"That j.a.p of his was here," suggested Bob Strahan, but no one paid any attention to him then.

"Come down with me, dearie," whispered Aunt Kate, whose ruddy cheeks had lost their color under the cold stare of Mr. Wells. "We mustn't make any disturbance here. Come down an' tell Uncle Larry. P'rhaps he can help us."

"It's not--not knowing where she is or what's happened to her," Mary Rose gulped. "If she was well and comfortable I'd--I'd try to be resigned, but when I don't know, Aunt Kate! When I don't know!"

"Nothing has happened to her," Bob Strahan said promptly. "No one would hurt Jenny Lind. She is a valuable bird. I expect she was stolen and we'll find her at a bird store. The thief would be sure to sell her right away, before he was caught. I'll look up the bird shops."

"Do!" begged Miss Carter, who wished from the very bottom of her heart that she had never asked Mary Rose to bring up her parcel post package.

"I have half a mind to go with you."

"Be generous and have a whole mind. Poor little kid," he looked after Mary Rose as Aunt Kate half carried her down. "It's a thundering shame. Lord! I'm almost ready to think old grouch Wells did have a hand in this. Did you see his face? He's had it in for Mary Rose ever since she came."

Aunt Kate sat down in the big rocker and drew Mary Rose close to her heart. "Don't you fret yourself, Mary Rose," she said with her lips against Mary Rose's tear-stained face. "We'll find Jenny Lind. Sure, we'll find her. Just you pretend she's gone for a visit. You've loaned her to 'most everyone in the buildin', just you pretend she's loaned now."

"It's easy enough to pretend when you don't have to, Aunt Kate, but it isn't so easy when you know the truth," sobbed Mary Rose.

When Uncle Larry heard what had happened he shut his jaws with a click and a stern look came into his mild blue eyes.

"Of course someone took her," he said, patting Mary Rose's shoulder with a comforting hand. "But don't you worry, Mary Rose. A janitor can go into any flat in this building, so if someone is hiding her for fun or meanness I'll find out. An' if it's anyone outside, well, what are the police for if not to help folks? I'll just speak to Officer Murphy to be on the safe side."

He seemed so helpful and confident that Mary Rose stopped crying and tried to feel confident, also.

"Perhaps someone in the house did take her for company, but I think it would have been more polite if they'd said something to me," she murmured.

"It's more likely that one of the old cranks thought the bird was a nuisance and wrung its neck," frowned Uncle Larry when he spoke to Aunt Kate alone. He did not seem half so confident as when he had spoken to Mary Rose. "There are folks not so many miles away who'd not stop to think whether they broke a kid's heart or not so long as they had their way. I declare, Kate, I'm 'most sorry you didn't leave her in Mifflin.

From all she says folks were kind to her there."

"Well, I'm not sorry!" Aunt Kate's voice was emphatic. "It breaks my heart to have her hurt, but we'll just have to keep remindin' her of what she has left, although it seems if it was little enough. First her mother an' then her father, her cat put out to board an' her dog the same as given away, an' now her bird's stolen. You might almost think that Providence was pickin' on the little thing."

CHAPTER XVII

Jerry Longworthy went up the steps of the Washington and eyed the long row of mail boxes that ran down two sides of the vestibule, until he came to one whose card read, "Miss Elizabeth Thorley, Miss Blanche Carter." He touched the bell beneath.

"Is Miss Thorley in? This is Jerry Longworthy. I want to speak to you about Mary Rose."

"Oh, do come up!" The voice was very eager and hospitable as it came swiftly down the tube, and Mr. Jerry obeyed it almost as swiftly.

Miss Thorley met him in the hall on the third floor. She wore a little lingerie frock of white voile, tucked and inset with lace and girdled with pink satin. It was collarless and her hair was done high on her head so that little locks escaped from the pins and rested on her white neck. She looked about eighteen as she greeted Mr. Jerry.

He held her hand much longer than she thought was necessary and she flushed as she drew it from him. He looked around the big pleasant room as if he were glad to be in it.

"It's a long time since I was here," he said in a low voice, not as if he meant to say it but as if he had to.

It seemed long to her now, too, and when she answered, it was as Mr.

Jerry had spoken, as if the words came of their own will.

