There was nothing for her to do but read. And one cannot read all the time. She had no "fancy-work" with which to keep her hands and mind busy.

She wondered what her cousins did on such days. She found out by keeping her ears and eyes open. After breakfast Belle went shopping in the limousine. There was an early luncheon and all three of the Starkweather girls went to a matinee. In neither case was Helen invited to go--no, indeed! She was treated as though she were not even in the house. Seldom did either of the older girls speak to her.

"I might as well be a ghost," thought Helen.

And this reminded her of the little old lady who paced the ghost-walk every night--the ex-nurse, Mary Boyle. She had thought of going to see her on the top floor before; but she had not been able to pluck up the courage.

Now that her cousins were gone from the house, however, and Mrs. Olstrom was taking a nap in her room, and Mr. Lawdor was out of the way, and all the under-servants mildly celebrating the free afternoon below stairs, Helen determined to venture out of her own room, along the main pa.s.sage of the top floor, to the door which she believed must give upon the front suite of rooms which the little old lady occupied.

She knocked, but there was no response. Nor could she hear any sound from within. It struck Helen that the princ.i.p.al cruelty of the Starkweathers'

treatment of this old soul was her being shut away alone up here at the top of the house--too far away from the rest of its occupants for a cry to be heard if the old lady should be in trouble.

"If they shut up a dog like this, he would howl and thus attract attention to his state," muttered Helen. "But here is a human being----"

She tried the door. The latch clicked and the door swung open. Helen stepped into a narrow, hall-like room, well furnished with old-fashioned furniture (probably brought from below stairs when Mr. Starkweather re-decorated the mansion) with one window in it. The door which evidently gave upon the remainder of the suite was closed.

As Helen listened, however, from behind this closed door came a cheerful, cracked voice--the same voice she had heard whispering the lullaby in the middle of the night. But now it was tuning up on an old-time ballad, very popular in its day:

"Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie-- Wait till the clouds roll by!

Jennie, my own true loved one-- Wait till the clouds roll by."

"She doesn't sound like a hopeless prisoner," thought Helen, with surprise.

She waited a minute longer and, as the thin yet still sweet voice stopped, Helen knocked timidly on the inner door. Immediately the voice said, "Come in, deary. 'Tis not for the likes of you to be knockin' at old Mary's door. Come in!"

Helen turned the k.n.o.b slowly and went into the room. The moment she crossed the threshold she forgot the clouds and rain and gloominess which had depressed her. Indeed, it seemed as though the sun must be ever shining into this room, high up under the roof of the Starkweather mansion.

In the first place, it was most cheerfully papered and painted. There were pretty, simple, yellow and white hangings. The heavier pieces of old furniture had gay "tidies" or "throws" upon them to relieve the sombreness of the dark wood. The pictures on the walls were all in white or gold frames, and were of a cheerful nature--mostly pictures of childhood, or pictures which would amuse children. Evidently much of the furnishings of the old nursery had been brought up here to Mary Boyle's sitting-room.

Helen had a glimpse, through a half-open door, of the bedroom--quite as bright and pretty. There was a little stove set up here, and a fire burned in it. It was one of those stoves that have isingla.s.s all around it so that the fire can be seen when it burns red. It added mightily to the cheerful tone of the room.

How neat everything appeared! Yet the very neatest thing in sight was the little old lady herself, sitting in a green-painted rocker, with a low sewing-table at her side, wooden needles clicking fast in her fleecy knitting.

She looked up at Helen with a little, bird-like motion--her head a bit on one side and her glance quizzical. This, it proved, was typical of Mary Boyle.

"Deary, deary me!" she said. "You're a _new_ girl. And what do you want Mary to do for you?"

"I--I thought I'd come and make you a little call," said Helen, timidly.

This wasn't at all as she expected to find the shut-in! Instead of gloom, and tears, and the weakness of age, here were displayed all the opposite emotions and qualities. The woman who was forgotten did not appear to be an object of pity at all. She merely seemed out of step with the times.

"I'm sure you're very welcome, deary," said the old nurse. "Draw up the little rocker yonder. I always keep it for young company," and Mary Boyle, who had had no young company up here for ten or a dozen years, spoke as though the appearance of a youthful face and form was of daily occurrence.

"You see," spoke Helen, more confidently, "we are neighbors on this top floor."

