"They would be the very thing," Mrs. Henderson admitted, but she shook her head hopelessly. "Your father would never let you have one of them.

We must look elsewhere."

"Oh, yes, he will, Hennie," Virginia a.s.sured her with great confidence.

The widow's doubting eye moved the girl to remonstrate, "You don't know him at all. I think that it is the strangest thing, that you have been my father's neighbor all of these years and don't understand him better."

Mrs. Henderson displayed sudden stern-eyed interest in a flower bed upon her lawn, and the toe of her shoe softly tapped the floor of the porch.

The girl leaned towards the older woman, her face aglow with pride and admiration, as she searched for some acknowledgment of her words.

"Daddy is so n.o.ble and so good," she explained in a voice modulated by tenderness. "He spends all of his time thinking about other people."

The lines of Mrs. Henderson's mouth relaxed, and the tempo of the tapping toe slowed. Her eyes twinkled merrily.

"Isn't it wonderful, Hennie?" and Virginia looked up to a face for a moment puzzled.

"Very wonderful, child," responded the widow, and Virginia never dreamed that there was a delicate note of sarcasm in the voice. Leaning forward, Mrs. Henderson clasped the girl's hand. "Your father is a lucky man to have such love and affection," she said, and then as though thinking aloud, she murmured, "I hope that he appreciates it."

After a pause she returned to the subject of the orphans with great vigor. "Some one in this town must loan us a truck. That is all there is about it."

"Let Daddy do it. He will love to."

The hopeful enthusiasm of the girl was lost upon the older woman. "Well, it will do no harm to give him the opportunity," she conceded dryly; "but I wouldn't count on it too much if I were you." Suddenly, she remembered something. "Dear me, I almost forgot it. I must run over to the Lucinda Home a minute. You come along, dear," she urged.

"Hennie, I can't. I haven't a hat. I am not dressed to go out."

Mrs. Henderson smiled. "It doesn't make any difference what you wear over there. Most of the old ladies are so nearly blind that they can't tell what you have on."

So Virginia agreed to go, and, as the distance to the inst.i.tution was short, in a few minutes they entered the grounds.

The Lucinda Home for Aged Women occupied a large brick building. A triple-decked porch, supported by posts and brackets of ornamental iron work covered the entire front of the edifice and afforded delightful resting places from which to view the beautiful grounds.

The two women ascended the steps to the lower porch. On either side of the entrance stretched a line of chairs occupied by old ladies. They rocked and fanned and stared across the grounds with dulled, unseeing eyes, as if watching and waiting for something.

The afternoon light flashed against the spectacles. It brought out the snow of the moving heads. It showed the deep carved lines of age and it disclosed the hands, knotted and toil worn.

Once these faces were soft and full; these eyes snapped with health and joy. Love showered its kisses. The world showed wondrously beautiful in the tender light of romance and the voice of hope rang clear and strong. Came babies for these hands to fondle and caress, and tiny forms to be upheld as little feet struggled in first steps upon the rough and hilly path. n.o.ble deeds of unselfishness gleamed in the shadowed lives of these women as they battled with the adversities which all who live must face. Slowly their beauty faded; their eyes no longer sparkled; their hands were red and hard. Little ones grew into men and women and went away, filled with hope and proud in their strength, leaving loneliness behind. Through the years, a shadow, almost indiscernible to youthful eyes, drew ever closer. One by one, they had seen friends and loved ones pa.s.s behind the black veil, until they were alone in a world, cold, loveless, without hope, waiting----

Waiting. Yes, waiting--slowly rocking and fanning--living anew the past, and peering out into the sunshine as if they sought with their poor eyes to glimpse the approach of that enfolding shadow of mystery.

The visitors paused for a moment at the entrance, sobered by the tragedy of age. Near them, an old woman became suddenly active. The sweep of her chair increased as she glanced at Virginia. She stopped and whispered to her neighbor.

This aged one started, as if awakened from slumber, and she, too, inspected the girl. Then, she placed her lips by the ear of her deaf companion and in a shrill voice of great carrying power, cried, "Powder makes her look pale. They all use it nowadays." She stopped for breath and screamed, "Her dress is too short. Her mother ought to have better sense than to let her run around that way."

