Shirley sat with shining eyes and glowing cheeks, turning over the leaves of the magazines with trembling fingers, but unable to read anything, for the joy of what was before her. A real automobile ride! The first she had ever had! And it was to include George and Carol! How wonderful! And how kind in him, how thoughtful, to take his own sister, and hers, and so make the trip perfectly conventional and proper! What a nice face he had! What fine eyes! He didn't seem in the least like the young society man she knew he must be from the frequent mention she had noticed of his name in the papers. He was a real gentleman, a real nobleman! There were such. It was nice to know of them now and then, even though they did move in a different orbit from the one where she had been set. It gave her a happier feeling about the universe just to have seen how nice a man could be to a poor little nobody when he didn't have to. For of course it couldn't be anything to him to rent that barn—at ten dollars a month! That was ridiculous! Could it be that he was thinking her an object of charity? That he felt sorry for her and made the price merely nominal? She couldn't have that. It wasn't right nor honest, and—it wasn't respectable! That was the way unprincipled men did when they wanted to humor foolish little dolls of girls. Could it be that he thought of her in any such way?
Her cheeks flamed hotly and her eyes flashed. She sat up very straight indeed, and began to tremble. How was it she had not thought of such a thing before? Her mother had warned her to be careful about having anything to do with strange men, except in the most distant business way; and here had she been telling him frankly all the private affairs of the family and letting him make plans for her. How had it happened? What must he think of her? This came of trying to keep a secret from mother. She might have known it was wrong, and yet the case was so desperate and mother so likely to worry about any new and unconventional suggestion. It had seemed right. But of course it wasn't right for her to fall in that way and allow him to take them all in his car. She must put a stop to it somehow. She must go in the trolley if she went at all. She wasn't sure but she had better call the whole thing off and tell him they couldn't live in a barn, that she had changed her mind. It would be so dreadful if he had taken her for one of those girls who wanted to attract the attention of a young man!
In the midst of her perturbed thoughts the door opened and Sidney Graham walked in again. His fine, clean-cut face and clear eyes instantly dispelled her fears again. His bearing was dignified and respectful, and there was something in the very tone of his voice as he spoke to her that restored her confidence in him and in his impression of her. Her half-formed intention of rising and declining to take the ride with him fled, and she sat quietly looking at the pictures in the magazine with unseeing eyes.
"I hope you will find something to interest you for a few minutes," young Graham said pleasantly. "It won't be long, but there are one or two matters I promised father I would attend to before I left this afternoon. There is an article in that other magazine under your hand there about beautifying country homes, bungalows, and the like. It may give you some ideas about the old barn. I shouldn't wonder if a few flowers and vines might do a whole lot."
He found the place in the magazine, and left her again; and strangely enough she became absorbed in the article because her imagination immediately set to work thinking how glorious it would be to have a few flowers growing where Doris could go out and water them and pick them. She grew so interested in the remarks about what flowers would grow best in the open and which were easiest to care for that she got out her little pencil and notebook that were in her coat-pocket, and began to copy some of the lists. Then suddenly the door opened again, and Graham returned with George.
The boy stopped short on the threshold, startled, a white wave of apprehension passing over his face. He did not speak. The boy-habit of silence and self-control in a crisis was upon him. He looked with apprehension from one to the other.
Shirley jumped to her feet.
"Oh, George, I'm so glad you could come! This is Mr. Graham. He has been kind enough to offer to take us in his car to see a place we can rent for the summer, and it was through his suggestion that Mr. Farwell let you off for the afternoon."
There was a sudden relaxing of the tenseness in the young face and a sigh of relief in the tone as the boy answered:
"Aw, gee! That's great! Thanks awfully for the holiday. They don't come my way often. It'll be great to have a ride in a car, too. Some lark, eh, Shirley?"
The boy warmed to the subject with the friendly grasp the young man gave him, and Shirley could see her brother had made a good impression; for young Graham was smiling appreciatively, showing all his even white teeth just as if he enjoyed the boy's offhand way of talking.
"I'm going to leave you here for ten minutes more until I talk with a man out here in the office. Then we will go," said young Graham, and hurried away again.
"Gee, Shirley!" said the boy, flinging himself down luxuriously in a big leather chair. "Gee! You certainly did give me some start! I thought mother was worse, or you'd got arrested, or lost your job, or something, finding you here in a strange office. Some class to this, isn't there? Look at the thickness of that rug!" and he kicked the thick Turkish carpet happily. "Say, he must have some coin! Who is the guy, anyway? How'd ya get onto the tip? You don't think he's handing out Vanderbilt residences at fifteen a month, do you?"
