"Why is it? We don't have to tell them about the train, do we? I'm here anyway. The Reverend Merle got me here. All I ask you to do is to let me fix over some dresses and shirtwaists."
"Very well," decided the secretary. "I'll do that."
"Say, will you let me begin right away? Will you? So I can satisfy that she dragon down at the lodge?"
"Mrs. Pottle?"
Hester nodded, with expressive pantomime indicating the nature of the dragon. "If that old thing knows I'm sewing for the ladies here she'll let up on the scrubbing talk. Why should I scrub when I can sew?"
This sounded reasonable and Betty began to feel that she had been not quite kind to Hester.
"It's a good time now," she said, with increasing friendliness. "I've nearly finished this work and, if you don't mind going to my room, we'll see what we can find."
The Storm girl gave a little gasp of joy. Was there ever anything as easy as this? Would she mind going to Miss Thompson's room! Would she mind taking $25,000 on a gold spoon? Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
But she simply answered with a grateful, innocent look, "I'll be glad to go."
So they climbed the winding stair, Hester thrilling with expectation. She had no doubt the bishop's purse was still in the golf bag's depths where she had dropped it, and the golf bag itself was probably in this very room where they were going; or, if not there, it must be knocking about in some odd corner or dusty closet, where she would quickly find it, now that she had the run of the house, and, having found it——