It was a joyful, though rather a trying moment for the four chums, who were seized with a hysterical desire to laugh and cry in the same breath. Grace made a slight motion toward the door, which her friends were not slow to comprehend. It was her intention to slip quietly away and leave the mother and daughter alone with their new-found happiness.

Before she could put her plan into execution, however, Mrs. Allison divined her intention and turning quickly toward her, said, "Don't go, Grace. I feel as though you girls belonged to me, too. Besides, you have not heard my part of this story yet."

"Perhaps you are hardly strong enough to tell us after so much excitement," deprecated Grace.

"My dear, I feel as though I had just begun to live," answered Mrs.

Allison. "The past has been one long dreary blank. If you only knew the years of agony I have pa.s.sed through. When you hear my story you will understand why this reunion is little short of miraculous.

"My home is in Denver. Mabel was born there," continued Mrs. Allison.

"Fourteen years ago this summer my husband and I decided to spend the summer in Europe, taking with us our baby daughter, Mabel, and her nurse.

"On the morning that we were to sail, circ.u.mstances arose that made it necessary for my husband and myself to be in New York until almost sailing time. He therefore sent the nurse, a French woman, who was thoroughly familiar with the city, on ahead to the vessel, with Mabel in her care. We had barely time to catch the boat and were met by the nurse, who said that she had left Mabel asleep in one of the state rooms engaged for us. It was not until we had put out to sea that we discovered that Mabel was missing, and a thorough search of the ship was at once made. The nurse persisted in her statement that Mabel went aboard with her. Every nook and cranny of the ship was overhauled, but my child could not be found, and the supposition was that she had in some way fallen overboard.

"I was distracted with grief, and nearly lost my reason, and when we reached the other side I pa.s.sed into a long illness. It was many weeks before I returned to consciousness of my affairs, and the terrible realization that my baby was gone forever. I felt as though I could not face the future without her. I had scarcely recovered from the first shock attending my great loss, when my husband contracted typhoid fever and died after an illness of five weeks.

"We were in Florence, Italy, at the time and I prayed that I might die, too. It was during those dark hours that Mrs. Gibson proved her friendship for me. She sailed for Italy the instant she received the cablegram announcing my husband's death, and brought me back to America with her. I spent a year with her in her New York home, before returning to Denver. Since then I have never been east until this summer.

"Four months ago I received a letter from the nurse who had charge of Mabel on the day of her disappearance. It was a great surprise to me, as she had left us directly after we landed with the intention of returning to France. But the news the letter contained was a far greater surprise, for she stated that Mabel had never gone aboard the vessel.

"The nurse had had some personal business to attend to before going aboard, and in order to save time had taken Mabel with her. In some inexplicable manner Mabel had strayed from her side. She had made frantic search for the child and finally, not daring to go to us with the truth, had conceived the idea of making us believe that she had taken Mabel aboard the ship. She had bribed the purser, a Frenchman whom she knew, to corroborate her story, and had succeeded in her treacherous design.

"She wrote that she had longed over and over again to confess the truth, but had not dared to do so. She had heart trouble, she said, and her days were numbered. Therefore she felt that she must confess the truth before it became too late.

"You can imagine," said Mrs. Allison, "the effect this letter had upon me. For fourteen years I had mourned my child as dead. It seemed infinitely worse to hear that she had not died then, but was perhaps alive, and in what circ.u.mstances?

"The day I received the letter I took the train for the east, wiring the Gibsons to meet me, and aided by them engaged the best detective service upon the case. There was little or nothing to furnish us with a clue, for the nurse's lying statement had misled us; we were out at sea before we knew positively that Mabel had disappeared, and my long illness in Europe, followed by my husband's death kept me from inst.i.tuting a thorough search of New York City.

"I was bound for New York in answer to a summons from the men engaged on the case, when this accident occurred. Mr. Gibson had offered to make the journey for me, but I felt that I alone must hear the first news--and to think that through that blessed accident I stumbled upon my little girl." She ceased speaking and with streaming eyes again clasped Mabel in a fond embrace.

The chums found their own eyes wet, during this recital, but of the four, Jessica appeared to be the most deeply moved. Mabel had meant more to her than to the others, and she found herself facing the severest trial that had so far entered her young life. She drew a deep breath, then went bravely over to Mrs. Allison, saying with quivering lips:

"It is very, very hard to give Mabel up. She is the child of our sorority, but she belongs most of all to me. She is the dearest girl imaginable, and neither hardship nor poverty have marred her. She is sweet, unselfish and wholesome, and always will be. I am glad, glad, glad that her dream has at last been realized, and I should be the most selfish girl in the world if I didn't rejoice at her good fortune."

