitchen, with the understanding that all would be out,
and that they would leave things “just as they had found them,” before
five o’clock.

Until that time the pop corn squad did full justice to the confidence
reposed in them, and as Pat put it “a pleasant time was had by all,”
although Margie choked on a blank, and Isobel fell off the step ladder,
and Louise nearly flooded the place by turning on the hot water faucet
and losing the trail in a whirl-wind of steam.

Otherwise there were no accidents.

Neither were there any appetites for dinner that evening, among the
reckless Doves.




CHAPTER XIX

GEMS AND MOSS AGATE


A week passed rather tranquilly, with Jane still presiding over Jack’s
room and Gloria still wondering what would happen when Mrs. Corday
would come back from her treasure quest.

No mention of the necklace episode had been made to Jack, who was now
progressing very favorably, and also getting gayer every day, according
to Pat, and prettier every day according to Gloria.

“There’s nothing like idleness to really make a girl look handsome,”
Gloria insisted absurdly, “caps and cushions are so wonderfully
becoming.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” drawled Trixy. “You look all right in a smock and
standing.”

“Thanks, but I’ve done my share. You may don the smock, and here’s
the duster.” Trixy caught it on the way to her eye. “This is the
psychological moment for me to read dad’s letter over. I want to see
what he says about Honolulu brides.”

“They’re hideous. Just consult your geographical,” commented Trixy.
“Besides, I didn’t invite the girls in here to kick up all this dust.
It was your party.” But she continued to flutter the duster around
indifferently, and once caught the alarm clock before it smashed its
face desperately upon the hearth. “I may re-read a letter myself.
Mother expects us both for Thanksgiving, you know,” set forth Beatrix
Travers.

“I’d just love to accept, Trix. Everybody seems to be going some place,
although we are only to have a week-end. Jane may adopt Jack or Jack
adopt Jane, the way things look now. I never guessed I was putting my
own poor nose out of joint when I lent Jane out. I didn’t tell you,
Trix, I’m just doing it now. Miss Alton has written an elaborate letter
to my dad, saying a lot of foolish things about me. You see, she wants
to make amends for my lost essay prize. Not that I had really caught
the gay plunder----”

“I’m glad she wrote. It saves me a heap of trouble,” put in Trixy.
“It’s one thing to lose out fair and square, but quite another to be
blocked. You wait and see if Alty and Ray Sanders do not contrive to
run a little contest all their own. Then, you may drag out those poor
crumpled little sheets of paper that are smothering under the table
cover.”

“I won’t. I never want to hear of a contest again. Besides, just see
what a lot of fun we have had on the mystery story,” reasoned Gloria.

“I just wonder----” Trixy said seriously, “where Mary Mears will go for
Thanksgiving. She’s so alone----”

“Mary’s a queer duck,” interrupted Gloria. “I’m sure she’s trying to
avoid me for some reason. Every time I almost meet her she detours.”

“Can any one have hurt her feelings? She actually walked past me in the
lecture room this morning without lifting her eyes. Of course, she saw
me; I wonder----”

“And she hasn’t been near Jack since that first wild night. Do you
know, Trix, even Sam remarks upon her moods! He declared she has
something on her mind, which is worse than it sounds, from Sam.”

“Yes, she is plainly discontented. Yet most girls are, during the
first half year. That’s why all the queer things happen in that brief
period,” said Trixy, trying the wrong side of the couch cover for a
change and getting enough of the change in the actual process. “Yes,
Glo dear, we may be prepared for a real slump--after Thanksgiving. I’m
told the girls all settle down to the quiet life and depend upon hikes
and the gym for excitement.”

“I won’t mind,” replied Gloria. “The little mystery trunk and the
hoodooed necklace are quite enough for my first year. I hope it is
finally cleared up before the so-called holiday.”

“It will be. Didn’t you know Jack really does expect a visit from
Steppy?”

“No! When?”

“She didn’t say. Just mentioned it casually.”

“Trix, do you think we should have told Jack anything? Prepared her, I
mean?”

“Land sakes, no! Let the climax take care of itself,” moaned Trixy.

Which was really all the preparation either of the girls had for the
same climax which came upon them three days later, just when the
programme was being checked off for the Thanksgiving week-end.

“She’s come!” breathed Gloria, and Trixy knew she meant--Jack’s Steppy.
A premonitory fluttering betrayed Gloria’s high hopes.

“Yes, I know,” admitted Trixy, “and Jack just sent Pat down to ask us
in. Poor Pat looked left out.”

In Jack’s room they encountered the full blown Steppy, garbed, this
time, in chrysanthemum golden brown, with a glorious plumy hat
caressing her faithful sunset, golden hair. Her smile might also be
termed golden, for it lighted up her big shadowy eyes, and flashed
through every hidden line of her determined face.