"Listen, George. I must talk fast because he may come back any minute. Yesterday I got a half-holiday, and instead of going home I thought I'd go out and hunt a house. I took the Glenside trolley; and, when we got out past the city, I heard two men talking about a place we were passing. It was a great big, beautiful stone barn. They told who owned it, and said a lot about its having such a splendid spring of water beside it. It was a beautiful place, George; and I couldn't help thinking what a thing it would be for mother to be out in the country this summer, and what a wonderful house that would make——"
"We couldn't live in a barn, Shirl!" said the boy, aghast.
"Wait, George. Listen. Just you don't say that till you see it. It's the biggest barn you ever saw, and I guess it hasn't been used for a barn in a long time. I got out of the trolley on the way back, and went in. It is just enormous, and we could screen off rooms and live like princes. It has a great big front door, and we could have a hammock under the tree; and there's a brook to fish in, and a big third story with hay in it. I guess it's what they call in books a hay-loft. It's great."
"Gee!" was all the electrified George could utter. "Oh, gee!"
"It is on a little hill with the loveliest tree in front of it, and right on the trolley line. We'd have to start a little earlier in the morning; but I wouldn't mind, would you?"
"Naw!" said George, "but could we walk that far?"
"No, we'd have to ride, but the rent is so much lower it would pay our carfare."
"Gee!" said George again, "isn't that great? And is this the guy that owns it?"
"Yes, or at least he and his father do. He's been very kind. He's taking all this trouble to take us out in his car to-day to make sure if there is anything that needs to be done for our comfort there. He certainly is an unusual man for a landlord."
"He sure is, Shirley. I guess mebbe he has a case on you the way he looks at you."
"George!" said Shirley severely, the red staining her cheeks and her eyes flashing angrily. "George! That was a dreadful thing for you to say. If you ever even think a thing like that again, I won't have anything to do with him or the place. We'll just stay in the city all summer. I suppose perhaps that would be better, anyway."
Shirley got up and began to button her coat haughtily, as if she were going out that minute.
"Aw, gee, Shirley! I was just kidding. Can't you take a joke? This thing must be getting on your nerves. I never saw you so touchy."
"It certainly is getting on my nerves to have you say a thing like that, George."
Shirley's tone was still severe.
"Aw, cut the grouch, Shirley. I tell you I was just kidding. 'Course he's a good guy. He probably thinks you're cross-eyed, knock-kneed——"
"George!" Shirley started for the door; but the irrepressible George saw it was time to stop, and he put out an arm with muscles that were iron-like from many wrestlings and ball-games with his fellow laborers at the store.
"Now, Shirley, cut the comedy. That guy'll be coming back next, and you don't want to have him ask what's the matter, do you? He certainly is some fine guy. I wouldn't like to embarrass him, would you? He's a peach of a looker. Say, Shirley, what do you figure mother's going to say about this?"
Shirley turned, half mollified.
"That's just what I want to ask you, George. I don't want to tell mother until it's all fixed up and we can show if to her. You know it will sound a great deal worse to talk about living in a barn than it will to go in and see it all fixed up with rugs and curtains and screens and the piano and a couch, and the supper-table set, and the sun setting outside the open door, and a bird singing in the tree."
"Gee! Shirley, wouldn't that be some class? Say, Shirley, don't let's tell her! Let's just make her say she'll trust the moving to us to surprise her. Can't you kid her along and make her willing for that?"
"Why, that was what I was thinking. If you think there's no danger she will be disappointed and sorry, and think we ought to have done something else."
"What else could we do? Say, Shirley, it would be great to sleep in the hay-loft!"
"We could just tell her we were coming out in the country for the summer to camp in a nice place where it was safe and comfortable, and then we would have plenty of time to look around for the right kind of a house for next winter."
"That's the dope, Shirley! You give her that. She'll fall for that, sure thing. She'll like the country. At least, if it's like what you say it is."
"Well, you wait till you see it."
"Have you told Carol?" asked George, suddenly sobering. Carol was his twin sister, inseparable chum, and companion when he was at home.
"No," said Shirley, "I haven't had a chance; but Mr. Graham suggested we drive around by the school and get her. Then she can see how she likes it, too; and, if Carol thinks so, we'll get mother not to ask any questions, but just trust to us."
"Gee! That guy's great. He's got a head on him. Some lark, what?"
"Yes, he's been very kind," said Shirley. "At first I told him I couldn't let him take so much trouble for us, but he said he was going to take his sister out for a ride——"
"A girl! Aw, gee! I'm going to beat it!" George stopped in his eager walk back and forth across the office, and seized his old faded cap.
"George, stop! You mustn't be impolite. Besides, I think she's only a very little girl, probably like Doris. He called her his 'kid sister.'"
"H'm! You can't tell. I ain't going to run any risks. I better beat it."
But George's further intentions were suddenly brought to a finish by the entrance of Mr. Sidney Graham.
