In Tune with Wedding Bells E-Book

Grace Livingston Hill

• Herausgeber: Classica Libris
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

An ambitious executive finds his life turned upside down by a lovely runaway and her younger brother. But will he be able to do what it takes to save the two people who have so effectively brought upheaval into his well-ordered life?

Leseprobe

Grace Livingston Hill

IN TUNE WITH WEDDING BELLS

Copyright

First published in 1941

Copyright © 2019 Classica Libris

Chapter 1

Reuben Remington came out of the drafting room with his hands full of papers and blueprints and walked the length of the big outer office toward the superintendent’s room with a grin on his face, his pleasant lips puckered as with a suppressed whistle.

There was a spring in his step and a light in his eyes that was quite unwonted, and he glanced about in a friendly way toward the girls and men who were hard at work at their desks about him, which was quite different from his usual demeanor.

Reuben was tall and well built, with a grace in every movement that made people look after him as he went through a room, though his usual gravity prevented any of them from knowing him very well. He had red-gold hair that showed a tendency to curl if it was ever allowed to grow long enough to do so, and very blue eyes that looked as if they had a sunny light behind them. But he had always held his head so high and kept such a veil of reticence over the blue of his eyes that his fellow workers felt he was trying to be exclusive. He had been with the company now for almost three years, and still they hadn’t quite figured him out. Of course, he wasn’t a mere member of the office staff, and they did not have much contact with him, but they saw him often enough to make them curious. And sometimes at the lunch hour in the nearby restaurants the girls talked him over. The men didn’t need to. They were not so curious and not so self-conscious. He was just another fellow working hard, and they were fairly friendly with him and let it go at that.

But there was something different today about Reuben as he walked across that room, and they all looked up and noticed it.

“What’s gotten into our friend Mr. Gravity?” whispered Evelyn Howe to Wilda Murdock, who was working at the next typewriter. “He looks as merry as a lark. See his eyes twinkle? He certainly is in high feather. He almost looks as if he might expect one to say good morning to him. I wonder what happened?”

“Why, don’t you know?” said Wilda, watching the young man furtively from her distance. “He’s on vacation tomorrow. Going away somewhere. It’s the first vacation he’s had since he’s been here. The first year, of course, he didn’t get any. They never do, starting, you know. And last year there was such a rush they needed him, and he stayed. He’s that kind, you know. Always eating up work. Wanted the experience, I heard someone say. I wonder where he’s going?”

“Probably home to his mother,” said Evelyn. “That solemn kind are always mother-boys.”

“No,” said Wilda, shaking her head. “I heard his mother was dead. Ward Rand was talking to the superintendent one day and I overheard him say his father died when he was only a kid, and his mother just before he came here. Maybe that’s what gave him such a grave look.”

“Maybe he’s got a girl somewhere,” said Evelyn. “He’s likely going to see her. Perhaps he’s going to be married. That’s likely it! That’ll mean we’ll have to scratch around and get a wedding present for him. Though I don’t know why we should. He’s not in our department, and he’s never tried to be in the least friendly with us.”

“He’s awfully young, isn’t he?” said Wilda.

“Oh, he’s not so young as he looks, probably. Seems as if he must be older than he looks to have accumulated all that dignity,” said Evelyn, folding circulars skillfully and deftly sliding them into the stacks of envelopes she had just typed with addresses. “Have you got all your envelopes addressed, Wilda?”

“No, I’ve got another coupla hundred. There! There he comes back! He didn’t stay long this time. He’s making business snappy. Say, I wonder if he might be going down to the shore to the house party the boss’s daughter is giving this weekend? I saw her talking to him the other day. Mr. Rand introduced them when I was in there taking dictation. I wouldn’t put it past her to ask him. She’s rather democratic, you know. And now since he’s got this raise it brings him somewhat within her range.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Evelyn grimly. “He’s terribly good-looking, of course. Watch him now. He walks like a prince, and Anise Glinden always was noted for getting good-looking men around her.”

