“To be with you, of course.”
“I’m going away with Jane,” declared Gloria. “You don’t mind, Uncle Charley? I’ve just got to. I—I—perhaps I need a change too.”
“You look it!” he teased. That was so like her father. She couldn’t help liking a man with those frank, fearless ways and that quick, swift understanding.
“All the same, Uncle Charley, please listen.” They were out by the back hedge. It was new, like all things on Maple Street, and Gloria felt sorry for it. “You see I’m awfully interested in those Gorman children,” ventured Gloria.
“Yes? And you have rather a practical way of showing it. You turned the trick when you got that poor woman off to the hospital. Even I, a full grown man, hadn’t managed that. Every time I gave little old Gorman twenty-five dollars he paid it on the moldy mortgage,” complained Uncle Charley.
“And the old place is hardly fit to live in,” added Gloria.
“Well, you did the right thing when you gave the money to Dr. Daly,” went on Uncle Charley. “Although you have got to get that back with all the rest, some day.” A little moan hung on the last word.
Gloria was fairly vibrating with expectancy. She was going to meet Marty directly after school next day, and together they were going through the model house. Marty had his father’s key. She wanted dreadfully to talk about it all to Uncle Charley, but could not bring herself to do so. He might say: “Wait until I can go with you.” There was something in his manner that warned her.
She could not take such a chance as that. It would be too much to ask that she wait longer to see the mystery place, being human and having title to the house. Fancy that! So she said nothing of her plans, although she felt they must be written on her face.
“Let’s walk down the road a ways,” suggested her uncle. “Your aunt is at the window and she may think we are—”