"Oh, Miss Cynthia, I couldn't take anything so lovely," protested Ruth.

"My dear child, there's no one else who will care for these things as I have done, and it's been a great pleasure to show them to some one who is sympathetic, and--and I know my little great-aunt would have liked you to have it if she could have known you."

Miss Cynthia's voice was trembling and her eyes looked clouded and wistful. Ruth could hardly believe that this was the sharp-voiced, prying old lady whom she had wished to escape meeting earlier in the afternoon.

"Dear Miss Cynthia," she answered impulsively, "I never shall forget your Great-aunt Cynthia, and I shall be delighted to own something that belonged to her. I'm sure I never had anything half so lovely as this cobwebby handkerchief. Have the other girls," she went on hesitatingly, "ever seen these beautiful old things?" She would have liked to ask that they might all see them together some day, but she hardly dared.

"No," said Miss Cynthia ungraciously, "they haven't. The girls in this town don't care anything about me or my belongings, and they never come here if they can help it. The boys are nicer." And forthwith Miss Cynthia told Ruth some of the kind things the boys had done for her, and grew quite gentle and friendly again in the telling.

"I often wish I knew something I could do for them," she added.

"It's so hard to think of anything that would really please boys."

"If they should see the bundles of letters you have there, Miss Cynthia," suggested Ruth, "I'm sure they'd ask you if you could spare any stamps. They're all crazy over their collections."

"Are they really?" asked Miss Cynthia, as if a new idea had been given her. "Why, my dear, those are letters from all over the world written to my blessed father. One of his dearest friends was a sea-captain who sailed everywhere, and always mailed letters to my father from every port he touched."

Even as she spoke, Miss Cynthia was excitedly slipping the letters out of their envelopes. "Here," she said, thrusting a package into Ruth's hands. "You help me, and then you may take them home to Arthur, and he can divide with the others. Of course I don't know which ones they will like, so I'll send them all."

"Good-bye, Miss Cynthia. I can hardly wait to show these to the boys," said Ruth as her hostess came slowly down the steep stairs behind her, and then she jumped and almost screamed when, "Good-bye, good-bye; come again," came hoa.r.s.ely from under her very feet.

"It's only Ebenezer out again," said Miss Cynthia serenely. "I must have the catch on that door made stronger."

Five minutes later Ruth rang the door-bell at home, and, as she stepped into the house, Dorothy came toward her from the library.

"Oh, did you think I was perfectly dreadful?" cried Dolly, putting on a very penitent expression.

"Well, yes, I did just at first. Then Ebenezer told me to 'cheer up' and after that, to tell the truth, I forgot all about you.

I've had a perfectly lovely time."

"A lovely time!" echoed Dorothy. "Well, you are a funny girl."

"Are the boys here with Arthur?" Ruth went on, noticing for the first time the hum of voices in the library.

"Yes," answered Dolly. "They're busy over their everlasting stamps as usual. I've just been in to see if Frank was ready to go home and I told them where you were."

"Do come in again with me," begged Ruth, "and see if they like what I have for them."

A stormy discussion was in progress when they entered the room, but Phil, who never forgot his good manners, got up to find chairs for the young ladies, and the other boys fired a volley of questions at Ruth, who could hardly stop to answer them, so great was her excitement. She laid the old envelopes on the table with an air of triumph. "I do hope you'll find something there that's really valuable," she added, "for Miss Cynthia was so pleased at the idea of giving you something you would like. She said you boys had always been so nice to her."

Ruth's face and manner were the perfection of innocence, but for some reason there was a tinge of discomfort in the manner of the boys gathered around the table.

"That looks like a good one, Phil," said Arthur, pushing an envelope across the table. "Just look it up in the catalogue, will you?"

"She said that Joe," Ruth went on relentlessly, "had always been very good about doing errands for her and seeing her home from his grandmother's."

"I never did anything for her," bl.u.s.tered Joe, turning red, "except what I had to."

"And she told me that for one whole winter, Frank and Bert kept all her paths clean," pursued Ruth, purposely refraining from looking at her unhappy victims, "and wouldn't take a cent for it when she wanted to pay them."

"We did it just because we happened to want to," growled Frank, looking as uncomfortably guilty as though he had been discovered in some bad action.

"Say, there are some dandy stamps here," said Phil, fearing that his turn was coming next and anxious to change the conversation.

"Did you ever see one like that, Art?"

The boys poked over the stamps in an excited silence, gazed at them through lenses, and hunted in the catalogue with an absorbed interest which seemed to make them quite forget their guests. Every few minutes they found a new treasure.

At last Ruth got up with an air of pretended indignation and walked toward the door saying, "Come on, Dolly; let's go. We don't seem to be wanted here."

"Please don't go," said Arthur with an air so distressingly polite that it wouldn't have deceived any one.

"All right for you," laughed Ruth as she closed the library door behind her; "just wait until I bring you stamps again."

For a few minutes after the departure of the girls not a word was spoken. Then Joe gave vent to a sudden groan and put his hand to his head.

"Is my hair entirely burnt off on the top of my head?" he asked in comical despair. "These are the hottest coals of fire I've ever had handed out to me, That wretch of a Ruth knew she was making us squirm."

"I'm afraid the poor old lady never had any chance to be grateful to me," said Arthur uncomfortably.

"The worst of it is," confessed Frank, "that father was paying Bert and me for every bit of that shoveling and Miss Cynthia never knew it. I feel as if I wanted to go right round there and do something for her this very minute."

"So do I," agreed Joe and Bert almost at the same time.

"Let's form a secret order," suggested Arthur, "and pledge ourselves to make Miss Cynthia as happy as possible for the rest of her life."

No one answered for a moment and then Phil said thoughtfully, "We might call it the 'Order of the Moon.' Cynthia is one of the names for the moon, you know. Don't you remember, Art, we were reading in cla.s.s this morning about 'fair Cynthia's rays' or something like that?"

"That's great!" said Frank, "and that name will drive the girls wild, for they'll never guess what it means."

And so the "Order of the Moon" was established then and there, and to the credit of the boys be it said that the fine purpose for which it was started was faithfully carried out.

CHAPTER XIV

TINY ELSA

It was the usual custom for Ruth and Arthur to play together for an hour after dinner, and they had just got fairly under way one evening when Arthur stopped in the middle of a measure and began to count the fire alarm. In a small town every one listens when an alarm is struck, and many go to the fire.

"Sixty-five," said Arthur, as the sound died away on the air.

"That's in the factory settlement, isn't it, father?"

"Yes," answered his father, counting again as a second alarm sounded.

"Get on a warm coat, Ruth. and we'll see what's burning."

"Why don't you let John take you in the sleigh," suggested Mrs.

Hamilton, "and then Arthur can go with you." She had been quick to notice the regret in Arthur's face, for now that he was beginning to get out again he longed to do everything the others did.