"Well, Miss Hollister," he said with a smile, "we are ready at last. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting so long; but there was something wrong with one of my tires, and the chauffeur had to run around to the garage. Come on, George," he said to the boy, who hung shyly behind now, wary of any lurking female who might be haunting the path. "Guess you'll have to sit in the front seat with me, and help me drive. The chauffeur has to go back and drive for mother. She has to go to some tea or other."
George suddenly forgot the possible girl, and followed his new hero to the elevator with a swelling soul. What would the other fellows at the store think of him? A whole half-holiday, an automobile-ride, and a chance to sit in the front and learn to drive! But all he said was:
"Aw, gee! Yes, sure thing!"
The strange girl suddenly loomed on his consciousness again as they emerged from the elevator and came out on the street. She was sitting in the great back seat alone, arrayed in a big blue velvet coat the color of her eyes, and George felt at once all hands and feet. She was a slender wisp of a thing about Carol's age, with a lily complexion and a wealth of gold hair caught in a blue veil. She smiled very prettily when her brother introduced her as "Elizabeth." There was nothing snobbish or disagreeable about her, but that blue velvet coat suddenly made George conscious of his own common attire, and gave Shirley a pang of dismay at her own little shabby suit.
However, Sidney Graham soon covered all differences in the attire of his guests by insisting that they should don the two long blanket coats that he handed them; and somehow when George was seated in the big leather front seat, with that great handsome coat around his shoulders, he did not much mind the blue velvet girl behind him, and mentally resolved to earn enough to get Carol a coat like it some day; only Carol's should be pink or red to go with her black eyes and pink cheeks.
After all, it was Shirley, not George, who felt embarrassment over the strange girl and wished she had not come. She was vexed with herself for it, too. It was foolish to let a child no older than Carol fluster her so, but the thought of a long ride alone on that back seat with the dainty young girl actually frightened her.
But Elizabeth was not frightened. She had been brought up in the society atmosphere, and was at home with people always, everywhere. She tucked the robes about her guest, helped Shirley button the big, soft dark-blue coat about her, remarking that it got awfully chilly when they were going; and somehow before Shirley had been able to think of a single word to say in response the conversation seemed to be moving along easily without her aid.
"Sid says we're going to pick up your sister from her school. I'm so glad! How old is she? About my age? Won't that be delightful? I'm rather lonesome this spring because all my friends are in school. I've been away at boarding-school, and got the measles. Wasn't that too silly for a great big girl like me? And the doctor said I couldn't study any more this spring on account of my eyes. It's terribly lonesome. I've been home six weeks now, and I don't know what to do with myself. What's your sister's name? Carol? Carol Hollister? That's a pretty name! Is she the only sister you have? A baby sister? How sweet! What's her name? Oh, I think Doris is the cutest name ever. Doris Hollister. Why don't we go and get Doris? Wouldn't she like to ride, too? Oh, it's too bad your mother is ill; but of course she wouldn't want to stay all alone in the house without some of her family."
Elizabeth was tactful. She knew at a glance that trained nurses and servants could not be plentiful in a family where the young people wore such plain, old-style garments. She gave no hint of such a thought, however.
"That's your brother," she went on, nodding toward George. "I've got another brother, but he's seventeen and away at college, so I don't see much of him. Sid's very good to me when he has time, and often he takes me to ride. We're awfully jolly chums, Sid and I. Is this the school where your sister goes? She's in high school, then. The third year? My! She must be bright. I've only finished my second. Does she know she's going with us? What fun to be called out of school by a surprise! Oh, I just know I'm going to like her."
Shirley sat dumb with amazement, and listened to the eager gush of the lively girl, wondered what shy Carol would say, trying to rouse herself to answer the young questioner in the same spirit in which she asked questions.
George came out with Carol in a very short time, Carol struggling into her coat and trying to straighten her hat, while George mumbled in her ear as he helped her clumsily:
"Some baby doll out there! Kid, you better preen your feathers. She's been gassing with Shirley to beat the band I couldn't hear all they said, but she asked a lot about you. You should worry! Hold up your head, and don't flicker an eyelash. You're as good as she is any day, if you don't look all dolled up like a new saloon. But she's some looker! Pretty as a red wagon! Her brother's a peach of a fellow. He's going to let me run the car when we get out of the city limit; and say! Shirley says for me to tell you we're going out to look at a barn where we're going to move this summer, and you're not to say a word about it's being a barn. See? Get onto that sky-blue-pink satin scarf she's got around her head? Ain't she some chicken, though?"
"Hush, George! She'll hear you!" murmured Carol in dismay. "What do you mean about a barn? How could we live in a barn?"
"You just shut up and saw wood, kid, and you'll see. Shirley thinks she's got onto something pretty good."
Then Carol was introduced to the beautiful blue-velvet girl and sat down beside her, wrapped in a soft furry cloak of garnet, to be whirled away into a fairy-land of wonder.