Gloria and Treeless Street | Page 5

auntie, and when I've got my trunk packed I'll pack you."

CHAPTER III.
Walter McAndrew, Attorney-at-Law, was in rather frequent demand in distant places, when the services of an especially acute lawyer were in demand. When these "cases," as Gloria termed them, called him to locations worth visiting, Mr. McAndrews delighted in taking his wife and ward with him. The evening preceding the packing-scene in Gloria's bedroom, he and his good wife had come to the rapid decision that a trip to the West just now would be good for Gloria--more likely than anything else to eradicate impressions of unpleasant Pleasant Street. Gloria's impressions were apt to come and go easily, they reasoned, and it was important for this one to go.
"You were going away, anyway, and I suppose I can go too, even if it is hot," his wife had sighed in gentle renunciation of her own comfort. As for Gloria--the child was always delighted with variety and change. No trouble about Gloria!
Ten years earlier, when, close upon the death of his beloved young wife, Gloria's father had slipped out of life, the orphan of seven years had been given into Mr. McAndrews' charge, to be loved and petted, while Mr. McAndrews was given her generous little fortune to husband and watch over. It had been a beautiful home for Gloria; unquestioningly she had accepted all its comforts and love. Yet Gloria was not selfish--only young. Gloria's father had been a keen business man, and the investments of his money as he earned it had been of the kind that fatten men's pocketbooks, however lean they may make the bodies of other men.
For the time, Treeless Street, lined with little children, vanished from Gloria's mind. The journey she began so promptly was a new one to her, and with the first appearance of daylight the first morning she was ready to enjoy it. Unlike Aunt Em, she was fresh and vigorous after the night in the sleeper; she did not even dream of her recent discoveries in streets. No old-faced little boys in reefed man-trousers appealed to her sleeping pity.
[Illustration: It would be something interesting to do.]
"Best thing we could have done," whispered Uncle Em to his wife, watching the girl's animated face. "But I'm afraid it's going to be tough on you, my dear."
"Never mind me," smiled back his wife cheerfully. She was at that moment warm and wearied, with a dull headache with which to begin the day. But Aunt Em was the sort of woman who courts discomforts which to her loved ones masquerade in the guise of comforts. She had never been given a daughter of her own to make sacrifices for; she must make the most of Gloria.
"I wish you liked to travel as well as Gloria and I do, my dear." His wife did not like to travel at all; it was a species of torture to her.
"I like to have you and Gloria like it," she smiled.
* * * * *
A few days after the newness of Cheyenne had worn off a little, Gloria sat in the window of her hotel room writing a letter. It had come to her suddenly that she would write to the District Nurse. It would at any rate be something interesting to do, and if the letter elicited an answer, how very interesting that would be! What kind of letters did District Nurses write?
Gloria had gone back, in convenient interstices of her new life in this strange city, to mild musings on streets where poverty dwelt undisguised. At this distance, Dinney and little Hunkie were faint wraiths rather than realities.
Gloria's musings now were tinted with a comfortable impersonality that robbed them of the power to sting. It was more as if she had recently read a story full of pathos, whose chief characters were named Hunkie and Dinney, and whose background was a dreary street. She would tell the story to the District Nurse and perhaps evoke a sequel to it from her.
"_Dear Miss Winship_: My uncle and aunt spirited me away the next day, and here I am in this 'Undiscovered Country'! Do you mind if I write you? You will be too busy to answer. Maybe you won't even have time to read it! I found out about one of your sick persons that same day--Dinney's mother. He seemed almost proud that she had consumption, the poor little boy! He had the baby with him. I never saw such a perfectly dreadful street. The idea of calling it Pleasant Street! Somebody ought to climb up and print an 'Un' before it, and even that wouldn't be bad enough!
"I wish I knew who Rose is. All I do know is that you taught her to be good to Hunkie--Dinney said so. He said that Rosy lived across