She laughed outright as the girls greeted her, after Trixy’s brief
introduction. The burst of emotions was more graphic than words could
have been. It was dramatically with a touch of comic:

“The mystery is solved!”

“Sit down and gasp in comfort,” invited Jack. She was beaming happily.

“We got it,” announced Mrs. Corday briefly. “The little moss agate was
in the necklace, and it led us right to the secret box.”

“How?” asked Gloria, eagerly.

From the beaded bag Mrs. Corday drew out the necklace. She laid it
carefully upon Jack’s small table.

“See this stone?” she indicated. “That’s the agate, just as I
suspected. The clue was made by my dear husband from this queer,
innocent, little stone. The directions were in his lawyer’s keeping,
safe with our friend, Mr. Gilbert, the only honest lawyer I ever knew.”

All three girls were gazing, fascinated, at the little talisman.

“But how could this----”

“It is strange,” the woman interrupted Gloria’s query. “But like
everything else, simple when you understand. Here is the paper,” she
raised her voice to a tone of importance and sort of chanted from the
typewritten slip:

“With base of moss at north, follow left limb to the hickory.” She
paused dramatically. “As plain as the nose on your face,” she said.

“With base of moss at north?” repeated Gloria, puzzled rather than
enlightened.

“Yes. You see the moss agate has a tree veined through it, Mr. Gilbert
pointed it all out to me,” admitted Mrs. Corday. “You only have to lay
this down just as it would hang on your neck. Then, see this line?
That’s the left limb; you just follow that limb straight and you will
find, as we did, it points to a certain big hickory tree. Under that
tree the box was buried----”

“But how could you dig in this frozen weather?” demanded incredulous
Jack.

“Where there’s a will you can always find out how,” replied Mrs.
Corday. “We simply built a little fire on the spot and the ground
seemed glad of the heat, for it turned over quite agreeably, and we
didn’t have to dig down very deep either. And now, Jacky, who says I’m
crazy!” she demanded, fairly exhaling her prideful exultation.

“No one but ‘money grabbers’ ever did,” declared Jack. “They simply
wanted the commission on handing out my prize packages,” she smiled,
putting an arm affectionately through the golden brown elbow. “But tell
the girls all of it. You haven’t said what you dug up.”

“That’s the way I go. Always so easily excited. Well, you see, my
dear,” she turned to Gloria, “the hidden gem is a rare one, indeed.
It was in a sealed box, just as dear Philip said, and it is called
a Golconda diamond from the place in India where it was discovered.
The cuttings-it has forty-eight small facets all pointed together in
the one great diamond!” Her description was a queer mixture of the
technical and the possible, but there was no mistaking her claims for
a most wonderful diamond, unearthed from the roots of the protecting
“hickory” and traced through the almost invisible “left limb” of the
moss agate with “the base of moss at the north.” The woman was too
agitated to continue at once. Trixy filled the gap.

“What ever will you do with it, Jack?” she asked.

“Give it to a museum,” promptly replied Jack. “It has already given me
enough trouble, and I wouldn’t fancy it as a keepsake even for all it
means--to me,” she uttered the last clause reverently.

“You see,” again spoke friend Steppy, “the old Turk or whatever he
was, followed that diamond until Philip just had to bury it because we
were so far out in the mountains and he couldn’t get it to safekeeping
quickly enough----”

“I guess poor dad felt his illness was becoming serious,” broke in Jack
gently.

“Indeed he did, my dear. No one knows that as well as I do. And he
was so anxious about that stone! No wonder I acted like a crazy woman
trying to find it,” she sighed.

“Take your hat off, Steppy,” suggested Jack, offering to assist her
with the task. “We have all been too excited to think of your comfort.”

“Never mind hats,” replied the woman, probing for the pins and promptly
setting the big plumed headpiece upon the table like a decoration. “But
what I would like to know is, how this little lady got hold of the
necklace?” She looked quizzically at Gloria. “Who gave it to you?” she
asked earnestly.

“I don’t know,” replied Gloria simply. “It was left on my dresser
anonymously.”

At that moment a figure appeared, gliding its way from the screen that
hid the doorway.

“Mary!” exclaimed blended voices.

“Yes,” said Mary Mears. “I have come to confess my part in the curious
plot.”

Statuesque she stood before them, her ever pale face unlighted by a
hint of a smile, and her shadowy eyes like wells too deep for star
gleams.

“Mary!” gasped Mrs. Corday, incredulously.

“Yes, our friend, Mary Mears,” said Trixy easily. “Come sit down,
Mary,” she continued. “We are just having a little clearing up party.”

But Mary, tragically, remained standing.

