"Mr. Hamlin must not know," Barbara answered, when she could find her breath. Somehow her own voice sounded unfamiliar, it was so hoarse and strained. Yet Bab knew she must save Mollie. How was she to do it?
"Do you think, Bab," Mollie asked, "that we could ask Ruth to lend us the money? I should be horribly ashamed to tell her what I have done. But Ruth is so sweet, and she could lend us the money without any trouble."
"I have thought of that, Mollie," Barbara answered. "But, oh, we could not ask Ruth for the money! It is because she has been so awfully good to us, that I can't ask her. She has already done so much for us and she would be so pleased to help us now that somehow I would rather do most anything than ask her. Don't you feel the same way, Mollie?"
"Yes, I do," Mollie agreed. "Only I just can't think what else we can do, Bab. I have worried and worried until I am nearly desperate. We have only one week in which to get hold of the money, Bab."
"Yes, I know. But go to sleep now, Mollie. You are too tired to try to think any more. I will find some way out of the difficulty. Don't worry any more about it now." Bab kissed her sister's burning cheeks, whereat Mollie could only throw her arms about Barbara and cry: "Oh, Bab, I am so sorry and so ashamed! I shall never forget this as long as I live."
Bab never closed her eyes again that night. A little while later she saw the gray dawn change into rose color, and the rose to the blue of the day-time sky. She heard several families of sparrows discussing their affairs while they made their morning toilets on the bare branches of the trees.
At last an idea came to Barbara. She could pawn her jewelry and so raise the money they needed. She had the old-fashioned corals her mother had given to her on her first trip to Newport. There was also the beautiful ruby, which had been Mr. Presby's gift to her from the rich stores of his buried treasure. And the Princess Sophia had made Bab a present of a beautiful gold star when they were at Palm Beach. Barbara's other jewelry was marked with her initials.
Now Bab had very little knowledge of the real value of her jewelry, and she had an equally dim notion of what a pawn shop was. But she did know that at pawn shops people were able to borrow money at a high rate of interest on their valuable possessions, and this seemed to be the only way out of their embarrassment.
But how was Barbara to locate a pawn shop in Washington? And how was she to find her way there, without being found out either by Mr. Hamlin or any one of the girls?
Bab was still puzzling over these difficulties when she went down to breakfast.