Barbara flushed with pleasure over the gifts, but she looked so embarrassed at her mother’s compliment that Mollie and Grace both laughed.
“I declare,” Grace said, “you have less vanity than any girl in the world. Oh, wasn’t it fortunate I discovered your money yesterday? Just as we all jumped out of the car I heard something clink, and picked up one of your twenty dollars. Harry Townsend said he found the other tucked away in the leather of the front seat.”
“And I sat in the back seat all the time I was in the car,” reflected Barbara, under her breath.
When a turquoise blue heart on a string of tiny beads had been added to Mollie’s “going-away” treasures, she and Grace went down stairs.
Barbara still held the roll of papers in her hand and kept turning them over and over, trying to read the faded writing. She caught sight of her father’s signature. “Are these papers valuable?” she asked her mother.
Mrs. Thurston sighed deeply as she answered: “They are old papers of your father’s. Put them away again. I never like to look at them. I found them in his business suit after he was dead. He had sent it to the tailor, and had forgotten all about it.” Mrs. Thurston took the papers from Barbara’s hand and put them back into her trunk.
“Do you think they are valuable, mother?” persisted Barbara.
“I don’t think so,” her mother concluded. “Your uncle told me he looked over all your father’s papers that were of any value.”
After the two had mended the lock of the old trunk, and turned to leave the attic, Barbara was still thinking. “Dearest,” she said thoughtfully, “would you mind my going through those papers some time?” To herself Bab added: “I’d like to ask a clever business man, like Mr. Stuart, to explain them to me.”
But Mrs. Thurston sighed as she said: “Oh, yes, you may look them over, some day, if you like. It won’t make any difference.”