Mary Louise and Josie OGorman | Page 8

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 and makes a show of affection with strangers. And children just have to love their mothers a little bit and it was easy to see those poor kiddies actually hated her. I watched the girl, Polly, and when the woman told the boy to stop bawling Polly had a look in her blue eyes that suggested a desire to bite and scratch and kick or even use a hatchet if one were handy. I think I'll look those people up."
"But how, Josie?"
"There are ways," smiled Josie. "You see, I am kind of self-elected detective for the Children's Home Society and my work has begun already. It is not merely to look after the children in the home but those who might, could, would or should be in the home."
"Well, I hope you can find out something. I'd like to know about my poor little Peter. What a precious boy he is!"
That forenoon Josie happened, as if by chance, into the department store of Temple & Sweet's. First she gave a cursory glance at the bargain counters where georgette blouses were being