"I guess that's why her hair is red," said Dot, not believing her own reasoning, but desiring to be in the conversation.

Mrs. Eland was silent for some minutes. "She isn't mad, is she?"

whispered Dot to Tess.

But the latter respected her friend's silence. Finally the matron said pleasantly enough: "I am going out when you children go home. You must show me where this school teacher of yours lives. If I can be of any service----"

She put on her bonnet and the long gray cloak in a few minutes, and the three set forth from the hospital. Dot clung to one hand and Tess to the other of the little gray woman, as they went to Miss Lippit's boarding house.

"This is Mrs. Eland," Tess said to the spinster, who was both landlady and friend of the injured school teacher. "She is my friend and the matron of the hospital where Miss Pepperill went with us one day."

"When she carried _my_ flowers and gave some to the children," muttered Dot, who had never gotten over that.

"I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Eland," said Miss Lippit. "I do not know why Miss Pepperill calls for you so much. She is a singularly friendless woman."

"I thought she had always lived in Milton?" said the matron, in an inquiring way.

"Oh, no, ma'am. She lived in the town I came from. We children always thought she was Mr. and Mrs. Pepperill's granddaughter; but it seemed not. She was picked up by them wandering about in Liston after the big fire."

Mrs. Eland repeated the name of the Western city, holding hard to a chairback the while, and watching Miss Lippit hungrily.

"Yes, ma'am," said the landlady. "We learned all about it. Miss Pepperill was so small she didn't know her own name--only 'Teeny.'"

"'Teeny'!" repeated Mrs. Eland, pale to her lips.

"She had a sister. She remembered her quite plainly. Marion. When Miss Pepperill was younger she was always expecting to meet that sister somewhere. But I haven't heard her say anything about it of late years."

"Show--show me where the poor thing lies," murmured Mrs. Eland.

They went into the bedroom. Miss Pepperill, her head looking very strange indeed with nothing but bandages upon it, sat up suddenly in bed.

"Mrs. Eland! isn't it?" she said weakly. "Pleased to meet you. You are little Tess Kenway's friend. Tell me!" she cried, clasping her hands, "did you find your sister, Mrs. Eland?"

The matron ran with streaming eyes to the bed and folded the poor, pain-racked body in her arms. "Yes, yes!" she sobbed. "I've found her!

I've found her!"

The two smallest Corner House girls did not see this meeting; but they brought home the report from Miss Lippit that Mrs. Eland was going to make arrangements to stay all night with Miss Pepperill, and perhaps longer. Her work at the hospital would have to be neglected for a time.

These busy days, however, the young folk were neglecting nothing which was connected with the forthcoming benefit for the Women's and Children's Hospital. _The Carnation Countess_ was _not_ to be a failure.

The changes made in the a.s.signment of the speaking parts caused some little heartburnings; but the director was determined in the matter.

First of all he brought Mr. Marks to his way of thinking.

"I won't give the play if I can't have my own Innocent Delight, Cheerful Grigg, and some of the others," said the director, firmly.

There was good reason for taking the role away from Trix Severn--she had neglected rehearsals. Nevertheless, she was very much excited when she learned that the part had been given to Agnes Kenway, who was making such a success of it.

Miss Severn, in tears, went to the princ.i.p.al of the Milton High School and laid her trouble before him. Mr. Marks listened grimly and then showed her the letter purporting to come from the proprietor of Strawberry Farm, in which the girls who had raided the farmer's patch were named--excluding herself.

Beside this letter he put a specimen of Trix's own handwriting. It chanced to be the note which had suggested Trix for the part of Innocent Delight in the play.

"It strikes me, Miss Severn," said the princ.i.p.al, sourly, "that you are getting to be a ready letter writer. Don't deny the authorship of these scripts. Your teachers are all agreed that you wrote them both.

"This one to the professor is reprehensible enough. I am sorry that a girl of the Milton High School should write such a note. But this other," and his voice grew very stern, "is criminal--yes, criminal!

"I have learned from Mr. Buckham personally, that your father's automobile was stalled one day in front of his house and that you went in and met his wife, who is an invalid.

"You must have had it in your mind then to make trouble for your schoolmates, and learning that Mr. Buckham did not write himself, you stole a sheet of his letter paper, and wrote this contemptible screed.

"I shall tell your parents of your action. I do not feel that it is within my province to punish you for such a contemptible thing. However, knowing that you have been a traitor to your mates, I withdraw my order for their punishment on the spot. I never have, and never will, accept the evidence of a traitor in a matter of this character.

"As Mr. Buckham himself holds no hard feelings about the foolish prank of last May, I shall say no more about it. But the contempt in which your schoolmates must hold you, if they learn that you wrote this letter, should be its own punishment."

Agnes and the others, however, paid little attention to Trix Severn.

Agnes knew, and the others suspected, that Trix was the one who had told; but the Corner House girl felt that she had deserved the punishment she received, and was deeply grateful to Mr. Marks for withdrawing the order against her playing in _The Carnation Countess_.

Eva got the part of Cheerful Grigg; some of the other members of the basket ball team obtained good parts, too. They studied hard and were able to act creditably at the final and dress rehearsal.

The play was to be given on three nights and one afternoon of Christmas week. School was closed for the holidays, and little was talked of or thought about among the Corner House girls and their mates, but the play.

"I hope I won't spoil the play," said Tess, with a worried air. "And I hope we will make--oh! lots and lots of money for the hospital, so that Mrs. Eland can stay there. For now, you know, with her sister sick, she'll need her salary more than ever."

CHAPTER XXV

A GREAT SUCCESS

Miss Pepperill was not going to die. Dr. Forsyth made that good prophecy soon after Mrs. Eland had taken on herself the nursing of her strangely met sister.

The school teacher--so grim and secretive by nature--had been in a fever of worry and uncertainty long before the accident that had stretched her on this bed of illness. The relief her mind secured when her sister, Marion, and she were reunited did much to aid her recovery.

n.o.body would have suspected that the calm, demure, little gray woman and the a.s.sertive, sharp-tongued school teacher were sisters; but the evidence of their own childish remembrances was conclusive. And that little Mrs. Eland should be the older of the two was likewise astounding.

There was still a sad secret on Mrs. Eland's heart. Mr. and Mrs. Buckham knew it. The smallest Corner House girl had prodded the doubt of her father's honesty to the surface of the hospital matron's mind.

"There ain't no fool like an old fool, it's my bounden duty to say," Mr.

Bob Buckham remarked on the Monday of Christmas week, as he warmed his hands before the open fire on the hearth of the old Corner House sitting room.

He had come to town ostensibly to bring the Corner House girls'

Christmas goose--a n.o.ble bird which Ruth had picked out of his flock herself on a recent visit to Strawberry Farm. But he confessed to another errand in Milton.

"I'd no business to talk out like I done about Abe and Lem Aden that first day you children was at our house. But I've allus hugged that injury to my breast. Marm says I ain't no business to, and I know she's right. But it hurt me dreadfully when I was a boy to lose my marm.

"The rascality lay between old Lem and Abe. Course we couldn't never prove anything on Lem, and he never had a good word himself for his brother. I read his letters to Abe--Mrs. Eland, she showed 'em to me--and there wasn't a word in 'em about my father's five hundred."

"Oh, dear me!" Ruth replied, "I wish it could be cleared up for the sake of Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. You don't care about the money now, Mr. Buckham."