Luckily for the embarra.s.sed girl, at this moment Mrs. Henderson led her into the reception room and left her to regain her composure while she transacted her business with the matron in an adjoining room.

The remarkable quiet which reigned in this home of age oppressed Virginia, so that when Mrs. Henderson returned with the matron, she cried, impulsively, "Oh, Hennie, I am glad that you are back. This place is so still that it is lonesome."

Mrs. Henderson turned to Mrs. Smith, the matron. "That is what I have always said," she argued. "The old ladies like it quiet, but we overdo it here. The place is a grave. We should have more entertainment." She looked questioningly at the girl. "What do you think should be done, child?"

Virginia's blue eyes were very serious as she answered, "I hardly know--almost anything which would make it happier. It needs something to stir it up," she ended impulsively.

The older woman laughed and Mrs. Henderson put her arm about the girl's waist, and suggested, "You have nothing on your hands, child. Why can't you arrange some sort of an entertainment for these elderly women?"

"Oh, I couldn't," she demurred shyly.

"Certainly you can, you are quite old enough to undertake the task of making these old people happier for an afternoon."

Into the girl's mind came a remembrance of her birthday gift. "I will be glad to do it, Hennie," she agreed with great seriousness.

They paused at Mrs. Henderson's gate as they returned from the Lucinda Home. "Won't you come in, dear?" urged the older woman.

The girl, dreamily engaged in planning marvelous but impossible entertainments for the stirring up of the old ladies, did not hear.

"Come and have tea with a solitary somebody?" the widow begged the girl wistfully. "You think that the Lucinda Home is lonesome, but don't forget that an old lady who loved your mother and who loves you is lonesome, too."

"Dearest Hennie, you haven't the slightest idea of what loneliness is." Virginia smiled sweetly at the older woman and kissed her. "I would enjoy taking tea with you but I must not forget my father. Probably all afternoon he has been making plans to help the people who work in his mill. I think he is so like my mother--always trying to make other people happier. You loved her, Hennie, and you know him. I want you to help me to be unselfish like them."

During this recital, Mrs. Henderson underwent a severe test in self-repression, the high praise of Obadiah's disinterestedness nearly causing severe internal injury. There was yet an ominous flash in her eye as she bade the girl farewell.

Virginia found her father awaiting her. His digestive organs were protesting by certain unpleasant twinges, against the extra work he had forced upon them.

"Where have you been?" he demanded of her sharply.

She dropped into the chair by his side. "At Mrs. Henderson's, Daddy."

"You left me alone," he complained.

"You went to sleep and I was so lonesome, Daddy dear."

"That makes no difference. You should not have left me. You have the week days to yourself. I ought to have your Sundays."

"Oh, I am sorry that I was so thoughtless," Virginia reproached herself, with a suspicion of tears in her eyes.

"Yes, you were thoughtless," Obadiah grumbled. "You must learn to think of others. Don't get teary. That always disturbs me."

Virginia was engaged in a battle to keep back her tears when the notes of a ragtime melody resounded through the calm of the Sabbath evening. Ike approached. The gorgeousness of his apparel eliminated every variety of lily, except the tiger, from consideration. His suit was of electric blue. His shirt was white, broadly striped with royal purple, and it peeped modestly from beneath a tie of crimson. His hat was straw, decorated with a sash of more tints than the bow of promise.

Ike was happy. He had loitered through the afternoon before the meeting house of his faith, impressing the brethren and the sisters with the magnificence of his attire. He deemed it, socially speaking, to have been a perfect day.

It was now his intention to partake of refreshment before returning again into the shadow of the sacred edifice, not then, however, to give pleasure to the faithful in general, but rather for the special and particular delight of an amber hued maiden who at the moment held his flitting fancy.

Filled with pleasant antic.i.p.ations and in cadence with his melody, Ike approached the house.

Obadiah arose hastily as the sweet tones struck his ear and awaited the arrival of the musical one at the edge of the porch.

At the sight of the gaunt form of the manufacturer, a dulcet timbre departed from Ike's performance and as he approached, the volume of sound diminished in proportion to the square of the distance. Opposite the mill owner it ceased.

"Good evening Misto Dale." The voice was humbly courteous.

Disdaining the kindly salutation of his hireling, Obadiah made outcry.

"I want the car. Get the car," he commanded.