Here indeed was a new problem.
What could a girl do to satisfy such a claim as the Gorman children so rudely pressed?
CHAPTER XVII
A SERIOUS PREDICAMENT
After nearly three months of suppressed curiosity, the revelation so calmly made by Squire Hanaford all but stunned Gloria.
“The children were right,” she pondered. “Their father’s time was put in on the fancy house and he never got paid for it. He expected to have a share in the big speculation.”
Somehow the children’s attempt at revenge carried a clear claim. They had been wronged. Their mother, Gloria learned, was a delicate woman who expected to have had hospital treatment when the big money would come in. Their father was a plain but indignant man. He made threats against the Towers, and when Charley Towers learned the true state of affaire he promptly undertook to pay back what he could of the debt contracted by his wife. He had been sending money weekly, but it was a small payment for the great loss. This mason was to have shared in the promised profit on the entire venture, and so had put into it, besides his own and his men’s time, quantities of material. Squire Hanaford had explained that Echo Park was the dream of a young man with noble ambitions. The place, like many other beauty spots, had been overlooked until the young discovered it. His name, the squire told Gloria, was Sherwood Graves, and his ambition reached the point of a fine piece of development with one of the model cottages completed. This was bought by Mrs. Harriet Towers, with the money due Gloria in time for her to go to boarding school. But before that time the land became mysteriously flooded, the eager but unscientific Board of Health condemned it, and the young man, cruelly disappointed, lost his health so completely, he was promptly ordered to a foreign clime or threatened with mental and physical fatality.
“What a romantic name, Sherwood Graves?” Gloria repeated, “and how noble for a young man to dream of beautiful parks and model cottages!” she sighed deeply. Why had her money been such an unfortunate agent?
In those first few days after Squire Hanaford’s revelations, Gloria had longed so for Jane that only Trixy’s comforting reassurance saved her from leaving Sandford and going out to the faithful friend at Logan Center. Twice Jane had promised to come in to see Gloria, but some sudden illness of one or more of the many children, caused a postponement fortunate for Gloria, as she had not yet told Jane the entire story of her stay in Sandford.
“Visiting with her aunt for a while” was a sufficiently reasonable excuse, and that Aunt Hattie was “so fussy” perhaps influenced Jane in her prolonged separation from Gloria, for Jane was at all times considerate.