"That old crank—" she began.
Robin stamped her foot in impatience. "I don't care a bit about Mrs. Budge. My guardian told me that I could have anything I wanted here just for the asking and he's made me the silliest big allowance that three girls couldn't spend. Oh, I've a plan! Ought not a girl like me have a companion? Don't they most always in books? You shall stay here at Gray Manor as my—chum."
Beryl still looked doubtful. "I'm too young—"
"That's just why I want you. Oh, I just can't bear to think of my guardian going away and leaving me here alone. You see I promised myself that I'd be happy while Jimmie's having his chance—that's why I came, you know. But this house is so big and so old and Mr. Harkness and Mrs. Budge are so old that I know it's going to be hard not to think of Jimmie and our lovely home and the birds. But if you'd stay it would be easier. Oh, say you will, say you will."
Beryl stared at Robin with a suspicious scrutiny. She firmly believed that rich people never did anything except for themselves and Robin, no doubt, was like all the others. Yet she was such a queer little thing that perhaps she was trying to be "nice" to her and make a soft place for her. And Beryl would not allow that for a moment.
"You can study with me, too. That Mr. Tubbs isn't so very bad. And we'll read together out of all those books in the library. And play—I never had a real chum because Jimmie thought the girls and boys who went to the school I did, might make fun of my being lame. Poor Jimmie, he always minded my being lame much more than I did because he's an artist and shivers when anything isn't perfect. You shall have a bed in my room—there's ever so much space. Oh, say you will."
Beryl frowned, uncertainly. "I don't want a penny I don't earn. But if I can really do things for you—"
"Oh, of course you can, lots of things. But you shan't wear those uniforms—for then you wouldn't be a girl like me. Oh, we'll have such fun. Let's take this stuff right down."
It took the girls only a very little time to transfer Beryl's belongings and to establish them in Robin's room, Beryl working mechanically, unable to believe her good fortune. Then, at Robin's command, she followed her while she went in search of her guardian.
Cornelius Allendyce and Percival Tubbs, sitting in a blue cloud of cigar smoke, were pleasantly discussing the pros and cons of the tariff question upon which they agreed, when Robin interrupted them.