At the sight of another stranger Madaline could feel Mary shrink back, and the faint sigh that escaped her lips was noticed by Grace as well.

"You will love Aunt Audrey," said Grace in Mary's ear. "She is only aunt to Cleo, but we all call her Aunt Audrey, and she's just lovely."

This in the most rea.s.suring tones.

"Oh, yes," Mary answered, conscious her tremor of timidity had been noticed. "She looks so--so like my own Loved One as I remember her. I was thinking I may make a lot of mistakes, but you will excuse them?"

The round of chuckles, and the merry twitters given her in lieu of formal opinions, restored her sinking spirits somewhat, but each of the three attentive, sympathetic girls keenly realized Mary's discomfiture.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar as they drew in. "Whatever became of you all? If Mally Mack had not met me at the station, and told me you were going for a mountain drive, I should have been a little bit worried."

"We brought you company, Aunt Audrey," Cleo answered, before Jennie had a chance to offer any explanation. "This is Mary Benson, you know.

The little girl we met when we first came to Bellaire."

"Oh, yes. How do you do, Mary?" Mrs. Dunbar greeted the now really frightened little girl. "It's so lovely to have you come and visit my little ones. You see, they thought three would be really a crowd, and that they would never grow lonely for home, but I have noticed the tell-tale signs lately. Now, a real visitor will be the very best thing to effect a cure," and she was urging Mary into the house, quite as if her presence were indispensable for the evening's happiness.

The big, soft, dark eyes set so deep in the olive skin, just tinted now with a trace of excitement's color, gazed up into Mrs. Dunbar's face with all the yearning and longing of a lonely, forsaken child.

"Thank you," Mary managed to articulate, but the effort was mingled with a little choking sob.

Jennie drew Mrs. Dunbar into the library while the girls proceeded to the living room.

"Such a time as we have had," she exclaimed, "and I can't say it was all my fault. You see those children were so determined to help that poor friendless child that I just had to go along, or let them go alone, and I was sure you would not want that, Mrs. Dunbar."

"Hush!" putting a finger on her lip and a smile with it. "It is perfectly all right. I have known the children were on the trail of the poor little dear, and I'm just glad they rescued her, to-night especially. I saw three men running for the train I got off, and Mally Mack told me one was a Turk the officers are after! Don't say anything about it, but I know one of these was the man who meets the Indian woman, she who cares for Mary."

"Indian?" repeated Jennie. "Is she that?"

"Likely that--or part negro. I am sure she is from some Central American territory. I have used her type in painting. But come on.

Let us give the children a little spread. Phone for some cream, and we will soon have them all happy enough to forget their fright. I know they are just dying to tell me all about it."

No mistake about that. Even the presence of Mary did not appease the children's eagerness to take Mrs. Dunbar into their exciting secret, if a matter known to so large a number can be cla.s.sified as a secret or even a mystery.

In the rooms above the oak lined hall the girls could now be heard welcoming Mary, with all the natural excitement of her peculiar situation. Grace wanted her to try on her pale green organdie, because it would go so beautifully with her topaz eyes. Madaline insisted her baby blue was much more attractive, as one of Mrs. Dunbar's pictures showed a girl with brown braids gowned in heavenly blue, while Cleo offered her choicest frock, the coral pink with all the dinglely-danglely pink rose-buds dropping around the tunic. But Mary shook her head, and declined all the kindly offered finery.

"You see," she exclaimed, her eyes fairly glaring in unrestricted admiration at the gorgeous display of clothes, "I have to wear white.

Reda says if I do not I shall get the fever and die as Loved One did."

"Oh, how perfectly ridiculous!" exclaimed Cleo. Then, fearing Mary would take offense, she hastened to add: "I am sure Reda is simply superst.i.tious. I have known a child who wore white until she was seven, because her mother favored that as a sort of prayer, a consecration, and of course that was all right when its meaning was sincere, but to wear white to ward off a fever looks uncanny, foolish.

Can't you put on a color if you choose?" and the beautiful pink dress threw a covetous glow up into Mary's cla.s.sic face.

"Oh, of course I could," she demurred, "but----"

"But we wouldn't ask you to," and Cleo gave the sign for returning the pretty gowns to their respective closets, by putting the pink voile on its white silk hanger. "White is lovely, and it becomes you beautifully. Don't you think so, girls?"

They did, of course, and when just then Jennie called them to the dining-room for the spread, so delightful on any summer evening, Mary seemed to forget the terrors of that hour, when Professor Benson so barely escaped the trap that had been set for him at the Imlay Studio.

