The older girl replied: “Of the one room home that we just left, I was wondering about that lovely mother and daughter. How strange, that they should be living in that old tumble down house and yet the storekeeper in the town know nothing of it.”
Betsy was on the alert at once. “It’s a mystery,” she announced. “I just knew there would be a mystery in that old house.”
Barbara laughed. “Wrong you are! Eleanor told me how it happened, and it is not at all strange. Her mother is a settlement worker, and she has been giving more strength than she could spare to nursing, in the tenement district through some epidemic, and when it was over and many lives saved through her efforts, the physician in charge said that Mrs. Burgess must have a month’s complete rest. He asked where she would like to go, and she told him of that one wing which she and Eleanor had fitted up several summers ago for their vacation retreat, and so he brought them in his big comfortable closed car just before the snows came, and he also had supplies sent from Boston, enough to last the entire month they are to be there. In another fortnight that same physician is to return for them, and as almost no one travels the County Farm road in the winter, they may be gone, and that garrulous old storekeeper may never know that they have been here at all, at all.”
There was a wide canopy of star and moonlit sky above them as the bus turned in again at the school drive. “Shall you all slip in up the back way to your rooms? There’s time to dress before the supper gong rings,” Dicky Taylor said.
“Why, of course not,” Virginia replied. “If the rest of you are willing, I would like to be the one to tell Mrs. Martin all that has happened.”
“Oh, I say, Virg!” Betsy began; then added, “Why tell, if we wouldn’t be found out? We didn’t do anything so terrible. You know this was a free day and Mrs. Martin herself said that we might hike anywhere we wished this morning.”
“I do not expect Mrs. Martin to rebuke us,” the oldest girl said, “but I do want to tell her about Eleanor Burgess.”
“Oh, I know! You’re thinking she might become the gu——” Sally clapped her hand on her mouth. She, who had vowed never to betray that secret, had nearly told. It wouldn’t have mattered if their own group alone was present, but Dicky was with them. Luckily, the bus was at that moment stopping under the portico. Betsy said: “I understand, Virg! Do whatever you think best, and remember I consider that I am most to blame. I’ll never forgive myself if you and Megsy have your names taken from the Honor Roll.”
“If they don’t deserve being there, we want them off,” Margaret said quietly.
Micky grinned his pleasure when Babs told him that he was just like the chivalrous knights in the stories of long ago. When they entered the main hall of the school, Virginia saw that a card hung on the principal’s door. “Occupied” was the one word printed thereon, so Virg hastened upstairs with the others to prepare for supper.