“Yes,” said Wilda enviously. “She can get everything she wants. I suppose he wouldn’t dare decline her invitation even if he did have another girl somewhere. He might lose his job if he did. They say she’s awfully vindictive.”

“Oh, maybe not!” said Evelyn wearily. “I’ve heard she’s very pleasant sometimes. There! He’s coming down this aisle. You better get to work, lady. Mr. Rand is with him, and he doesn’t hesitate to tell us off if he thinks any of us is loafing on the job.”

There was silence at once as the two men walked down the aisle past them, both rather preoccupied with their own conversation.

Then suddenly, just ahead of them, the girl to the right, the third from the front of the room, slumped over her machine, her inert hands and arms sliding off the keyboard of her machine and drooping at her sides, her whole slim young body collapsing into unconsciousness.

Both men saw it at once, and both started toward her, but it was Reuben Remington who reached her first and caught her as she was about to slide from her chair to the floor.

“Lay her down,” directed the manager, coming nearer and moving the chair out of the way. “Flat on her back. She’s fainted. That will be best. Somebody bring some water. Quick!”

Half a dozen flew to obey the command, and the other girls started from their places and came nearer to see. But the manager waved them back.

“Give her room to breathe,” he said sharply. “Call the doctor. He ought to be in his office now at this hour.”

“I just called,” said one of the office boys. “He’s busy. A man got hurt in the machine shop and he’s dressing his cuts. They say he can’t come just now.”

“Well, get another doctor!” said the manager. “Where’s Miss Stanton, the nurse? Isn’t she around?”

“She’s up in the infirmary helping Doc,” said the office boy in a reproving tone, as if he hadn’t already thought of that possibility and acted on it.

“Well, hasn’t anybody got a restorative? How about that aromatic ammonia you had around here the other day? Hasn’t anybody got a flask or something?”

One of the girls produced a small bottle of aromatic ammonia, and dousing it on a handkerchief, Reuben held it under the girl’s nostrils.

The girl’s lips quivered and she drew a trembling breath as if it were almost too much effort, but the waxen eyelids remained closed, and the girl was far from conscious.

The manager watched her for an instant, and then he began to issue orders again. “Telephone the nearest hospital. Tell them we need a nurse, too. Tell them to send an ambulance and a doctor. We must get her to the hospital as soon as possible. Do any of you girls know where her relatives are to be found?”

“I don’t think she has any family,” volunteered Evelyn Howe.

“Yes, she has,” said Wilda Murdock. “I heard her say she had a little brother.”

“Somebody go look at the record. That ought to tell us something. She must have told who to call in case of an accident when she registered. However, she’ll have to go to the hospital in any case. We can’t waste time. We can look up her family later. Who took this girl’s registration?”

Suddenly the girl on the floor stirred, and her eyelids fluttered partly open. A troubled look passed over her face like a swift-moving cloud. Her pale lips formed a single word, though there seemed no voice behind it to make it audible.

Reuben was still on his knees beside her, wafting the handkerchief wet with ammonia before her face. He stooped a listening ear, watching the lips.

“No? Did you say ‘no’?” he asked in a quiet tone.

The girl’s eyes flew open for an instant sad, pleading, anguished and gave assent to his question. “No, what?” asked Reuben. “No hospital—” the pale lips uttered, the voice very faint but vehement. “I can’t—go. I’ll—be—all—right—” And then her breath deserted her, and it looked as if she was about to pass out again.

“Here!” said Reuben, reaching toward a glass of water that someone had brought. “Take a sip of this.” And he slipped his arm under her neck and lifted her head a little, holding the glass to her lips. She swallowed a few drops.

The manager gave a decided order for the hospital ambulance in a low tone, but the girl’s hearing was sharp now, and she opened troubled eyes toward him and shook her head.

“No!” she said faintly. “No!” But the manager gave his messenger a knowing nod and motioned him away and then turned back and spoke to Reuben in a low tone.

“Would you have time before your train to stick around and see this girl located? I have an important conference with a man from Chicago in five minutes and I ought to be in my office at once.”

