"So many special uses that I've no special use—no, Patergrey," laughed Rob. "There are so many things to be done with it that I can't see one for the crowd of them. It is all for Mardy and Wythie, though. They go without so slyly that I want every penny of this to buy things for them."
"You generous Rob-of-mine!" exclaimed her father. "Then would it disappoint you to lend me rather more than half of your wealth, to launch the bricquette machine? It requires a very small capital, but it needs that to start it on its journey into the world. I should rather like to have my girl's money—the very first that she ever earned—do this for the invention in which she has had such a share through its entire growth."
"Like it, Patergrey! I'd love it!" cried Rob, her eyes dilating, her cheeks flushing. "I'll get the money now—I've hidden it in my twine-bag, real country fashion. How strange for my money to launch the machine! Can it do it, really, Patergrey?"
"It really can. I will take but fifty dollars now, Rob, but I may need more. There must be photographs and plates made, some printing done. I would prefer your money to do this, if the idea pleases you."
For further answer Rob kissed her father as he ceased speaking, and ran away to fetch the money, singing at the top of her voice.
That night were mailed to New York the first letters introducing to a larger world than had yet heard of it the bricquette machine upon which the hopes of the Greys hung, and into which all the energy of Sylvester Grey's apparently unfruitful life had passed.
Wythie, who was always ready for bed long before Rob, sat in the rocking-chair, a shawl over her white gown, watching, with eyes of loving envy, Rob's frantic brushing of her unruly hair.
"I think I shall be wickedly jealous of you," she said at last. "Fancy your launching the invention! I wish I were able to help as you do."
"You, Oswyth! You're not only an Anglo-Saxon saint, but a Connecticut angel," cried Rob, somewhat inarticulately, as she held between her teeth the elastic band with which she intended to fasten her braid. "Without you we would all go—kersmash!—in one day. You do everything."
"Do you remember how, when we reckon our resources, we put down two columns, one certainties, the other possibilities? To think you are now one of the possibilities!" persisted Wythie.
"And if I am, what then?" demanded Rob. "I may be a possibility, but you are an extreme probability, Oswyth, my dear. You are at once a column and a foundation. I'll never be half as useful as you are. Put out the light, Oswyth Grey, and don't talk nonsense! Not but that I'm thankful enough to be added to the column of possible sources of income!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ITS HOPE
"Here's a bit of bread for you, Rob, my son," called Mr. Grey from his doorway, waving an envelope alluringly toward Rob, who was on her knees dusting the stairs.
"Bread? I'm not hungry, Patergrey; besides, it looks too white to be well baked. What do you mean? Something nice, by the way you're beaming at me." And Rob arose from her humble posture to go to her father and investigate.
"It is bread—bread-on-the-waters, my girl," Mr. Grey retorted. "It is the first interest on the money you lent me."
"The machine?" cried Rob, trying to seize the letter which her father held tantalizingly above her head. "Oh, tell me quick if it is the machine."
"It is the machine. But we mustn't expect too much," Mr. Grey hastily added. "It is by no means sold, nor even appraised. This letter is from a man in New York who is interested in such things, and he writes that he is coming to Fayre the day after to-morrow to look into my improvements in bricquette making. That's all, but it is a beginning, and that's something in itself."
"It's a lot!" cried sanguine Rob. "What shall we have for dinner that day? Have you told Mardy?"
"I have but just come in," said her father, laughing aloud. "What a practical girl! And how truly her instinct guides her to the wisdom of feeding well the man whom you wish to impress! Do the best you can with the dinner, Robin, and maybe he won't discover defects in the invention."
"There is none," retorted Rob, going off with a skip and a jump to impart the news to her mother and Wythie, and consult with them on ways and means.
The second day dawned clear and cold and brought with it, on the noon train, the anxiously awaited arbitrator of the fate of the bricquette machine.
Mr. Grey went to the station to meet him, and Wythie, Rob, and Prue watched their approach to the little grey house from behind the muslin curtains in their chamber.
