She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own.
"N-nothing," she quavered.
"Rosie! Tell me!" He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him. At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could not control.
"I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister."
For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence.
"I—I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard—you know I have!" She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.
George spoke with an effort: "Why do you think it was Ellen?"
"Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us.... And she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge—curls for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for that money, you know I did, and it was my own!"
George sighed. "Poor kiddo! Of course it was your own! But Ellen'll pay you back, I—I'm sure she will."
"That's what ma says. But, Jarge, even if she does, it won't be the same thing. Just tell me how you'd feel yourself if all your savings were snatched away from you!"