Reuben looked up with quick assent and found the girl’s troubled eyes upon him with pleading in them. He flashed her a reassuring smile and laid her head gently down on the folded coat that Evelyn had slipped under her head.

“Of course, you’ll make them all understand that the company will be behind whatever seems best to be done,” said the manager.

Reuben gave another grave nod of his head and then wet the handkerchief with another douse of ammonia, and the girl seemed to gather in new strength from the breath of it.

“I—think—I could get up—now—” she said slowly.

“No!” said Reuben. “You’re lying still till the nurse gets here. We don’t want to take any chances.” His voice was firmly kind, but there was a hint of a smile in his eyes.

She studied him for a moment, and then, as she noticed that the group of observers was mostly gone, she steadied her voice and said softly:

“I’d like—to make you understand—” Her eyes were very pleading.

“Yes?” said Reuben. “I’ll understand.”

“I—couldn’t go to the hospital!” she went on. “I must go home! Put me in a taxi and I’ll get home.”

“Where is your home?” asked Reuben, getting out pencil and notebook swiftly from his breast pocket.

His tone was businesslike, and the girl murmured a street address gratefully. “Third floor, back,” she said.

“Is there a telephone there?”

“No,” she said sadly.

“Well, who is there? Any of your family?”

“Just—my little brother—” she said in a tone of anguish.

“Oh, don’t worry!” said Reuben smiling. “He’ll be all right. Boys always get along all right. I’ll see that he understands and doesn’t worry.”

“But,” a wave of almost terror passed over the girl’s white face, “but he’s only five years old, and there isn’t a thing in the room to eat!”

“Oh, that’s different!” said Reuben, suppressing an involuntary whistle. “Well, now don’t you worry the least bit. I’ll look after the kid. I give you my word of honor. Kids and I always get on. We’ll be buddies till you get back.”

“That’s kind of you—” she murmured with an effort, “but I can’t let you do that. You have your work. This is mine, and I must attend to it.”

There was a sweet dignity about her even in her weakness that made Reuben look at her with respect.

“Well, but look here, sister, you are sick and not able to carry on just now. I’m sorry, but I guess you’ll have to trust me.”

“Oh, it isn’t that!” said the girl desperately. “You don’t understand. He’s only five, and you have a big job here. You can’t leave your job and look after my brother all day!”

“Well, you see, sister, I happen to be going on vacation tomorrow, a whole month, and I’ll have plenty of leisure on my hands. Besides, who looks after him while you are off at work?”

“I take him to the day nursery before I come. They bring him back at five.”

“That sounds easy enough, and if worse comes to worst, I guess I’m as good as a day nursery any day. Now, look here, sister, when did you have your lunch?”

“She didn’t go out for lunch today,” said Evelyn Howe, who was standing by. “She hardly ever does.”

“I’m never hungry at noontime,” said the girl on the floor apologetically.

“I thought so,” uttered Reuben under his breath. “Look here, sister, that’s no way to look after a little brother. A dead sister isn’t much protection against the world. Now listen, this has got to stop right here, and you’ve got to get fit to carry on your job. Sammy,” he said to the office boy across the aisle, “run down to the restaurant hot foot before that ambulance gets here and bring me up a cup of hot tea and some toast. Or would you rather have coffee?” He turned to the sick girl, but she shook her head.

“Tea,” she said breathlessly.

“All right, Sammy, tea it is, and maybe a glass of milk, and make it snappy. It’s on the boss. He put me in charge.”

The girl gasped and looked troubled.

“I—mustn’t—lose my job!” she said desperately.

“I give you my word you won’t lose your job for this,” said Reuben with a restful smile. “Boys, what’s the matter with bringing in that little couch from the break room?”

The girl put on a look of protest, but the two young men hurried away and presently returned with a small couch from the nearby break room. Reuben promptly lifted the girl upon it. The tray was on hand almost at once, and Reuben lifted the girl’s head and held the cup of hot tea for her to drink.

A few swallows and the color began to steal slowly back to her white face. Reuben knelt there beside the couch feeding her bits of toast.