There was an air of assurance and power about the stranger which filled Wythie with fear of his judgment, and inspired Rob with confidence.
"Of course he will approve the machine if he knows what he's about," said Rob, "and he most certainly looks as though he knew."
Dinner was served at once, and Mr. Marston—by this name Mr. Grey presented his guest to his wife and daughters—Mr. Marston was enthusiastic in word and deed over his pleasure in what, he said, he never found in the city—old-fashioned, home cooking, prepared by the hands of ladies.
"You really have no business with a successful invention, Mr. Grey," said the guest—"you who are already so rich." And he smiled up into Prue's face, who had risen to remove his plate, with a look that conveyed his high sense of her value, and so embarrassed the child that she dropped his knife and fork with a clatter.
"I don't like him," Rob confided to Wythie, when their father had borne Mr. Marston away for a preliminary smoke—like his colonial ancestors dealing with the Connecticut aborigines—leaving the girls with their mother to their task of clearing away. "I don't like him—he's too good to be true—but if he only will like the machine my likings and dislikes don't matter."
Later Rob's father called her, and she went to help in displaying the invention which she almost felt was as much hers as her father's.
Silently she moved the parts of the machine, co-operating with her father as he talked, and silently the visitor watched the proceedings, stroking his mustache and letting nothing escape his keen eyes, as Rob saw, while she, in her turn, sharply, though furtively, eyed the impassive face concealing its owner's verdict on the Greys' hopes.
At last the exposition of the machine was over, and Rob busied herself with replacing the covers of the models, while her father and Mr. Marston dropped into neighboring chairs for its discussion.
"It's unquestionably a good thing, Mr. Grey," the visitor said. "The improvements are important, and, what is more, practical. I feel that I have no right to say anything definite until I have seen my partner, but I am perfectly within bounds in saying that I am thoroughly convinced as to the value of your patent, and that we shall be ready to make you an offer for it. At the same time I should be glad if you will not show it to anyone else until that offer has been made and discussed; I should like to retain an option on the machine."
"When I wrote you, Mr. Marston, and allowed you to come here to see the invention, I considered it equivalent to a pledge not to allow anyone else to see what might become your property, and would be valueless to you if it were not protected," said Mr. Grey, quietly.
Rob waited to hear no more. She ran from the room, and caught Wythie and Kiku in a comprehensive embrace, meeting them as they came, one in the other's arms, across the hall.
"It's all right, it's all right, Oswyth, saint and martyr!" she cried, whirling Wythie around, and sending Kiku leaping, panic-stricken by her onslaught, to the top of the portière at the door. "He says he's thoroughly convinced of the value of the patent, and he asks Patergrey to keep it for him till he can consult with his partner as to the offer they mean to make for it. Oh, I knew, I knew all along it was coming right, but now it has come right, I'm ready to die of joy."
Wythie turned so white that Rob held her closer for another reason, fearing she was going to faint. "We must find Mardy," was all Wythie said, but her smile was so beatific that Rob was more than satisfied.
When Mr. Grey came back from the station, where he had been to speed his guest, he found his household waiting him, half delirious with joy.
"It's all right now, isn't it, Patergrey?" cried Rob. "There's no danger in our being as glad as we please, is there? It's sure and sure that the invention will go, isn't it? That man settled it, didn't he?"
"No risk at all in rejoicing, Mary," said Mr. Grey, disregarding Rob, and answering the girl's question to his wife, to whom he held out his arms with smiling, quivering lips, and eyes bright at once with joy and tears.
"Will it be much, Sylvester?" asked Mrs. Grey, still afraid to be glad.
"The offer? It will not be less than fifty thousand, if it is to be accepted, Mary; that will put the Grey family into brighter colors, and free the little grey house of its burden again," said Mr. Grey, stroking his wife's abundant hair. "And, Rob," he added, as the girls caught their breath with a gasp of ecstasy, "make a note of the name of John Lester Baldwin, and his address on Broadway, in New York. I will give it to you, and I want you to remind me to write him—he was a college chum of mine, an honest man and a good lawyer. I mean to take his advice as to the patent; I would trust it utterly."