 [Illustration: JIM SAID AN OLD INDIAN THREATENED TO MURDER HIM FOR THE
                “BEADS.”
  _Gloria at Boarding School._                               _Page 236_
 ]




CHAPTER XX

THE LURE OF BOARDING SCHOOL


“And they called you Mary Mears?” repeated Mrs. Corday, with evident
recognition of the girl standing there.

“Yes. Dear mother said I might choose a name; she had chosen hers,”
said Mary faintly.

“That was like her--the dear woman. She was so loving, so gentle,” Mrs.
Corday’s blonde head rested upon the capable hands, the same hands that
for years had guided the destiny of marvellous wardrobes for the women
riders of Corday’s Equine Troupe. Mrs. Corday was plainly overcome.
“And,” she continued presently, “there was not in our troupe, ever, a
woman who could ride like Yvette Duval.”

“Your mother? I often heard dad----”

“Yes, my mother,” said Mary. “But I was ashamed of the circus!”

“Circus!” echoed Mrs. Corday. “Our troupe was no circus. It was as
high class and as sporty as any first class society horse show ever
held!”

Every one laughed; Mary actually smiled.

“And I did so long to be well bred and like other girls,” she murmured.
“I thought, really, that boarding school----”

“Turned the trick,” chirped Gloria, determined to brighten up the
atmosphere. “Well, look at me----”

“And I felt the same way,” admitted Jack. “I just had an idea all I had
to do was to drop in here and--mock the mighty.” She glanced at Trixy
with unfeigned envy.

“Yes,” Mary went on, like one determined to have the worst over, “my
one idea was to get to a fashionable school and forget--the circus. I
had to bring Yvette’s things with me, I had no time to place them in
safety. I put them in a trunk hastily----”

“It was your trunk I opened by mistake!” exclaimed Gloria.

“Yes. And it was my mother’s precious bloodstone that you returned some
time later.”

“It had fallen from the trunk. I just found it----”

“I knew or guessed,” said Mary. “But when I thought to give you a
little keepsake--”

“The runaway necklace!” broke in Jack.

“Yes,” again admitted Mary. “But I didn’t know--”

“Where and how did you ever get it?” asked Mrs. Corday.

“I went to get Yvette’s things,” (the girls noticed how she used the
name instead of “mother,”) “and everything there was in confusion. The
attendants said the manager was very ill.”

“He was,” said the widow, solemnly.

“And it was difficult for me to know just what was--my mother’s,”
continued Mary. “But she had been so proud of her trophies and wanted
me to have every one of them. Her trunk was easy enough to identify but
there were some things in the safe.”

“We always kept the valuables locked in the safe,” explained Mrs.
Corday.

“Finally, I had everything checked up, and was ready to leave when a
queer old man rushed up to me and begged me to take the string of dark
beads.”

“An old man? What did they call him?” asked the woman excitedly.

“Jim, I think. He acted queerly and I thought him--sort of crazy!”

“Jim! Poor old Jim! And he got hold of that precious clue,” murmured
Mrs. Corday. “We never thought of asking Jim. He was only a groom, but
as devoted to Mr. Corday as a big dog--”

“He just begged me to take the beads, he called them,” continued Mary.
“He said an old Indian threatened to murder him for them!”

“There! You see! That was the Turk!” As the Steppy grew more excited
Jack made sure the door was tightly closed. Also she put a reminding
hand on the nervously tapping finger tips. “I know, dear,” agreed the
woman. “But you can’t blame me--”

“I don’t.”

Gloria thought she caught a flush of guilt cross Jack’s face as she now
looked into her stepmother’s face. “Like Mary,” Jack added, “I have
been foolishly ashamed of the circus.”

“Well, if you ever knew what your father’s horses were worth! Why, you
dear little idiot, what do you suppose has made you rich?” asked the
vehement Steppy.

“I’d just hate to know,” parried Jack.

“Well, you were saying, dear,” to Mary, “about poor old Jim?” Mrs.
Corday was not to be denied the story.

“I took the beads to please him. I had no idea they were of any
account. When I reached our home darling mother was--going----”

“And what was the pretty little name she used to call you?” broke in
the woman with kind intentions. “Something like Rosette?”

“Miette,” said Mary. “It means little or crumb in French and is a sort
of pet name for Mary.”

“I remember now. I saw you occasionally,” said the veteran.

“Yes, and when I knew you were coming to see Jack, I actually ran
off to avoid you, I was so afraid of being known as a circus girl,”
admitted Mary a little ironically.

“And you were foolish enough to hide all that interesting history
because you thought all boarding school girls silly!” charged Gloria.
Her admiration for Mary was at last free to assert itself.

