Mary smiled through misty eyes. All three scouts had attempted to take one of her arms, and as she really had not enough members to go around that way, Madaline grabbed the ends of her big long braids, and declared she just had to hold on to something.

They tramped along, down the broad path and again out into the roadway from the once famous artist's estate.

"You have neighbors within call, should yon have needed them, Mary,"

Cleo said. "I am glad you were not too lonely before we met you."

"Yes, but I have never known the folks who live in that house," she replied, drawing in her lips to a very thin red line. "I heard one of the maids make a remark about us one day, and I never wanted to know any of them after that."

"I don't blame you," agreed Madaline. "Mean maids are so mean, and lovely ones are as nice as Jennie, and she's perfect. I hope she won't mind us coming up here?" a little anxiously.

"As long as we are getting back in such good time I am sure she won't,"

Cleo a.s.sured them.

"You know, girls," said Mary, stopping suddenly to better gain their entire attention, "I did not forget to bring some flowers back. I am sure Mrs. Dunbar would have loved them, and I should have so enjoyed giving her some, but I promised Grandie never to bring any through the streets. He is so queer about them, you see," and once more the secret topic was inadvertently touched upon. "I may have all I like always,"

she hurried to explain, "in fact I have many named, and they are my very own, but just yet I would not risk letting people know we have them."

"Oh," said Grace so simply, and so softly that the expression might have been an echo from the sigh of a pa.s.sing summer breeze.

"But the queer wild bushes and things all growing around the windows?"

asked Madaline. "Why do you have them near the glorious orchids?"

"Grandie thinks they are a protector. You can only see them when you look in through the gla.s.s, and so no one would ever guess they really hide orchids," Mary explained.

"And that is why you get all the wild roots from the fields?" Grace exclaimed, delighted to have solved that much of the mystery.

"Yes, that is partly the reason, but Grandie makes a fine fertilizer out of the roots, also. You see our beauties are very tender, and must have special heat and special nourishment."

"And how will you know your house is safe while you are away?" pressed Cleo.

"Of course we don't know," Mary replied, "but there wasn't anything else to do. I feel you girls have done it all. I have been such a baby and, as Reda always insisted, I have seemed half asleep. But honestly, girls," and again Mary pulled them up to a standstill in their walk, so that her remarks would not possibly go astray. "I am like someone who really was asleep, and was just waking up. At least that is the way I feel."

"And you are getting such a lovely color," Grace complimented. "Even if things did get stolen from your house for want of caretakers it seems to me worth while for you and the professor to grow strong,"

declared the practical little scout.

"It is, indeed," agreed Mary. "You really can't know how much it means just yet. Secret!" she called out, inaugurating Cleo's idea of avoiding the forbidden topic by giving the cry of warning.

They all joined in the laugh that followed, and when they took to the road that slanted down over Second Mountain like an inclined pole, they trotted along, almost running down the steep grade.

"We ought to have brakes to go down here safely," said Cleo. "But I do love to run down a big, high hill. Let's!"

"I'll race you," challenged Madaline, and the words were no more than uttered when the four girls dashed off, throwing back shoulders and bracing heads high to avoid rolling "head over heels" down the steep mountain road.

Past the vineyard, past the quarry pole, and still on past the mountain house, they kept up the uncertain pace, and finally, reaching a smooth, almost level lawn, that stole out to play on the roadside, they all flopped down so suddenly and so unceremoniously that they all but rolled in sheer disregard of possible grown-up dignity.

Recovering their equilibrium, the quartette at once set to their popular lawn-loved task of searching for four-leaf clovers. So intent were they in the hunt they did not observe the approach of two maids, coming towards them from the house they sat directly in front of. But they heard them presently!

"I know it's that queer old gypsy that comes over the mountain every day," said one. "I told Officer Brennen if he wanted to get her--he might stop in here."

At that remark the girls paused in their hunt, and listened intently.

"Hush!" said the other maid. "There's the little girl now with those visitors at Cragsnook."

Mary dropped all her clovers as if they suddenly burned her fingers.

Her face flushed deeply.

