"She's in my class, and she hasn't a friend in the city and knew nowhere else to go."
Then followed some hysterical whispers, which roused my curiosity so much that I went to the door and peeped over the shoulder of my tall wife. The two plain, business-like young women were evidently much distressed, but between them was a fair-haired slip of a girl of fifteen or sixteen, the least disturbed of the group. The three older women might have been talking in a foreign tongue, or of someone else, so unconcerned did she appear, present danger being over.
"How did she happen to be with these people?" Belle was asking as I came forward.
"The wife of this brute of a man told us that she was nursemaid with the Ferguson Family Concert Company, but they dropped her here in Lake City without a friend or a cent."
"She took her in to help sell fruit and ice cream evenings, and she let her go to school through the day."
At this juncture the subject under discussion broke into a beaming smile, showing all her fine teeth. Her cheek dimpled and reddened, and her blue eyes, full of fun, looked straight into mine. I became suddenly aware that I had forgotten to remove the tidy, and retired in confusion, but heard Belle's conclusion of the interview:
"Just wait a second till I give you a line to the matron of the House of Refuge. You can leave the girl there till we see what can be done for her. She'll be perfectly safe, and had better keep on going to school as usual."
A week afterward I asked my wife what had become of her latest protégée.
"You mean Mary Mason? She's in the refuge yet, attending school, and we've settled that man's ice-cream saloon."