While she was eating, the hall door swung open and a doctor and nurse entered, followed by two orderlies carrying a stretcher, but the girl was lying with her face away from the door and did not see them until they were upon her.

“Oh!” she said, sitting up suddenly as she recognized what they were. “I don’t need a doctor. I’m quite all right now. I—shouldn’t have tried to work so long—without food.”

“No, that never pays,” said the doctor’s grave voice. “Lie down, won’t you, till I see what condition your heart is in. Nurse, get the temperature and pulse.” The girl fell back on the couch with a look of despair as the doctor got out his stethoscope and made his examination. The typists in the big office ceased their copying and were quietly at some other service for the moment.

It was very still in the big room, while the workers watched furtively the quiet girl who had come among them so unobtrusively, a few months before. It was over very quickly, and the girl was transferred to the stretcher, the orderlies lifting it and carrying her from the office. Then behind the swinging doors that shut her out from them, all their tongues began to buzz.

“Well, I thought there was something strange about her, her color was so pasty,” said Norah Whately. “I wonder what she’s saving money for?”

“Didn’t you hear?” said Peg Howard. “She’s got a young brother to support, I suppose. Poor thing! If she’d been a little less closemouthed, we might have helped her some.”

But out in the hall waiting for the freight elevator, the girl on the stretcher was much excited. By a supreme effort she lifted herself to a sitting posture, then tried to stand, till the intern gently pressed her back to the cot again.

“Lady, you must lie still if you don’t want to pass out on the way to the hospital.”

“But—I must go—home. I cannot leave—my little—brother alone! He will not under–stand!”

Her breath was very short. She could scarcely make her words heard. Except for her excitement she would not have been able to speak above a whisper.

“Now, look here, girlie!” said the handsome young intern, holding her firmly down to her cot and speaking with command in his voice. “This gentleman here is going to look after that brother of yours, and everything is going to be all right. You’ve got to go to the hospital at once, see?” And he smiled amiably at her.

She gave him a frightened look, and her glance hurried around the group beside her till she found Reuben. So eagerly her eyes spoke to him that he answered her at once by stepping to her side, stooping to speak in a low tone.

“It’s all right, sister,” he said reassuringly. “I’ve got the address, number Ten-Seventeen North Fresco Street, third floor, back. Is that right? And the boy’s name is Noel Guthrie? Is he there now? Not till five fifteen?”

Reuben glanced at his watch.

“Then I’ll have time to go with you to the hospital and see you located first,” he said thoughtfully. “Does he always come promptly?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes not till six. But he’ll have no supper. I was going to get the supper on my way home. But I have to stop at the desk and get my pay envelope. Oh!” And she fell back on the cot in despair. “Oh, I must go to the desk! I haven’t any money!”

The girls had brought her coat and hat from the cloakroom and her purse from the desk drawer before she left the office, and now she opened her purse wildly and began to feel frantically for the quarter she thought she had left to pay for Noel’s day at the nursery.

“That’s all right, Miss Guthrie,” said Reuben. “I’ll see to that. But you must have money, of course. Sammy,” turning to the office boy, who was still in evidence, “run down to Mr. Ensigner and ask for Miss Guthrie’s pay envelope. Meet us at the freight elevator door right away.”

Then Reuben turned back to the girl as the elevator arrived and smiled gravely down at her.

“It’s all right, Miss Guthrie. Sam will bring your envelope, and as for the boy’s supper, I’ll look after that. Would you feel better if I went right away to the day nursery and called for your brother?”

“No,” gasped the girl, “they wouldn’t give him to you. I’ve told them never to let anybody else have him.”

“Where is this day nursery, girlie?” asked the intern. “Down on Third Street? Because we could stop and pick him up now, if that will make you feel any better. They’ll give him to us if they see you.”

“Oh! Will you do that?” The girl’s face fairly bloomed with relief. “Oh, you are very kind. He would be terribly frightened if I didn’t explain to him.” There were tears of relief on her face.

