"No, you haven't! I looked over the banisters," said Rosanna, as the three went down the broad stairs.

Miss Hooker thought the play was so good and she was so proud to think that one of her girls had written it that she was anxious to talk it over at once, and had asked Uncle Robert to bring her right around to see Rosanna and Helen.

They all drew up around the big library table, and Uncle Robert sat next Miss Hooker where he could make suggestions. And Miss Hooker and the girls made a list of characters, and fitted them to different girls in their group. Finally Miss Hooker said there were several places that needed a little changing and would Rosanna trust her to do it with Mr.

Horton's help? At this Uncle Robert looked most beseechingly at Rosanna, who, of course, said yes.

"Where will we give it?" asked Helen. "As long as it is a benefit we want a place large enough for lots of people to come. All our families will want to come, and all the Girl Scouts' families, and perhaps some other people besides."

"We will give it here, won't we, Uncle Robert? Grandmother will let us, I'm sure. In the big drawing-room, you know."

"Not big enough," declared Uncle Robert, while both girls exclaimed.

"Now this is the part I can help about and I have just had a great idea.

You all know that big barn of Mrs. Hargrave's? We boys used to play there on rainy days when we were little. The whole top floor is one immense room. We can give our entertainment there. Mrs. Hargrave will give the barn, I know. And for my contribution or part of it, I will see that you have a stage and a curtain and all that."

"How dear of you, Mr. Horton!" said Miss Hooker.

"Oh, Uncle Robert, a curtain that goes up and down?"

"Of course," said Uncle Robert, "and footlights and everything."

"O-o-o-o-h!" sighed both girls, and Miss Hooker looked at Uncle Robert and smiled and he seemed real pleased.

"I think I must go if you will be kind enough to take me home," said Miss Hooker. "Rosanna, you must tell the Girl Scouts about Gwenny at the next meeting, and read your play. Then we will get right to work, for the sooner this is staged, the better. We don't want to interfere with the Christmas work."

After Mr. Horton had taken the tiny little lady home, the girls raced upstairs and went to bed, but it was a long, long time before they could get to sleep. They finally went off, however, and did not hear Uncle Robert when he came home whistling gaily. They dreamed, however, both of them, of acting before vast audiences that applauded all their speeches.

And at last Rosanna woke up with a start to find that Helen was clapping her hands furiously and stamping her feet against the footboard. After Rosanna succeeded in awakening her, they had a good laugh before they went to sleep again.

At breakfast Uncle Robert was full of plans for the Benefit. "Miss Hooker and I went all over your play last night, Rosanna," he said, "and smoothed out the rough places. You know every ma.n.u.script has to be corrected. It is on the table in my room. You had better read it over after school, and if it suits your highness I will have it typewritten for you, and you can go ahead. I am going to see about the barn now, on my way down town, and if Mrs. Hargrave is willing--and I am sure she will be--I will get a carpenter to measure for the staging. I suppose,"

he added, "I ought to ask Miss Hooker to look at the place and get some suggestions from her?"

"Oh, I wouldn't bother to wait for her," said Rosanna, who was wild to see the stage built. "She won't care what you do. If you like, I will tell her how busy you are and that you won't bother to come around to her house any more because you can attend to things just as well yourself."

Uncle Robert looked hard at Rosanna. It was a queer look; sort of the look you would expect from a cannibal uncle who has a little niece that he wants to eat. Rosanna, catching the look, was surprised and quite disturbed. But when Uncle Robert spoke, he merely said, "Thank you, Rosanna; but you see I _do_ need Miss Hooker's advice very much indeed.

The fact is I will never be able to put this thing through as well as I want to put it through unless I can consult with her every day or so. In fact, if I cannot consult as often as I need to, I will certainly have to give it up. And that would be awful, wouldn't it?"

"Of course it would, Uncle Robert," answered Rosanna. "I just hated to have you bothered."

"I will stagger along under the burden," said Uncle Robert, trying to look like a martyr. "The thing for you to do is to forget how hard I am working and how much help I have to have doing this, and get your girls to studying on their parts."

"Miss Hooker says I am to read it at the Scout meeting next week and then we will give out the parts and let them be learning them."

