"I'm going to ask her if you can't go home with me. Grandma will know--"

"You mustn't bother mamma," cried Fern, clutching Peace about the ankles as she started toward the sagging door of the ramshackle old house.

"Mrs. Burnett will chase you out with the broom like she did us. And 'sides, mamma won't know you. She doesn't even know Rivers and me--her own little children."

Peace pondered. Here was an unlooked-for predicament. Would she be doing wrong if she took the brother and sister away without saying anything to the mother who did not know her own children any longer? She might speak to Mrs. Burnett, but how about that broomstick? For a moment she stood irresolute, scratching her head thoughtfully. Then with characteristic energy and decision, she grabbed Rivers with one hand and Fern with the other, and trotted off down the street, saying briefly, "I'm going to show you to grandma. She will know what to do."

"Will you bring us back again?"

"Course! You don't think I am a kidnapper, do you? That's what Mittie Cole called me when I thought I was going to adopt the twins that were only runaways. Mittie got to like me afterwards, though."

"I like you now."

"Of course. Most folks do, but it takes a longer time with some to make up their minds. I'm glad you are quick at d'ciding. We turn this corner."

Hurrying them along as fast as Rivers' short legs could toddle, she at length reached the big, old-fashioned house, and burst in upon the Missionary Meeting with a torrent of jumbled explanation.

"Here's two folks that need home missionarying if anybody does. Their mother is so sick she doesn't know people any more, and the father is either in jail or heaven. Mrs. Burnett chases 'em out of the house with the broomstick, and I borrowed them to show you just how ragged and dirty they really are, so's you will know I ain't got hold of a fake mistake again. They live in a horrid little barn of a house, quite a piece from here, and the hospital is coming after the mother any time.

They won't take Fern and Rivers, of course, 'cause they are both well, but I thought likely Mrs. Burnett might begin to use the broomstick again if the children were left with her, so I brought 'em along with me until you could decide what to do with them. They don't want to go to a Home, and I don't want them to, either." Her breath gave out, and the astonished ladies recovered their poise sufficiently to ask questions until the whole pitiful tale had been unravelled.

"We'll send a committee at once to investigate," proposed the fat secretary, whom Peace disliked for no reason whatever.

"Then send somebody who's got a heart," suggested the little maid. "This is a truly sick woman which needs help. I'll show you the place. Fern, you and Rivers stay here with grandma till I get back. Ladies, who are the committee?"

Spurred on by Peace's enthusiastic leadership, the society hastily appointed a committee, and they departed on their errand of mercy. The house was even more squalid than Peace had pictured it, and the woman's case more desperate. An hour later a subdued, sympathetic trio of ladies, with Peace in tow, returned to the Campbell residence with their report.

"It is worse than we expected," said the chairman in a voice that trembled in spite of her efforts to speak naturally. "The father is in--Stillwater. Embezzlement. The mother, dest.i.tute, without relatives or friends, naturally a frail little woman, and now ill with typhoid, brought on by overwork and anxiety. These two children dependent upon her, and none of the neighbors really situated so they can take care of them. We secured a bed in Danbury Hospital for the mother, and told the authorities that we would be responsible for the babies. We simply could not think of leaving them there to be buffeted about by unwilling neighbors--no telling how long the mother will be unable to take care of them, if she ever is again. Now, the question is, what shall we do with these two tots?"

Immediately there was a buzz of comment, and an avalanche of theory and advice began to flow from fifty tongues.

Peace, interested in the controversy, had been banished to the dining-room to amuse Rivers, who had developed an unlimited propensity for mischief-making since his arrival at the big house, but through the open door she caught bits of the conversation, and her heart beat quick with fear.

"They are trying to _pa.s.sle_ Fern and Rivers off among different families," she said with bated breath. "What a shame that would be! Mr.

Dillon in Stillwater, the mother in Danbury Hospital, Fern with Mrs.

York, and Rivers at the Weston's. Oh, they mustn't part Fern from her baby! They can't get along without each other. Ain't it too bad we don't have a Home around here like they've got in Kentucky! Why didn't I think of that before?"

She gathered Fern and Rivers under her wing once more, and noiselessly departed from the house by way of the kitchen.

"Where are we going this time? Home?" questioned Fern, loath to leave the great house so full of beautiful things for one to admire.

"Not yet. I've just got a think. I b'lieve I know a lady which'll take you both till your mother gets well. She's lame herself, but Aunt Pen isn't, and they both love children. You'll have to ride on the cars.

Come on, don't be afraid. I've done it lots of times and I never get lost."

Somewhat reluctantly, Fern allowed herself and brother to be lifted onto the car by the big conductor, who evidently knew Peace, for he greeted her with a cheery shout, "h.e.l.lo, my hearty! Going to see your Lilac Lady again?"

"Yes," Peace answered promptly. "I've got another bunch of orphans--that is, they will be until their mother gets well and the father comes back, if he can." She remembered at that moment that she did not yet understand what had actually happened to the breadwinner of this unfortunate family. "And I knew my Lilac Lady would be glad to take care of them for a little while, so's they wouldn't have to be sep'rated."

With that, she ushered the children to seats inside the moving car, and they were quickly whirled away to the corner where stood Teeter's Pharmacy. Here they were helped off by the genial conductor, and Peace led the way up the hill to the beautiful stone house which could be plainly seen from the roadway now, because the thick cedar hedges had all been cut down, and only tall iron palings enclosed the lovely gardens.

Under her favorite oak by the lilac hedge lay the lame girl in her prison-chair, looking whiter and frailer than ever before, and Peace stopped in the midst of a rapturous kiss to ask fearfully, "Have you been sick again?"