She smiled through her tears at Mabel, who rushed over to her and exclaimed:

"Jessica, dearest, you know perfectly well how much I do and always shall love you, and Grace and Anne and Nora, too."

The four girls lingered a few moments, then said good-bye to Mrs.

Allison and Mabel, who was to remain for the present with her mother.

She kissed her friends tenderly, promising to see them the next day.

"I'll be in school to-morrow unless mother needs me here," she said with such a world of fond pride in her voice that the girls who had so willingly befriended her felt that their loss was a matter of small consequence when compared with the glorious fact that Mabel had come into her own.

CHAPTER IV

GRACE TURNS IN THE FIRE ALARM

"I wonder what sort of excitement we shall have next?" remarked Grace Harlowe to her three friends one afternoon as they gathered in the senior locker-room, before leaving school.

Three weeks had elapsed since Mabel Allison and her mother had met in Room 47 of the hospital, and many events had transpired in that short s.p.a.ce of time.

The girl chums had been entertained at "Hawk's Nest" by Mrs. Gibson, and were in consequence the most important persons in the Girls' High School. They had found Mrs. Gibson charming, and had been invited to repeat their visit at an early date. Mabel's story had circulated throughout Oakdale, and she and her friends were the topic of the hour.

The one cloud on their horizon had been the fact of the inevitable separation. They had begged and entreated Mrs. Allison to take up her residence in Oakdale for the balance of Mabel's junior year, but on account of home matters she had been unable to comply with their wishes.

So Mabel had departed for Denver with her mother, while the chums had kissed her and cried over her and had extracted a laughing promise from Mrs. Allison to bring her to Oakdale during commencement week to witness the graduation of the Phi Sigma Tau.

"It seems as though we have done nothing but say good-bye to people ever since school began," said Anne Pierson with a little sigh.

"I know it," exclaimed Nora. "First our boys, then Mabel, and--"

"And now all we can do is to wonder who will fade away and disappear next," finished Grace. "Promise me that none of you will run away from Oakdale, or elope, or do anything that can be cla.s.sed under the head of vanishing."

"Oh, I think we're all rooted to the spot for this year," said Jessica, "but what about next? Nora and I will be in a conservatory, Grace will be in college and Anne--where will you be, Anne?"

"Goodness knows," replied Anne. "I'd like to try for a scholarship, but how on earth would I support myself even if I were fortunate enough to win?"

"Don't worry about that," said Grace quickly. "That is for that all-wise body, the Phi Sigma Tau, to consider. We will be your ways and means committee, Anna."

"Oh, I couldn't think of weighing you girls down with my cares," replied Anne soberly. "I must work out my own salvation."

By this time they had turned out of High School Street and were moving in the direction of Grace's home, where the majority of their chats took place, when Nora suddenly exclaimed in a low tone:

"Look, girls, there is Eleanor Savelli!"

"Where? where?" demanded three eager voices, as their owners followed Nora's glance.

"Across the street," replied Nora. "Don't let her know that we are looking at her."

Sure enough, on the opposite side of the street, Eleanor Savelli was to be seen strolling along in company with Edna Wright and Daisy Culver, two seniors who had been her faithful followers since her advent in Oakdale.

"Excitement number one," remarked Nora. "The fair Eleanor comes and our peace of mind departs. I had cherished vain hopes that she wouldn't favor us with the light of her countenance this year, even though she did inform Grace of her laudable desire to stay with the seniors for pure spite."

"Never mind, Nora," said Jessica, "I don't believe she'll worry herself about us, even though she did make dire threats."

"Remember what I told you last year, girls," said Grace in a tone of admonition. "Be careful what you do and say whenever she is near. She despises the Phi Sigma Tau and would revenge herself upon us at the slightest opportunity. She comes of a race who swear vendettas."

"She better not swear any when I am around," retorted Nora with spirit, "or she will find that the Irish are equal to the occasion."

"Don't excite yourself needlessly, Nora," laughed Anne. "That splendid Hibernian energy of yours is worthy of a better cause."

"How provoking!" suddenly exclaimed Grace. "I've left my library book in the gym. and it's a week overdue now. I shall simply have to go back and get it. It's only three o'clock," she added, consulting her watch. "Who will go with me?"

"Of what use is it for all of us to go," complained Nora. "We'll wait right here for you and you can hurry faster by going alone."

"All right, lazy, unsocial creatures," said Grace good-humoredly. "I'm off. Be sure you wait."