“What does Mary Louise say?” asked Josie.
“She doesn’t say anything but just shakes her head and asks to be allowed to wait. In the meantime, we hate to think of her all alone in that great old house. Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben go off and shut themselves up in their room over the kitchen and are dead to the world when their duties are over for the day. I begged her to let me stay with her, but she seems to prefer to be alone.”
“I can readily see that she might want solitude in which to adjust herself to new conditions,” said Josie, thoughtfully, “but it isn’t quite right. I thought, of course, you were there.”
“I was at first but I had a feeling she didn’t want anybody and, when I asked her, she very gently told me that perhaps she was better off alone. I thought at first she was grieving over the loss of the money, but I believe now it has made no impression whatever on her. In fact, I don’t believe she realizes she is almost a poor girl. Of course, the big house and lot are worth a good deal but, in the meantime she has no cash to go upon. Uncle wanted to put some to her credit and do it secretly so she might never know, but she was too foxy for him and went over her grandfather’s bank books and saw his last entry before Uncle Peter could attend to it.”
“I think I’ll call it a day and lay off,” said Josie, “and go see Mary Louise. Will you agree to anything I let the Higgledy Piggledies in on, Elizabeth?”
“Of course! You can do a lot of talking about the uselessness of money, but I trust you not to lose any in the business. You are entirely too astute.”
CHAPTER XI
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
There was one rule the great detective, O’Gorman, had tried to instill in the mind of his daughter Josie, and that was, if possible, never to meddle in other folks’ affairs, but if, by any chance, Fate so ordained it that you must meddle, stick to it until those affairs were settled and the meddling was no longer necessary. Josie felt that, from the beginning, she had put her finger in Mary Louise’s pie and she must not draw it out until she could extract some kind of plum for her little friend.
She did not ring the bell at the Hathaway house but opened the great front door with the latch-key Colonel Hathaway had given her on her first visit to them and which he had insisted upon her keeping and using as a member of the family. She found Mary Louise hovering over rather a forlorn fire in the den.