“Before I realized that I was a girl and had to be ladylike.” Bobs laughed with him, then added merrily, “If it hadn’t been for my prunes and prisms, Sister Gwendolyn, I might never have ceased to be a tom-boy.”
“I hope you never will become like Gwen,” Dick said almost fiercely, “or like my sister Phyllis, either. They’re not our kind, though I’m sorry to say it.” Then noting a far-away, thoughtful expression which had crept into the girl’s eyes, the lad inquired: “Say, Bobs, have you any idea how Gwyn can earn a living? You’re the sort who can hold your own anywhere. You’d be willing to work, but Gwyn—well, I can’t picture her as a daily-bread earner.”
His companion shook her head; then quite unexpectedly she said: “Dick, why didn’t you fall in love with Gwen? It would have solved her problem to have had someone nice and rich to take care of her.”
“Well, of all the unheard of preposterous suggestions!” The amazed youth was so astonished that he unconsciously drew rein and stared at the girl. He knew by her merry laugh that she had said it but to tease, and so he rode on again at her side. Bobs feared that she had hurt her friend, for his face was still flushed and he did not speak. Reining her horse close to his, she again put a hand on his arm, saying with sincere earnestness: “Forgive me, pal of mine, if I seemed to speak lightly. Honestly, I didn’t mean it—that is, not as it sounded. But I do wish that someone as nice and—yes, I’ll say as rich as you are, would propose to poor Gwen. You don’t know how sorry Gloria and I feel because Gwen has to be poor with the rest of us.” The boy had placed his hand over the one resting on his arm, but only for a moment. “You see,” Bobs explained, “Glow and I honestly feel that an adventure of a new and interesting kind awaits us, and, as for little Lena May, money means nothing to her. If she can just be with Gloria, that is all she asks of Fate.”
They had reached the Vandergrift gate and Bobs, drawing rein, reached out her hand, saying: “Goodbye, Dick.” Then, after a hesitating moment, she added sincerely, “I’m sorry, old pal. I wish I could have said yes—that is, if it means a lot to you.”
The boy held her hand in a firm clasp as he replied earnestly, “I’m not going to give up hoping, Bobsie. I’ll put that question on the table for a couple of years, but, when I am twenty-one, I’m going to hit the trail for wherever you are, and ask it all over again. You see if I don’t.”
“You won’t if Eloise Rochester has anything to say about it,” was the girl’s merry rejoinder. Then as Bobs turned her horse toward the stables, she called over her shoulder: “O, I say, Dick, I forgot to tell you the profession I’ve chosen. I’m going to a girl detective.”
CHAPTER III.
VENTURING FORTH
When Roberta entered the breakfast room, she found Gloria and Lena May there waiting for her. In answer to her question, the oldest sister replied that Gwen would not unlock her door. Lena May had left her breakfast on a tray in the hall. “We think she is packing to leave,” Gloria sighed. “The way Gwen takes our misfortune is the hardest thing about it.”
Bobs, who was ravenously hungry after her early morning ride, was eating her breakfast with a relish which contrasted noticeably with the evident lack of appetite shown by her sisters. At last she said: “Glow, I’m not so sure all this is really a misfortune. If something hadn’t happened to jolt us out of a rut, we would have settled down here and led a humdrum, monotonous life, going to teas and receptions, bridge parties and week-ends, played tennis and golf, married and died, and nothing real or vital would have happened. But, now, take it from me, I, for one, am going to really live, not stagnate or rust.”