"Neighbors; air we?"

"I live up here, too. The family have tucked me away out of sight."

"Hush!" said the little old woman. "We shouldn't criticise our bethers.

No, no! And this is a very cheerful par-r-rt of the house, so it is."

"But it must be awful," exclaimed Helen, "to have to stay in it all the time!"

"I don't have to stay in it all the time," replied the nurse, quickly.

"No, ma'am. I hear you in the night going downstairs and walking in the corridor," Helen said, softly.

The wrinkled old face blushed very prettily, and Mary Boyle looked at her visitor doubtfully.

"Sure, 'tis such a comfort for an old body like me," she said, at last, "to make believe."

"Make believe?" cried Helen, with a smile. "Why, _I'm_ not old, and I love to make believe."

"Ah, yis! But there is a differ bechune the make-believes of the young and the make-believes of the old. _You_ are playin' you're grown up, or dramin' of what's comin' to you in th' future--sure, I know! I've had them drames, too, in me day.

"But with old folks 'tis different. We do be har-r-rking back instead of lookin' for'ard. And with me, it's thinkin' of the babies I've held in me ar-r-rms, and rocked on me knee, and walked the flure wid when they was ailin'--An' sure the babies of _this_ house was always ailin', poor little things."

"They were a great trouble to you, then?" asked Helen, softly.

"Trouble, is it?" cried Mary Boyle, her eyes shining again. "Sure, how could a blessid infant be a trouble? 'Tis a means of grace they be to the hear-r-rt--I nade no preacher to tell me that, deary. I found thim so. And they loved me and was happy wid me," she added, cheerfully.

"The folks below think me a little quare in me head," she confided to her visitor. "But they don't understand. To walk up and down the nursery corridor late at night relaves the ache here," and she put her little, mitted hand upon her heart. "Ye see, I trod that path so often--so often----"

Her voice trailed off and she fell silent, gazing into the glow of the fire in the stove. But there was a smile on her lips. The past was no time to weep over. This cheerful body saw only the bright spots in her long, long life.

Helen loved to hear her talk. And soon she and Mary Boyle were very well acquainted. One thing about the old nurse Helen liked immensely. She asked no questions. She accepted Helen's visit as a matter of course; yet she showed very plainly that she was glad to have a young face before her.

But the girl from Sunset Ranch did not know how Mrs. Olstrom might view her making friends with the old lady; so she made her visit brief. But she promised to come again and bring a book to read to Mary Boyle.

"Radin' is a great accomplishment, deary," declared the old woman. "I niver seemed able to masther it--although me mistress oft tried to tache me. But, sure, there was so much to l'arn about babies, that ain't printed in no book, that I was always radin' them an' niver missed the book eddication till I come to be old. But th' foine poethry me mistress useter be radin' me! Sure, 'twould almost put a body to slape, so swate and grand it was."

So, Helen searched out a book of poems downstairs, and the next forenoon she ventured into the front suite again, and read ta Mary Boyle for an hour. The storm lasted several days, and each day the girl from the West spent more and more time with the little old woman.

But this was all unsuspected by Uncle Starkweather and the three girls. If Mrs. Olstrom knew she said nothing. At least, she timed her own daily visits to the little old woman so that she would not meet Helen in the rooms devoted to old Mary's comfort.

Nor were Helen's visits continued solely because she pitied Mary Boyle.

How could she continue to pity one who did not pity herself?

No. Helen received more than she gave in this strange friendship. Seeking to amuse the old nurse, she herself gained such an uplift of heart and mind that it began to counteract that spirit of sullenness that had entered into the Western girl when she had first come to this house and had been received so unkindly by her relatives.

Instead of hating them, she began to pity them. How much Uncle Starkweather was missing by being so utterly selfish! How much the girls were missing by being self-centred!

Why, see it right here in Mary Boyle's case! n.o.body could a.s.sociate with the delightful little old woman without gaining good from the a.s.sociation.

Instead of being friends with the old nurse, and loving her and being loved by her, the Starkweather girls tucked her away in the attic and tried to ignore her existence.

"They don't know what they're missing--poor things!" murmured Helen, thinking the situation over.

And from that time her own att.i.tude changed toward her cousins. She began to look out for chances to help them, instead of making herself more and more objectionable to Belle, Hortense, and Flossie.