“Okay, girlie, we’ll do that little thing!” said the pleasant young intern, and he motioned to the orderlies to lift the stretcher. Then he turned to Reuben as they went into the elevator and said a few words in a low tone to him, and Reuben bowed gravely.

Sam was on hand as the elevator arrived at the first floor, produced the pay envelope in good order, and Reuben handed it over to the girl quietly and helped her put it in her purse.

“Now,” he said as he left her in the ambulance, “we’re off for the day nursery! Don’t you worry! I’ll be seeing you, and I’ll take good care of the kid!”

Then he slipped around and rode in the front seat with the driver. This was the first opportunity he had had since he picked up the girl in the aisle ahead of him to realize just what all this was going to mean to him.

For a month past, since ever he had been told he was to have a month’s vacation, Reuben Remington had been happily looking forward to it. A respite at last from the hard grind of work!

Not that he didn’t like the work. He did. Even when his mother died and dashed all his bright hopes of making a happy home for her, he had been glad and thankful for that hard work and had plunged himself into it with all his soul that he might forget that she was gone. It had helped him to concentrate on something besides himself and his own loneliness. And especially since he had begun to succeed in what he was trying to do. Since the men who were immediately over him had commended him, at first charily and at last unqualifiedly, and he had been recommended for a promotion, he had reveled in his job, reaching out ever higher, more ambitiously. Not that there was any special reason to rise any more now that his mother was gone and there was no immediate friend or relative to care. It was just that he wanted to do the thing he had set out to do; he wanted to justify his promises to his mother.

But as the days had hurried on, bringing him only more and more duties with no letup in view, he had grown weary. He had sometimes tried to think ahead and see what it was all about.

Undoubtedly he could make friends, and perhaps now was the time he needed them. He had supposed they would come when there was time for them, and he had been willing to wait. He had gotten in the habit of hoarding his strength, because he had felt that was his only capital, and what leisure he had he had filled with reading and study, because there were courses that he had not had opportunity to study deeply in college and he felt his lack in them now. He had never been in the habit of playing since his high school days. There had always been something important to do, although in the back of his mind there had always been an indefinable longing for it; he was always promising himself that the day would come when good times would be his again, just as they had been when he was a child and had a father and mother to think for him and provide needful amusement.

But now suddenly he was up against a vacation, and that ought to mean a good time. He was breathless with the thought of it, wondering what he was going to do with it.

Should he take up the time in travel? He had saved his salary, such part of it as had not been needed for his exceedingly modest expenses, with a view to a pleasant interval when the time should come. Should he travel and see some of the country’s notable sights? Great buildings and bridges, and feats of engineering? He had enough for a limited amount of that without making himself penniless. And, of course, such sightseeing as that would be along the lines of his business and would be valuable to his work. But somehow he shrank from a vacation that had a business reason. He wanted something entirely different. He sensed that he was getting into a rut and needed to get out and meet people, to develop along new lines. In fact, Mr. Rand had told him that one day when he had been asking him questions about his ambitions and plans. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. It had seemed to him always that Mr. Rand was a very worldly man and his advice was to be taken with care along such lines. His standards and ideals would be so different from the ideals and standards of Reuben’s father and mother that he regarded them with question. Reuben hadn’t got so far yet from his family traditions that he wanted to give them up entirely. Perhaps all the more because he missed his family and his native surroundings. So he had not swallowed Mr. Rand’s suggestion whole, and here he was, up against a real vacation at last, and with no place to go.

Oh, of course there were places. There were mountains and shores, and attractive cruises, and resorts for amusement, but none of them so far had quite clinched with Reuben.

Just recently something had happened, quite new and bewildering. Anise Glinden, the peppy, smart daughter of Mr. Glinden, the head of the firm, had come to his office, bursting in upon his quiet, busy hours most unexpectedly. He hadn’t known her very well before. She had been away to college, with summers abroad, and had just recently appeared on the scene, a full-fledged college graduate, with a coming-out party soon and society waiting breathlessly to receive her and absorb her. She wore the latest thing in garments, and her face was illuminated brilliantly, her hair a shining helmet, her voice breezy, nonchalant, impudent. He hadn’t considered her at all as being in the world where he lived and moved and was expecting to continue on as such for some years to come.