"All right, sweetness; get after them," said Uncle Robert, kissing Rosanna, and Helen, too, "for luck" he said, and going off whistling.

"I think the play is making Uncle Robert very happy," said Rosanna as the front door slammed and she heard a merry whistle outside. "He is a changed person these last few days."

"That is what often happens," said Helen. "Probably he did not have anything to occupy his mind after business hours, so he was unhappy.

Mother says it is a serious condition to allow oneself to be in. Now that he has our play to think about, he feels altogether different. I do myself. Do you know it is time to start for school? Let's be off so we won't have to hurry, and we will have time to stop for Elise."

Elise was ready and the three girls sauntered down the street together.

As they pa.s.sed a great imposing stone house, Elise said, "It is a chateau--what you call castle, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Rosanna, "and a cross old ogre lives in it. He and his sister live there all alone, with lots of maids and men to serve them, and he is so growly-wowly that Minnie says even the grocer boys are afraid of him. That is his car in front of the door. Did you ever see anything so large?"

"Or so lovely?" added Elise. "If he was not so ze what you just call growlee-wowlee, he might carry us to school; not?"

"There he comes," said Rosanna. "Does he look as though he would carry any little girls _any_where unless he carried them off to eat?"

The great carved door opened and an old gentleman came down the steps.

He walked with a cane and to the children he seemed very old indeed with his snow white hair and fierce moustaches. He scowled as he came and stopped to switch with his cane at a vine that had straggled up the step. He noticed the three girls approaching, and scowled at them so fiercely that they involuntarily stopped to let him pa.s.s. But he was in no hurry to do so. When he had looked them over sufficiently, he looked past them and snorted loudly at something he saw up the street, but when the girls looked around to see what was the matter, there was only a little baby girl playing with a little woolly dog; so they all looked back again at the old gentleman. He seemed to fascinate them.

Three pair of round eyes fixed on him caught the old gentleman's attention.

"Well, well, well!" he said testily. "What do you see? Come, come, speak out!"

Elise drew back but the other two stood their ground, and Rosanna, who had seen him all her life and was at least accustomed to him, said gently:

"We see _you_, sir."

"Ha hum!" sputtered the old gentleman, drawing his fierce white eyebrows together. "What about me, young woman, what about me to stare at?"

Rosanna was distressed. There seemed nothing to do but tell him the truth and that was almost too awful. She smoothed it down as well as she could.

"If you will excuse me for saying so, you looked a little cross," she said, "and--and something must be making you very unhappy."

"It is," said the ogre. "It makes me unhappy to see what a silly no-account world this is; full of small children, and woolly dogs, and things. Kittens! Babies! Chickens! Bah! All making noises! All getting up at daybreak to play and meow and crow. Bah! Of course I am unhappy!"

He crossed the walk, waved the footman back with his cane, stepped painfully into the car, and with his own hand slammed the door shut. But his anger blinded him. He did not take his hand away soon enough, and the heavy door caught it. With a cry of pain, he dropped back on the cushions. The middle finger was crushed and bleeding profusely.

"Heaven protect us!" cried Elise.

The old gentleman was almost fainting. Rosanna did not hesitate. The Girl Scouts had to understand First Aid. She ran up to the car and entered it, tearing up her handkerchief as she did so. Helen, close behind her, was doing the same thing with hers.

CHAPTER V

Gently but firmly taking the bleeding finger in her little hand, Rosanna bound it up in the strips of linen, folding them back and forth in quite a professional manner. Helen helped her to tie the bandages. Not until they had finished did they take time to glance up at the old gentleman.

He was deathly white and leaned heavily against the cushions.

"Now, sir," said Rosanna, "if you will have your man drive you to a doctor, he will treat it with an antiseptic and it will soon be all right."

The old gentleman commenced to brace up as he saw that the bleeding at least was checked. The girls got out of the car, and the old gentleman with a muttered, "Thank you, thank you," gave an order and the chauffeur drove rapidly away.

"He said _thank you_ once for each of us anyway," said Helen.

Elise shuddered. "Your dress!" she said, pointing to Rosanna. Sure enough, Rosanna was spattered with blood.