Rob obediently made the memorandums on a pad, and her father straightened himself, taking a long breath. "It is a curious sensation to have succeeded, after so long," he said. "I hardly know how to adjust myself to it."
Rob and Wythie exchanged glances, noting with the anxiety they always felt for the dear father's safety, the dilation of his bright eyes and his quickened breath.
"You have done enough, Patergrey," cried Rob. "You have made the machine, and we'll do the adjusting, never fear! Mayn't I ask the boys and Frances down to-night to rejoice with us, Mardy? And won't you get your hat and coat and go with me to invite them, Patergrey? The fresh air will bring us both to our senses—I feel as though my head were a thistle in September."
"We should all be better for the boys and Frances, Rob," said her mother, and at the same moment Mr. Grey said: "Yes, let's have the young folks in, and play twirl the platter, and make molasses candy, and have a real, children's party—I feel as though I wanted to get down to a basis of pure jollity and be thoroughly a boy, now that for the first time in years I feel the pressure of care lightened."
"Then get your hat—why, here come the boys now! Then I can't go, Patergrey! Suppose you and Mardy take a walk instead, and we'll keep Battalion B to supper, and I'll make them get it!" cried Rob.
"It would be pleasant, Mary, to celebrate by a stroll together; we don't get one of our all-to-ourselves times very often," smiled Mr. Grey. "Let's leave our girls to prepare our triumphal banquet, and pretend we're young lovers again, with no tall girls to bother us."
Mrs. Grey laughed happily, and almost ran away to get ready for her walk, and soon she was leaning on her husband's arm, and the three girls were watching her as she laughed up into his face, as they strolled in the direction of Miss Charlotte's to bring her the glad tidings of the coming of prosperity to the little grey house.
"See how young and happy Mardy looks," sighed Wythie. "Only think, if she will look like that all the time! Do you suppose, can it be, girls—and boys—that this isn't too good to be true?"
"It's just barely good enough for you to be true," said Bruce. "We don't believe that only bad things happen outside of books, do we, Rob?"
"No, sir; we believe only in good things—even when the bad ones happen!" declared Rob. "Tommy Tucker sang for his supper, but if you two big fellows want yours you've got to chop wood for kindling, or you won't get it. And, Bart, would you mind very, very much if you were asked most politely to go and fetch Frances?"
"Yes, I'd mind, because I like to be around when you're fussing, but I'm willing to offer myself a sacrifice, if nobody else will," said Bartlemy, looking around for his hat.
Poor Bartlemy could not hurry Frances sufficiently to get back to the little grey house before supper was ready, and "the fun over," as he grumblingly said. Rob patted his head like a big dog's. "Never mind, Bartie dear," she said, soothingly, "you shall wash all the greasiest pans!"
"What shall we do to celebrate?" asked Prue, when everything was cleared away, and the dining-room table rolled to the wall to allow games.
"I'll tell you," cried Mr. Grey, with an inspiration. "Let's rifle the attic and invoke our ancestors to enjoy with us the prospect of securing to future Greys this little house they loved. We know what treasures there are in the chests and horse-hair trunks up there, don't we, girls?"
"Oh, you never saw our old-fashioned clothing!" cried Wythie. "Why, that's the very thing, papa! Get lamps, boys, and come up to the attic. We'll dress up and have an old-folks' concert, just for ourselves. You never saw such things as we have up there!"
Older and younger, all the Greys with their four guests, and lamps enough to light the party, and with Kiku-san on behind, hoping for mice, repaired to the attic.
A pleasant musty odor of dried herbs, camphor, and cedar-wood greeted them, and queer shadows wavered big on the slanting walls to meet them.
"What a fine place!" exclaimed Basil. "Why don't we come here oftener?"