But she had breezed into his office and addressed him with all the familiarity of one who had a right to give him orders.

“Oh, Reuben!” she had said without waiting for him to greet her. “Dad says you’re having a vacation next week. Beginning when?”

Reuben looked up with a smile and something of sunny anticipation in his eyes and answered laconically: “Tomorrow!”

“Grand!” said Anise. “That just suits my plans!” Her face was joyously radiant.

Reuben watched her in astonishment.

“Your plans?” he questioned with quick amazement. What did that mean? Was she planning to wrest his job away for someone else? Was she going to try to put one of her sophisticated friends in his place? The amusement went out of his glance, and a look of gravity lurked in his eyes.

“Yes,” said Anise. “I hope you hadn’t any ironclad plans of your own, because if you do, you have to change them, see? What were you planning to do? Where were you going?”

Faced suddenly with this question, Reuben was at a loss what to say.

“Why—I—I wasn’t quite sure about the whole of the time,” he said hesitantly. “There are several places I want to go, and people I have to see.”

“Well, you can just call them all up and tell them you’re not coming, because I want you!” she announced, as if that settled the question.

“You want me?” said Reuben, dumbfounded. Was he not to have a vacation after all? Did this pampered daughter of his boss think she could absorb his vacation and make him work at something for her? What was the idea? He frowned and lifted his chin a bit haughtily, with a memory of the old Remington self-respect and pride in his glance.

“Yes,” said the girl. “I’ve planned it all out. I’m having a house party down at the shore, Glindenwold, out on our island, you know. You’ve heard of it, of course. It’s going to be all kinds of a fabulous time, and I want you for one of our houseguests. I’ve got it all planned and you simply can’t get out of it, even if you want to, for you would just upset everything. And besides, when you see Glindenwold, you wouldn’t want to, for it’s swell. I know you’ll be crazy about it. We have our own swimming pool and our own little theater, and all kinds of sports! There isn’t a thing you can name we haven’t got!” she declared proudly. “And we’re going to put on some thrilling plays this summer. Amateur, you know, and that’s where you come in. I want you to take the part of the hero in the next play, opposite me. I know you’ll be great! I want you to come right down and start rehearsing. We’ve got a professional coach, of course, but you’re just the type I want. I thought we could get a start before anybody else comes around.”

Reuben grinned.

“A play! Me? Oh, no! Not me!” said Reuben decidedly, and then he laughed.

The girl looked bewildered.

“Now, listen!” she said, and then she dropped into the chair his secretary had vacated just before she came in.

Reuben listened, and studied her. This was an entirely new experience for him. His had been a simple Christian home. Except for occasional high-class patrons whom he had to confer with when the manager was out, he did not know this kind of human being at all. And even with patrons he was in a position to feel confident; with them he could almost dictate about matters that were altogether familiar to him, and not so familiar to them. Now the order was reversed. He was dealing with matters about which he literally knew nothing except by hearsay. He grinned. And when at last after a voluble plea she came to a momentary pause, he shook his head.

“No!” he said decidedly. “I couldn’t! I wouldn’t belong.”

“But you have to,” she said with an engaging earnestness, “because I want it!” There was a childlike naïveté about her that was hard to deny. Was it genuine simplicity? He studied her, perplexed for an instant, but shook his head again.

“Impossible!” he said, smiling. “I tell you I wouldn’t belong in an atmosphere like that,” and there was a ring of positiveness about his voice that annoyed her, for she drew her imperious eyebrows down.

“Now, what nonsense!” she said haughtily. “You mean clothes, of course, but you wouldn’t need to worry about that. I have two brothers about your size. They will lend you anything you need. They have slews of garments down there of any style you could possibly demand. And—besides—if I ask you, you do belong!”

He looked at her for a moment with an impersonal smile and then suddenly grew grave.

“I’m sorry,” he said pleasantly. “It’s not a matter of clothes. But the whole thing is quite out of the question.”

