Mary Louise and Josie OGorman | Page 8

learned. At any rate they are able to flutter back into the bush where
their old nest is, not that they ever expect to get back in their nest. They
would no more try to do that than a great big grown-up man would
want to get back in the little cradle in which his mother had rocked him
when he was a baby."
The biography of the robins was finished just as Dr. Weston came in to
announce to Mary Louise and Josie that they had been elected to the
board of governors of the Children's Home Society.
"Oh, but--" faltered Mary Louise.
"No buts at all, Mary Louise," insisted Josie. "Of course you must serve
because you are interested and I'll serve too just to keep you in
countenance."
"I think this lady wishes to speak with you, Dr. Weston."
The old man had been so full of his news that he had for the moment
overlooked the other occupants of his office. He now turned
courteously to the woman who stood up as though she had about
finished her business and was ready to leave.
"If you are the manager then I can go," she asserted. "I want to leave

these two children with you."
"Not so fast, madam!" said Dr. Weston. "We don't take little children
offhand this way. We must find out who they are, why they are here,
who is placing them here, all about their parentage--many things, in
fact. I shall ask you to be seated, madam, for a few moments while I
conduct these young ladies to the board, which is now in session."
The woman resumed her seat, a sullen expression on her handsome
face. Dr. Weston drew the girls into the parlor, carefully closed the
door and then, with a graceful little speech, courtly and kindly, he
presented the new members.
"We think it is splendid that you will give the house to us," said one to
Mary Louise, who was smiling happily.
"When can we get in?" asked another.
"Immediately!"
"We can't afford to move," spake the treasurer.
"Well, we can't afford to stay here, either," snapped Mrs. Wright.
"We'll just raise the money by hook or crook."
"I--I--will give some money along with the house," faltered Mary
Louise. "It isn't very much, but if $50,000 would help any I can give
that much."
The board was not noted for its sense of humor, but even it realized
how absurd it was for this slip of a girl to be so modest with her fifty
thousand dollars, and was it enough? The board burst into laughter. Dr.
Weston looked as though he might burst with pride and happiness.
"To whom must I make the check?" asked Mary Louise simply, as
though making checks for fifty thousand dollars was no more than
paying one's gas bill.
"To the treasurer," answered the president, with a gasp.

"No, no, not to me! I would be afraid to carry around such a check."
But the treasurer was overruled and Mary Louise proceeded to make
out a check there and then. Her fortune had been left to her in cash
owing to her grandfather's being unbalanced many months before his
death and having converted all of his securities into gold, which he had
hid away.
"I'll have the deeds to the house made over to the Children's Home
Society as soon as Mr. Conant, my lawyer, can manage it," said Mary
Louise.
There being no further business before the board it was joyfully and
noisily adjourned by the smiling but flustered president.
"Now I must go interview the woman with the two little children," Dr.
Weston said to Josie and Mary Louise.
"I must see the children again," declared Mary Louise. "Poor lambs!"
But when the door leading to the office was opened the room was
found empty. The woman and two children had disappeared.
CHAPTER IV
JOSIE DONS A HENNA WIG
"Believe me, there's something shady about that woman!" said Josie to
Mary Louise. "She was ready enough to leave the kids until Dr. Weston
told her she would have to produce some kind of information about
them. That is what scared her off."
"Dear little children," said Mary Louise sadly. "I wonder if she is their
mother."
"Of course not! There wasn't a trace of resemblance."
"I know she was a decided brunette and the children were blue-eyed
and tow-headed," Mary Louise remembered.

"Color isn't such a proof as line and certain tricks of pose and motion.
They had not one single thing in common with the woman and then she
was plainly indifferent to them and they were a little in awe of her. That
happens sometimes with a mother, but if she is indifferent to her
children she usually tries to hide it