"It is a long time." If Aunt Kate had seen her then she would not have worried over any lack of red "corpuskles." A goodly number of them slipped into Miss Thorley's face and dyed it pinker than her girdle.

A flame was lighted in Mr. Jerry's eyes and he stepped quickly forward.

She shrank back behind the high morris chair and he stopped suddenly.

"Long enough to prove to you that love is the biggest thing in the world?" he asked gently, but there was a tremble in his voice that thrilled her down to her very heels. "Oh, my dear, has it? Work and independence are all well enough but they can't take the place of love." His eyes watched her hungrily, but as the color left her cheeks as quickly as it had come and she shook her head, he went on more slowly and there was no longer a wistful tremble in his voice to thrill her to her heels. "You remember the night when you offered me friendship instead of love and I scornfully refused the half loaf?"

She nodded almost mechanically, her eyes on her fingers as they pleated a fold of her frock. "Well, I've changed my mind. Mary Rose has shown me that friends may have a big place in one's life and if you can't give me anything more I'm going to be satisfied with your friendship.

May I have that?" He held out his hand.

"Oh!" It was a startled little gasp and it was a startled little glance that she gave him. "Is--is that what you came for?" If his ears had been sharper he would have caught a tiny note of disappointment in the question as if she had expected him to ask for more.

"It isn't what I came for," he acknowledged honestly. "But I wanted to tell you so you wouldn't keep on avoiding me as if I had the plague.

The other afternoon you wouldn't have come over if you had thought I would be back?"

A red banner in each cheek convicted her.

"We're neighbors and friends of Mary Rose," he went on slowly, "so we'll doubtless meet more or less and I'd like to feel that you trust me, that we are friends. But, honestly, I came tonight to talk of Mary Rose."

She would be glad to talk of Mary Rose, glad to talk of anyone but herself, and she left the morris chair that had proved such a safe shelter and took a gaily cushioned wicker one on the other side of the room.

"Isn't it a shame?" she asked a bit breathlessly. "I can't imagine how anyone who has seen that ducky child with her birdcage could have had the heart to steal her canary."

"Surely you don't think anyone who knew her took Jenny Lind?" He was astonished.

"Everyone says that Mr. Wells has acted very oddly. And Mary Rose told me herself that he swore at Jenny Lind. He's as hard as nails, you can see it in his face. I've heard that he has complained to Brown and Lawson that the leases are not lived up to and that there is a child in the house. When you put two and two together you can't make much but four out of the result."

"The old murderer!" scowled Mr. Jerry. "If that's true I'd like--I'd like----"

"So would I!" Miss Thorley agreed with him heartily.

"Jim said something of the sort, but I told him he was crazy. He said he was going up the fire escape and see if he couldn't find the bird in Wells' flat, but I laughed at him. I didn't know the old man had complained of Mary Rose. Of Mary Rose!" he repeated, as if he could not understand how anyone could complain of Mary Rose. Mary Rose had been a joy to him ever since he had looked up from his car and seen her standing there in the boys' blue serge and with George Washington in her arms.

Miss Thorley nodded. "I'd hate to think what this house would be without her. She seems to have warmed it from the top to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Perhaps you won't understand when I say it's as if she had humanized it. I'd hate to have it overrun with children!" hastily as she caught the sudden flash of Mr. Jerry's eyes. "But Mary Rose--Mary Rose is different."

"Why don't you tenants get up a pet.i.tion of some kind? It wouldn't do any harm to let the owner know that the rest of you are strong for the Donovans and Mary Rose."

"No one knows who the owner is. All business is transacted through the agents."

"The agents know," wisely. "It won't do any harm and it might do some good. The complaints of one tenant won't weigh as much as the requests of a dozen, believe me."

Miss Thorley drew her black brows together until they formed a line across her white forehead.

"I believe you're right," she said after a pause. "I'll ask Mr.

Strahan to write one and we'll have all the tenants sign it. But that won't bring back the canary," forlornly.

"No, it won't bring back the canary," he repeated. "We'll have to get another pet for Mary Rose, one that she may have in the flat. No, not a canary. That wouldn't do at all. But I thought perhaps some goldfish. She loves to watch a couple Aunt Mary has. Once she borrowed them."

"I know, for company for Mr. Wells when he was ill."