"No, dear," smiled the marble lips. "I am a little tired these days, but perfectly well. Whom have you here?"

"Fern and Rivers Dillon. Their mother is dreadfully sick with _tryfoid_ fever and their father is in--well, it's either a jail or a graveyard. I found them crying 'cause Mrs. Burnett had driven them out of the house with the broomstick, and when I took them home to the lady missionaries who are meeting at our house this afternoon, they began planning right away to divide them up among some families of our church. I couldn't bear to think of that, so I brought them up to you. I knew you'd be glad to keep them till the mother gets well, and they don't want to go to the Children's Home a bit. Rivers can't keep still a minute, but I know how he feels. It's the same way with me. At first I couldn't see how any mother would name her little boy such a name as that, but now I know. He upset three vases of flowers in the reception hall, and spilled a gla.s.s of frappe down his dress when I tried to give him some to drink, and pulled over the bird-cage, so's the water was all spilled, and stepped into the dog's drinking trough at the back door while I was trying to get them out of the house without the ladies seeing me. He makes rivers out of every bit of water he comes near."

"Doesn't your grandmother know where you have gone?" asked the invalid in surprise, not half understanding what Peace was trying to tell her.

"Why, no! She's one of the missionaries herself. She might think I ought to let her s'ciety look after these children as long as they've got hold of the mother already; but I--they'd be sep'rated as sure as fits, and--just look how teenty Rivers is to be taken away from _all_ his folks at once."

"I don't want him tookened away," Fern spoke up. "Mamma told me to stay with him all the time, and I said I would. He can't talk much yet and there ain't anybody else can tell what he wants, now that mamma is sick."

"Come here, dear." The lame girl held out her thin, blue-veined hands, and little, homeless Fern ran to her with a desolate cry.

Peace was satisfied, and dropping down cross-legged in the gra.s.s at their feet, she remarked thoughtfully, "I _had_ to bring them here, you see. Our house is full already, and grandpa says grandma has all she can 'tend to with the six of us. The parsonage is too small to hold any more, and besides, Saint John is away on his vacation, so the house is shut up for a few days. I knew Aunt Pen could mother a dozen, and I knew you'd want her to if she got the chance, so I brought 'em along.

"Isn't it too bad there isn't a nice Children's Home in this state like there is in Kentucky or some place down South, where one lady has forty daughters? They ain't any of 'em her very own. She's really just the matron of the Home, like Miss Chase is of our Children's Home, only they don't call the place a Home. The lady is just like a real mother to them, and she won't let any of her girls be adopted away from her. She just takes care of them until they are old enough to look out for themselves or get a husband to look out for them. Then she takes some more in their place and keeps on that way. And they just love her to pieces. They wear nice clothes and she teaches 'em music and manners and how to keep house and makes useful wives out of them. Oh, that's the kind of a Home I'd like to have here! Then Lottie could live there 'stead of being sent to the 'sylum."

"Lottie sent to the asylum? Why, what do you mean, Peace?" cried the startled invalid, sitting almost upright in her chair.

"Haven't you heard?" It was Peace's turn to look surprised.

"Not a word of that sort."

"Why, you know Lottie is a _norphan_, and when she was a baby somebody adopted her, but her new mother died last winter, and her new father put her in the Home 'cause he couldn't take care of her himself. Now he's been killed on the railroad, and his people don't want to be bothered with her, so she's to be sent to a Norphan 'Sylum, 'cause the Home takes only children who have somebody who will look after them a little.

Lottie feels dreadfully bad and has 'most cried her eyes out already. I couldn't get her even to smile when I was up there this week. She is going to leave next Wednesday."

For a long moment the lame girl lay in deep thought, still holding Fern's chubby hand in hers, though she had evidently forgotten all about the little stranger children in her concern for the friendless orphan, Lottie. When she spoke, she asked absently, "What was that you were telling me about the Kentucky lady? Where did you hear about it?"

"That girls' Home in Kentucky? Oh, grandma was reading about it in Blank's Magazine the other day, and grandpa said that's the way all children's Homes ought to be carried out. Then the boys and girls would be happier and grow up into better men and women. That's what I think, too."

"We take Blank's Magazine," said the lame girl irrelevantly. "Here comes Aunt Pen. We must tell her about Fern and Rivers, and she will telephone the ladies that they are safe with us. Poor little waifs! You are home now--until the dear mother is able to care for you again. Then we'll see."

That was the beginning of it, but the next time Peace visited the Lilac Lady, she found a crew of noisy carpenters at work on the stone house, and in answer to her surprised questions, the invalid said, "This is to be an Orphan Asylum, dear. We shall not call it by that ugly name, but that is what it is really to be, and we have already two real orphans, not counting Fern and Rivers, who may be here for only a few weeks or months."

"Who are the orphans?"

"Giuseppe and Lottie."

"Oh, my Lilac Lady! How did you ever think of such a splendid plan?"

"I didn't, Peace. It was you."

"Me?"

"Yes, dear. When you told me about that Kentucky Home which all the children love, I wondered why Aunt Pen would not make a good mother for such a place in this state, and when I asked her, she was _so_ happy!"

"But you? Where will you live if you turn your lovely house into a _norphan_ 'sylum?"

"Right here--till the time comes to go home. It won't be long now, but I shall be content if I know the fortune which failed to make me happy is bringing joy and sunshine into the lives of scores of homeless children--hundreds in time, perhaps--and is giving them the education and self-reliance and refinement and love which will make them n.o.ble citizens of a n.o.ble country."