"Come on, girls!" said Cleo, aloud. "We are all rested enough now, I guess," and it was a much sobered group that again picked up the trail down the mountain into Bellaire Center.

CHAPTER XVI

PROFESSOR BENSON

Trust to girls to solve problems. There were those wonderful orchids, to be aired and watered daily, that beautiful studio which had been rented furnished, and for which Professor Benson was personally responsible, yet the girls managed it all beautifully.

Tom, the trusted taxi driver, was engaged to take them to the studio and back every morning, and quite as if the task were a joy, and it really was; the girls went back and forth, saw that everything was all right, and daily Mary became more and more accustomed to the change in her surroundings.

Following orders at the sanitarium, Mary had not yet visited her "Grandie," but this morning the telephone permission had been called in, and on their way from the studio she was to stop at Crow's Nest.

"I am so glad you decided to lay off your pure white, Mary dear," said Mrs. Dunbar as the girls were ready to leave. "It was pretty and becoming, but having worn it so long must have been depressing. Now you just look like a rose bud in that soft pink, and I feel certain Professor Benson will be delighted with the improvement."

"It was so good of you to shop for me, Mrs. Dunbar," answered Mary. "I suppose I would have had pretty things before, if anyone could have bought them, but you see Reda didn't know," she finished loyally.

"Course not," chimed in Madaline. "So long as she drained the rainbow dry of colors for herself, she didn't care what happened to anyone else. Aunt Audrey, you just ought to see her room at the studio. It looks like a leaky paint shop."

"Yes, Reda loves colors herself," agreed Mary, "but I think one reason why she thought I ought always wear white was for Loved One. But I am sure _she_ would dress me in flower colors if she were here," said Mary, gently, smoothing the soft pink voile she now wore so becomingly.

"All aboard!" cried Cleo, climbing into her place on the seat beside Tom. Since she was too young to drive a car, she did the next best thing--took a seat beside the driver. No wonder Mary was a changed child, to see her as she sat between Grace and Madaline, her cheeks as pretty and pink as the new dress; her heavy braids, though braided still, unbound half way with the ends floating around in curls, the delight, if not the envy, of her companions. Surely Mary was already a much changed girl. As Grace had threatened, she had been initiated into the Girl Scout secrets to the extent of taking the "good cheer and helpful" pledge, and that this had furnished the stray child with a practical motto, was very evident in the almost complete effacement of her former wistful, dejected and often gloomy moods. Altogether it was a delightful achievement, due princ.i.p.ally to the subtle and gentle influence of the sincere little Girl Scouts.

Over the hill now to Second Mountain seemed almost too short a run, save that to-day when "Orchidia," the house of orchids, had been looked after, there was to be the visit to Professor Benson, the long wished-for meeting of Maid Mary and her "Grandie."

Everything seemed as usual at the studio. The flowers were blossoming riotously, and the place was heavy with the glory of the tropics confined in a mere gla.s.sy room of this temperate zone.

"It must be wonderful in the land where these come from, Mary-love,"

said Cleo, as she bent over a magnificent gray lavender bloom, melting into liquid purple, and shading again into misty pinks, like tints from a spring sunrise over the ocean--a sunrise that steals the gray mists and s.n.a.t.c.hes up the pearly foam, to paint its unnamed colors on an expectant sky. "Oh, it must be too wonderful to describe," said Cleo, enthused to rapture.

"It is, indeed," said Mary, "but I often thought the wealth of flowers there was too much for earth. You see, it is very near the equator, very hot and so unbearably oppressive. That is what gave us all the deadly fever." She was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g off a few withered leaves from a plant in its hanging basket, and standing on the high rustic stool, her face above the blossoms, brought sighs of admiration even to Grace, who ordinarily disclaimed so small a thing as mere vanity.

"But, Mary, how did you become so well educated away out there?" asked Cleo.

"Oh, I had an English nurse, and a governess always," replied Mary, surprise at the question toning her answer.

"And your daddy?" Grace had asked the question before she had a chance to "feel her way to it."

"Daddy!" answered Mary, a tear falling into the heart of an orchid.

"Daddy--was lost!"