She found herself in a crush at the door. Beside her was young Peter Simmons. Rebecca Mary thrilled as he brushed against her arm.
"Beg your pardon," he murmured absently, but he never looked at her.
It made Rebecca Mary so furious to be so coolly ignored that she did not see that Joan Befort and her father pushed by her and that close on their heels were Mrs. Simmons and the man who looked as if he would do things. The chattering laughing throng pressed closer. A hand even touched Rebecca Mary's fingers. She drew them away with a shrug of her shoulders. She did hate to be jostled.
"My dear, I must fly!" exclaimed Cousin Susan when they had emerged a trifle breathless from the crowd. "But first give me that promise? Please, Rebecca Mary! What is that in your hand?" she broke off to ask suddenly, for something green hung from Rebecca Mary's worn brown glove.
"Why—why——" stammered Rebecca Mary as she opened her hand and found, of all things, a four-leaf clover. She stared from it to Cousin Susan.
"Where did you get that?" Like Rebecca Mary, Cousin Susan scanned the faces hurrying by. Not one of them looked as if it belonged to a person who would thrust a four-leaf clover into the fingers of a girl in a shabby blue serge. Four-leaf clovers had been no part of the table decorations. They never are. They belong in meadows and are only found by patient seekers. Even Rebecca Mary had to admit that it was odd and that it gave her a strange shivery sort of a feeling.
"My, but I'm glad I didn't buy curtains!" Cousin Susan was enchanted with the mystery. "You simply will have to give me that promise now, Rebecca Mary. You are sure to have adventures if you do. There's the sign." She pointed to the crumpled clover leaf. "There's magic in it!" she whispered. Really, Cousin Susan was a silly.
"I wonder!" Rebecca Mary looked at the talisman. Where could it have come from? Perhaps there was magic in it. There must have been, for suddenly Rebecca Mary laughed softly. She straightened her shoulders and looked into Cousin Susan's kind blue eyes. "Yes, Cousin Susan," she said swiftly, as if the spell of the clover leaf might be broken if she didn't speak in a hurry, "I promise to say 'Yes, thank you' instead of 'No, I can't possibly.'"
And then before Cousin Susan could say how glad she was, right there on the crowded avenue, Rebecca Mary put her arm around Cousin Susan and hugged her.
"I haven't been a bit nice this afternoon," she confessed frankly and with considerable regret. "I've been horrid, but it was because I did feel so out of place. But I do love you and—and I shall try and be more decent to people. And if you really want me to take one of your old memory insurance policies," she giggled as she thought of Cousin Susan as an insurance agent, "why, of course I shall. Perhaps—" she looked down at the mysterious clover leaf, and her eyes crinkled—"perhaps this might make a first payment."