“No indeed. This dining-room corner with its cheerful grate fire is the pleasantest part of the old house,” Ralph declared. “Dick, help me bring in another chair or two.”
“Now sit down, everybody, and I’ll tell you the results of my conference with my father.” Ralph was plainly elated about something, which, as yet, he had revealed to no one.
When they were seated, he turned at once to the tall, dark Hungarian. “Mr. Hardinian, you were telling me last week that your temporary wooden building for the Boys’ Club is to be torn down next month that a tobacco factory may be erected, were you not?”
“Yes,” was the reply of the still puzzled young man. “I can’t imagine where I am to take my boys. I don’t like to have them bunkless even for one night.”
“Of course not, nor shall they be,” Ralph continued. Then he looked at the girls beamingly. “Not if these young ladies will consent to having a model clubhouse erected in the old garden back of their mansion.”
“Ralph, how wonderful that would be!” Gloria exclaimed. “But what do you mean?”
“Just what I say,” the lad replied. “The former owner of this place wanted his fortune used for some good cause, and Dad and I thought that it would be great to help Mr. Hardinian carry on his fine work right here on this very spot as a sort of memorial, and couldn’t it be called The Pensinger Boys’ Club, or something like that?”
“Indeed it could,” Mr. Hardinian’s dark eyes expressed his appreciation more than words could have done. Then to the tall girl at his side he said: “Now, many of our dream-plans for the boys can be made a reality.”
Turning to the others, he continued: “I am sure that Gloria is now willing that I should tell you that she had consented to some day mother all of our boys, and because of this splendid new plan, I hope that the some-day may be very soon.”
And it was. Indeed, before another year had passed, each of the girls was in a home of her own.