CHAPTER XI

A CRY IN THE NIGHT

It was while Jennie served a dainty sherbet--an extra, considering ice cream and cake were a sufficiently delightful treat--that Cleo slipped out into the library where Mrs. Dunbar was writing letters. Grace and Madaline were outdoing each other in entertaining the guest, and altogether the evening was one of enjoyment, especially for Mary. Her eyes were now almost as bright as those of the girls who surrounded her, and had Reda been able to see her, she surely could not have honestly warned her against "being like other girls." Only that occasional shadow of fear that crossed her face, blotting the life out of her eyes, and glazing them with the ice of terror, did actually mark her as being "different." Even now this fear flitted into her gaze, and with it her slim, brown hands were seen to grasp tightly any object within their reach.

Cleo retold to her aunt that part of the evening's experience which Jennie had begun, but it was concerning the professor and his unprepared retreat to the Sanitarium that she particularly asked advice.

"Do you suppose he will be very anxious about Mary?" asked Cleo. "He does not know us, and when we left him he still seemed dazed from the fright."

"We might call Crow's Nest on the telephone and ask how he is,"

suggested Mrs. Dunbar. "I think we should do so. Do you want to ask Mary about it?"

Cleo bit her lip in serious consideration. For a little girl she was rather wise, as her aunt had before acknowledged.

"You see, Auntie," she finally said, "we three are trained Girl Scouts.

Every day we renew our pledges to help others, and every evening we make a sort of survey of the day to be sure we are not allowing our delightful vacation to monopolize all our interests. We say, you know, that happiness was born a twin, and we know from experience we have lots better times when we share happiness with someone who needs it."

"Wonderful wisdom for such a little girl," replied the aunt with an embracing smile, absolutely devoid of ridicule, but plainly illumined with appreciation. "I know about your wonderful scout activities, and I have not so soon forgotten how you won your bronze cross----"

"Oh, I don't mean to attach any glory to myself," Cleo interrupted, somewhat embarra.s.sed at the turn in the conversation.

"I understand, dear. You just want to be perfectly sure you are doing all you can for the case of Mary, as that has come your way in scouting?"

"Yes, that is our vacation case, we are sure, so of course I just had to insist on Jennie coming with us to-night. I am afraid she was awfully frightened."

"She was, but maybe you can convert her to your ranks. At any rate she was astonished at the way you carried things through. Now, about Mary.

Shall we speak to her about phoning the Sanitarium?"

"I guess we had better not mention it to her until we find out if he is all right. If he were very ill do you think we need tell her to-night?" Cleo asked.

"You are right, Tody," the aunt replied, using the pet name given Cleo by her mother on special occasions. "Just go out with the others and shut the door while I phone."

There was no possibility of Mrs. Dunbar's voice being heard over the din of merry-making in the dining-room, for just then Grace was making a speech, and Madaline was applauding, while Cleo quickly fell in with the fun, by parading around the room with a table candle in each hand, and an upturned fruit basket on her head.

Mary sat back on the window seat, spellbound. Being a real girl in spite of her peculiarities, she would occasionally burst into the most musical ripple of laughter, then suddenly check herself, as if fearful of violating some obligation to be sad or melancholy.

Presently Mrs. Dunbar appeared at the door to suggest bed time, and when she gave no message to Mary from her telephone call Cleo surmised the news was not what they had hoped for. Pa.s.sing by her aunt in the hall, Mrs. Dunbar whispered, "Sleeping," and Cleo knew Mary might take alarm at that report, for the dread fever she so often mentioned was always termed the "sleeping fever." But it was bed time and in the delicious process of undressing and donning gowns or pajamas the girls enjoyed the usual pranks that are ever unusual, and seem different every time they are indulged in. There were pillow fights, parades, sponge splashes, ghost dances, and other stunts "too numerous to mention," but it must be recorded that it required the combined persuasion of Jennie, with her two funny pig tails hanging over her voluminous night dress, and Mrs. Dunbar in the most fragile of negligees to induce the girls to turn out lights, and finally get settled for the night.

It had been possible to decide with whom Mary should sleep. Each bed would have held her in addition to its usual occupant, but on drawing straws the lot fell to Madaline, who had coveted it from the first, as her bed was really of double size.

"Mine is the only big, full grown straw!" declared Madaline proudly, waving the whisk that had been plucked from Jennie's broom, "and now, ladies, we bid you a fond farewell. Come on, Mary."

The exit was quite dramatic in character, for Madaline accidentally tripped over a fur rug, and was spilled rather rudely all over the hall floor, but a little thing like that had no effect on the delighted Madaline, who rather expected Mary would unfold her confidence once in the quiet of their own room.

"I hope dear Grandie is all right," Mary sort of sighed as they each took to their own side of the big roomy bed. "I have never been away from him before."

"Oh, he will have the very best of attention at that retreat," Madaline declared, although she knew absolutely nothing of the place. "Has he money with him?" she ventured.

"Oh, yes. He always has his check book and his deposits are all in a good New York bank," returned Mary without offense, realizing the question was plainly one made out of simple kindness.