Chapter 26

There came a day when there seemed to be nothing left to do for Patty. Maggie was well, and at play again in the tiny yard. The yard itself was no longer strewn with tin cans and bits of paper, nor did the gate hang half-hinged in slovenly decrepitude. The house rejoiced in new paper, paint, and window-glass, and the roof showed a spotted surface that would defy the heaviest shower. Within, before a cheery fire, Patty sewed industriously on garments which Miss Kendall no wise needed, but for which Miss Kendall would pay much money.

Patty did not work in the mills now; Margaret had refused to let her go back, saying that she wanted lots of sewing done, and Patty could do that instead. Patty's own wardrobe, as well as that of the child, Maggie, was supplied for a year ahead; and the pantry and the storeroom of the little house fairly groaned with good things to eat. Even Sam, true to Margaret's promise, was not "left out," as was shown by his appearance. Sam, stirred by the girl's cheery encouragement and tactful confidence, held up his head sometimes now with a trace of his old manliness, and had even been known to keep sober for two whole days at a time.

There did, indeed, seem nothing left to do for Patty, and Margaret found herself with the old idleness on her hands.

At Hilcrest Mrs. Merideth and her brothers were doing everything in their power to make Margaret happy. They were frightened and dismayed at the girl's "infatuation for that mill woman," as they termed Margaret's interest in Patty; and they had ever before them the haunting vision of the girl's childhood morbidness, which they so feared to see return.

To the Spencers, happiness for Margaret meant pleasure, excitement, and�as Ned expressed it�"something doing." At the first hint, then, of leisure on the part of Margaret, these three vied with each other to fill that leisure to the brim.

Two or three guests were invited�just enough to break the monotony of the familiar faces, though not enough to spoil the intimacy and render outside interests easy. It was December, and too late for picnics, but it was yet early in the month, and driving and motoring were still possible, and even enjoyable. The goal now was not a lake or a mountain, to be sure; but might be a not too distant city with a matin�e or a luncheon to give zest to the trip.

Ned, in particular, was indefatigable in his efforts to please; and Margaret could scarcely move that she did not find him at her elbow with some suggestion for her gratification ranging all the way from a dinner-party to a footstool.

Margaret was not quite at ease about Ned. There was an exclusiveness in his devotions, and a tenderness in his ministrations that made her a little restless in his presence, particularly if she found herself alone with him. Ned was her good friend�her comrade. She was very sure that she did not wish him to be anything else; and if he should try to be�there would be an end to the comradeship, at all events, if not to the friendship.

By way of defense against these possibilities she adopted a playful air of whimsicality and fell to calling him the name by which he had introduced himself on that first day when she had seen him at the head of the hillside path�"Uncle Ned." She did not do this many times, however, for one day he turned upon her a white face working with emotion.

"I am not your uncle," he burst out; and Margaret scarcely knew whether to laugh or to cry, he threw so much tragedy into the simple words.

"No?" she managed to return lightly. "Oh, but you said you were, you know; and when a man says��"

"But I say otherwise now," he cut in, leaning toward her until his breath stirred the hair at her temples. "Margaret," he murmured tremulously, "it's not �uncle,'�but there's something else�a name that��"

"Oh, but I couldn't learn another," interrupted Margaret, with nervous precipitation, as she rose hurriedly to her feet, "so soon as this, you know! Why, you've just cast me off as a niece, and it takes time for me to realize the full force of that blow," she finished gayly, as she hurried away.

In her own room she drew a deep breath of relief; but all day, and for many days afterward, she was haunted by the hurt look in Ned's eyes as she had turned away. It reminded her of the expression she had seen once in the pictured eyes of a dog that had been painted by a great artist. She remembered, too, the title of the picture: "Wounded in the house of his friends," and it distressed her not a little; and yet�Ned was her comrade and her very good friend, and that was what he must be.

Not only this, however, caused Margaret restless days and troubled nights: there were those children down in the mills�those little children, nine, ten, twelve years old. It was too cold now to stay long on the veranda; but there was many a day, and there were some nights, when Margaret looked out of the east windows of Hilcrest and gazed with fascinated, yet shrinking eyes at the mills.

She was growing morbid�she owned that to herself. She knew nothing at all of the mills, and she had never seen a child at work in them; yet she pictured great black wheels relentlessly crushing out young lives, and she recoiled from the touch of her trailing silks�they seemed alive with shrunken little forms and wasted fingers. Day after day she turned over in her mind the most visionary projects for stopping those wheels, or for removing those children beyond their reach. Even though her eyes might be on the merry throngs of a gay city street�her thoughts were still back in the mill town with the children; and even though her body might be flying from home at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour in Frank's big six-cylinder Speeder, her real self was back at Hilcrest with the mills always in sight.

Once again she appealed to her guardian, but five minutes' talk showed her the uselessness of anything she could say�it was true, she did not know anything about it.

It was that very fact, perhaps, which first sent her thoughts in a new direction. If, as was true, she did not know anything about it, how better could she remedy the situation than by finding out something about it? And almost instantly came the memory of her guardian's words: "I suppose that that altogether too officious young McGinnis has been asking your help for some of his schemes."

Bobby knew. Bobby had schemes. Bobby was the one to help her. By all means, she would send for Bobby!

That night, in a cramped little room in one of the mill boarding-houses, a square-jawed, gray-eyed young man received a note that sent the blood in a tide of red to his face, and made his hands shake until the paper in his long, sinewy fingers fluttered like an aspen leaf in a breeze. Yet the note was very simple. It read:

"Will you come, please, to see me to-morrow night? I want to ask some questions about the children at the mills."

And it was signed, "Margaret Kendall."