A man arrived by appointment just then and she had to leave him, but that was not the end. For the rest of the day she had appeared unexpectedly a number of times and renewed the subject, until finally she just took it for granted that he was coming, no matter how often he declined, and went on with her plans, telling him what to do and where to meet her; telling him who would be there that he ought to meet for the sake of business, even if not for his own sake, until like the continual dropping that wears the stone, he actually found himself considering the possibility of going.

What if she was right and he ought to get out and get acquainted with other kinds of people? What would his family have said to that?

Long ago, when he was a little boy, his mother used to have a question she would put to him when they were considering a perplexity. She would say, “What do you think God would say if you were to ask His advice?” And that somehow always settled the matter the way his own conscience had already tentatively settled it. But since he had been out in the world, his mother gone and no one to suggest submitting a matter to God—a God that so many people nowadays didn’t seem to believe in—Reuben had gotten in the habit instead of saying, “I wonder what Dad and Mother would say about it?” Because it had been a settled fact in his mind that Dad and Mother used always to think what God would think. And he was pretty well decided that neither God nor his mother would pick out this special girl to conduct his venture into an alien world.

And yet, he wasn’t a kid any longer, and he could surely stand a few hours of contact with a world that wasn’t his own. And it wasn’t as if he couldn’t leave when he chose, always provided he didn’t accept a part in that fool play. And of course he wouldn’t do that! And then, quite the most important of all the phases of the matter was that this was his boss’s daughter who was asking him, and he wasn’t all sure but it might affect his job if he didn’t go—at least for a short time.

So he had almost decided he would take in a brief stay at Glindenwold. Well, anyway, he would go long enough to look over the land and see how it lay.

And now, how was this affair of the moment going to fit in?

He couldn’t, of course, get through this in time to go to Glindenwold tonight. That was what Anise Glinden had wanted. She was planning to have the first rehearsal of the play tonight. She had told him he might watch it the first night and be all ready to get to work on it for the next day. She would have a young actor come out to take the part she wanted him to take, just for the one night, and let him see how simple and easy it was.

Perhaps it was just as well that he shouldn’t be able to go tonight, then they would start without him and she wouldn’t be harping on his taking part. Besides, he needed to see just what this was and not get tied up to something that he would hate.

He couldn’t go tonight, even though she had suggested driving by his boarding place and picking him up in her car. This girl in the ambulance would not be out of the hospital in time for him to go, and he had promised to take care of the kid. What could he do but telephone Miss Glinden that he wouldn’t be down until tomorrow?

Then the ambulance whirled skillfully around the corner into a side street and brought up before a large, gloomy tenement, which bore the sign in one dreary window Day Nursery, and the driver stopped his car.

“Make it snappy!” he said to Reuben as he swung down to the irregular old brick sidewalk.

Reuben nodded and hurried up the wooden steps. He didn’t care much about this part of his job, but he had promised, and he could still see the anguish in the eyes of the sick girl.

He glanced nervously back toward the ambulance, wondering if she could see out, but he saw she could not. As he hastily turned back, he caught a glimpse of a quickly gathering group of neighborhood children, assembling in a semicircle in various stages of dirt and squalor, staring eagerly to see who was inside the ambulance or who was going to be taken away from their vicinity.

Then the door was opened by a large woman with a sullen mouth, a frown on her brow, and a cross, sick baby in her arms. She eyed the ambulance with irritation and brought her insolent eyes to bear on the intruder. Reuben stepped within and closed the door behind him. He didn’t wish any more witnesses to this incident than was necessary.

Chapter 2

Reuben had a glimpse of large, gloomy double rooms, absolutely bare except for a row of dilapidated iron cribs, a few chairs that didn’t match, and a couple of low tables at the far end.

As he told the matron what he wanted, he stepped within the front room and was instantly aware of eyes, baby eyes, staring at him, and wailing young voices crying out with disappointment. Their mothers had not come, and they were weary to death of this dreary place and this desolate woman who had charge. It struck a pang to Reuben’s heart. He didn’t analyze it at the time, but afterward the scene hung like a pall over the day. How he would have liked to set all those babies free and put them into a big meadow with daisies and buttercups, and butterflies, and birds singing high in the trees, and make the little hearts happy.

