“Janice helped to nurse me?” he murmured.
“All the time you was out’n your head,” declared Lottie. “You ain’t out’n your head now, are you, Mr. Haley?” for the young man’s face radiated a sudden emotion that little Lottie had never seen there before.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ELDER’S AWAKENING
A young girl’s head is “full of such a number of things.” This was true, indeed, of Janice Day’s. She had her school work to think of; her home interests; the Girls’ Guild; her work on the executive committee of the Public Library Association; the membership she held in the young people’s society of the church which called for more than a little thought and attention. All these—and her secret anxiety regarding her relations with Nelson Haley.
Is it any wonder that she put no significance upon Elder Concannon’s money and the trouble at the Middletown Trust Company, until she went to luncheon that noon and found Archie’s place empty?
“Where’s Archie?” asked Janice, cheerfully, dropping into her seat at the table. Everybody called the yellow-haired young Scot by his first name.
“He’ll nae come home the day,” sighed Mrs. MacKay, dropping into the burr that was native to her tongue. “Trouble—trouble.”
“Oh, dear! have the experts come?”
“They’re an th’ books now,” said the woman, shaking her head. “Belike the bank will close its dures this very nicht. Maister Crompton has been forbidden tae leave town at all, my Archie tell’t me. It’s sad times, Janice—it’s sad times.”
The girl stopped eating. The bank closed! Then Elder Concannon could not draw his money out to take up his option on the sawmill lands. The fact shot an illuminating ray through her mind. The significance of the happening struck home deeply.