“You cured me!” Mary said, now beaming upon the younger girl. “When you
brought Jane here and installed her as head nurse----”

“She cured _me_ in more ways than one,” added Jack slyly. “No one
in all of Altmount could possibly have been as silly as--Jacquinot
Corday!”

“Where _is_ your dear Jane?” asked Steppy, glancing about like one
waking from a dream.

“Packing,” said Trixy. “We’re all going to Thanksgive at our house----”

“Oh, I counted on a party,” wailed Jack. “Mary, you are almost related
to me now. Don’t you want to see the finest little horse in all the
world?”

“And my own horse must be very lonely----”

“There! You see!” charged the one woman present. “And these two
girls--hate circus horses!”

“I don’t,” spoke up Gloria. “I love all kinds, but I simply adore the
big white ones that canter through the ring and wait for the fluffy
ladies to land on their lovely, broad backs. And just imagine you two
girls knowing all about such things and never as much as confiding in
me, or in Trixy, or in jolly Pat!”

Mary and Jack stood off a little, their arms intertwined.

“Now you know the horrible truth,” said Jack. “That’s why I love to
walk the gym ceiling and to fall dead in silly little canoes, Glo, we
haven’t forgotten about that, you know. And we are going to give you a
real necklace to remember us by,” she said slyly.

“I love dark gray mossy beads,” insisted Gloria, so they both agreed to
compromise.

“Now, girls,” interrupted the momentarily quieted Steppy. “I must go
down to the office and talk things over with those teachers. I hope
they won’t think I’m going to be bossed this time. I’m counting on a
big party for you, Jack. Just get a pad and pencil and scribble off a
list.”

“And she’s the girl you call Steppy!” accused Gloria, when the door
bang died out. “You don’t know a real lady when you meet her,” she
smiled at Jack. “Be sure to include Jean and the rebels in your list.
What a lark to see their eyes open!”

“You’re a dear, Glo,” said Mary, and all present smiled unanimously.

       *       *       *       *       *

Just as Trixy predicted, everything happened in the early year, after
that the students of Altmount settled down to hard study and plenty of
it. The two mysterious girls Jack and Mary, became, naturally, among
the most sought after, suspicions and doubts were cleared away, even
Jean and her contingent falling in with the tide of popularity. For
the world of girls moves around the joy of good fellowship, and Gloria
Doane had a way of cranking up the motor.


THE END




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Transcriber’s Note:

Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphenation and spelling has been
retained as in the original publication except as follows:

  Page 11
    eyes worked like magnetoes _changed to_
    eyes worked like magnetos

  Page 22
    really was a bit scary _changed to_
    really was a bit scared

  Page 31
    a hairpin, or a barrett _changed to_
    a hairpin, or a barrette

  Page 42
    quoth the raver, _changed to_
    quoth the raven.

  Page 48
    catching her blue barrett _changed to_
    catching her blue barrette

  Page 50
    if she funks at exams _changed to_
    if she flunks at exams

  Page 59
     broke in Pat characteristicly _changed to_
     broke in Pat characteristically

  Page 61
    pals with the airyfied ones _changed to_
    pals with the airified ones

  Page 76
    wild rider’s troop was _changed to_
    wild rider’s troupe was

  Page 78
    if she’s a trooper _changed to_
    if she’s a trouper

  Page 83
    old googled-eyed dame _changed to_
    old goggle-eyed dame

  Page 84
    more blots that she obliterated _changed to_
    more blots than she obliterated

  Page 89
    like hair lips _changed to_
    like hare lips

  Page 94
    in deathlike mobility _changed to_
    in deathlike immobility

  Page 106
    isn’t a serious sympton _changed to_
    isn’t a serious symptom

  Page 119
    how well you rest tonight _changed to_
    how well you rest to-night

  Page 127
    You looked puffed out _changed to_
    You look puffed out

  Page 152
    upon the important of elusive _changed to_
    upon the importance of elusive

  Page 157
    simplify matter greatly _changed to_
    simplify matters greatly

  Page 160
    Mary demured _changed to_
    Mary demurred

  Page 171
    she had Gloria in her arm’s _changed to_
    she had Gloria in her arms

  Page 179
    her head was almost achey _changed to_
    her head was almost achy

  Page 181
    hangerribbon at the back _changed to_
    hanger ribbon at the back

  Page 184
    With a sign of resignation _changed to_
    With a sigh of resignation

  Page 201
    an orphan, where-as, the _changed to_
    an orphan, whereas, the

  Page 221
    a regular gattling gun _changed to_
    a regular gatling gun

  Page 221
    popper full white puffs _changed to_
    popper full of white puffs

  Book promotion page 4
    ages of three and ten stands _changed to_
    ages of three and ten stand

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65271 ***