His eyes quickly searched the rooms, and then he saw the boy Noel!

He was sitting at one of the low tables with a box of crayons before him and a small sheet of paper on which he had been drawing. He had large dark eyes that instantly reminded him of the girl out in the ambulance. They had the same quality of hopelessness and helplessness.

“I have come after Noel Guthrie,” he said, raising his voice a trifle, and the boy at the little table instantly arose, his eyes wide with question, fear trembling behind the whiteness of his face.

The large woman stepped closer and spoke arrogantly.

“Well, I can’t letcha have him without a written order from his sister. She wouldn’t leave him be here only ’less I should promus that,” she said.

“It’s a lotta fool nonsense, o’ course, b’cause who would wantta steal a young one from a place like this? But I gave my word, an’ I gotta keep it! B’sides, she ain’t paid her quarter fer today. He general’y brings his quarter every morning, but he didn’t have none taday, ’r else he lost it!”

The boy gave a look of protest, but Reuben handed out the quarter he held in his hand.

“Here’s the quarter,” he said, “and if you want to see his sister, you’ll have to step outside and speak to her. She’s in the ambulance and isn’t able to get up and come in. She was taken sick while she was working.”

There was dignity about Reuben’s voice that somewhat awed the woman, but she gave a twist to her mouth and there was a canniness in her eyes.

“Well, I gotta go out and see ef she’s thar first,” she said, and turning toward a crib that already held an occupant asleep, she thumped the sick baby down from her arms, who promptly began to protest in loud screams of anger. The other baby woke up and added his voice to the song, and over the duet the woman shouted to Noel, who was standing there clasping and unclasping his hands in agitated excitement.

“Noll, you stay right where you are, d’ya year? Don’tcha dare stir till I get back!”

“But I must go to my sister!” said the boy in a low, firm tone. “She wants me!” And he walked forward determinedly.

The woman strode over to him and jerked him back by the shoulder, setting him down hard on the chair from which he had arisen and adding a stinging slap on his cheek.

“Now, you set there! D’ya hear? An’ don’tcha stir till I come back, ur I’ll smack ya good, an’ you know what that means!”

The boy quivered and turned white, and two large tears rolled down his cheeks, but he sat still, one great look of anguish turned upon Reuben as he followed the woman. “I’ll be right back for you, kid,” said Reuben and stepped outside.

The woman had already gone to the door at the back of the ambulance and demanded entrance, and the intern, seeing how things were, flung the door open for an instant. The matron assumed an attitude of investigation, with three neighbors nearby getting a front seat at the show.

“Yes, that’s her all righty!” she said, nodding back at Reuben. “I’d know her anywhere, even without her hat. Aw, ain’t it awful! How white she looks! What’s the matter of her? Ya think she’s goin’ ta die, do ya?” She cast an eye at the glaring doctor. “Now, ain’t that a pity!”

“That’ll be all!” said the doctor, getting out of the ambulance and taking the woman with a firm grip by the arm. “You get in your house there and send that child out at once, or we’ll have a policeman here in short order.”

“Oh, ya don’t say so!” said the woman. “Who crowned you, I’d like to know? Quit shovin’ me! I gotta find out what she wants I should do with the kid. She made me promus I wouldn’t give him ta nobody. Say, Miss Gutry, don’tcha want I should keep Nollie till ya git well an’ cum back? I won’t charge ya but fifty cents extra fer day an’ night, an’ then ya ken hev yer mind at rest. The gentlmon give me the quarter, so it’ll be siventy-five per day from now on.”

“No!” she said excitedly. “Bring my brother here right away! I want to see him at once!” And then she dropped back on the pillow and her breath was almost gone.

“Here he is!” said Reuben quietly. “Say hello to your sister, Noel!” For Reuben had gone back with three strides to the house, had gathered the boy up in his arms, and now brought him out and held him up for the sister to see.