Mrs. Grey produced her keys and threw open chest after chest, and Wythie, Rob, and Prue, with enthusiastic help from Frances, began shaking out garments of more than a hundred years ago, as well as the big skirts and poke-bonnets of the '50s.
Huge embroidered collars, long, handwrought lace veils, brocaded silks, frail with age; gigantic leghorn bonnets; short, much-shirred waists; high stocks for men, ruffled shirts, tight, short-waisted blue coats; the high, pointed collars in which our grandfathers did penance in the days of "Tippecanoe"; grotesque high and narrow beaver hats, and broad ones of white silk, all these were brought forth into the flickering light amid shouts of laughter and impatient clutches from hands eager to try the effect of something that particularly struck an individual fancy.
"No fair trying on up here," cried Prue, at last. "We must take everything we want downstairs, and fit ourselves out there; we'll never get down this way."
So everybody piled all that one pair of arms could carry into a great heap, and each one lifted his burden and carefully picked the way down the narrow, steep stairs, made particularly uncertain by the wavering lamp-light.
"Now, ladies to the right; gentlemen to the left," ordered Wythie. "You go into your room, papa, with the boys, and Mardy and Frances shall come into ours with us, and we'll do our best. Don't I wish you had wigs with queues!"
It took nearly three-quarters of an hour of excited hurrying and much laughter from both sides of the hall before the impromptu fancy-dress party was robed, and then at a signal nine queer figures appeared in two lines, and stopped short, each convulsed at the sight of the other.
Mr. Grey, in knee-breeches and cocked hat of an earlier period, was more imposing but not nearly as funny as Bruce in the costume of the '30s, nor as Basil, portentously scowling between the sharp collar-points like those which served as gateways to Daniel Webster's eloquence.
Bartlemy, in a long-tailed, short-waisted black coat which must have belonged to some clerical Grey, and with an incongruous white-silk hat, was so funny that Prue forgot her frail, rose-besprinkled muslin, and sat straight down on the floor to laugh at him. Wythie had found a muslin frock, short and tucked-in skirt and waist, and slippers such as Jane Austen's heroines tripped about in, and her pretty face was framed in a big leghorn hat, tied down into a poke at back and front. She looked as if she had stepped out of a Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait.
Rob had made herself into a lady of Revolutionary days, hair high, and gown of brocade low in neck, and draped with an immense embroidered fichu. Prue's muslin did not much antedate the civil war, but Frances had arrayed herself in a gown which Dolly Madison would have recognized as the latest fashion had she come to life to see it.
Mrs. Grey seemed to have taken what no one else wanted, but nothing else that she had on mattered much while she wore the great pink gauze turban which crowned her hair.
"It's a real pity no one can see us," declared Frances, when they were mustered in the dining-room, and had dropped, breathless with laughter, into the old chairs which should have welcomed gladly the figures of their youth returning to them.
"We'll get up a real affair, give an old folks' concert or something, in costume—we'd have a great one," cried Bruce. "Will you, say toward spring?"
"Very likely," said Rob, "but what are we going to do now, this minute?"
"You are going to dance," said Mrs. Grey. "I'm going to play for you, and if our piano is old and thin, then you must remember that it is in old-time costume also, and not mind."
"We can have a fine square-dance," cried Prue. "Just four couples—papa, will you dance?"
"Will I? Will I not?" Mr. Grey cried, gayly. "Whose patent are we celebrating, I'd like to know? Rob and I are head couple."
He gave his hand to Rob, Basil and Wythie took one side, Bruce and Frances the other, while tall Bartlemy and Prue fell together, as they usually did.
Mrs. Grey played, concealing as well as she could, with her fine touch and real talent, time's ravages on the queer, yellow-keyed old piano.
"Now sing," ordered Mr. Grey, when, the dance over, he dropped weary, but happy, into a chair. The quaint figures with the flushed young faces gathered about the old piano, and sang as they were bidden, sang until the clock in the hall startled them by striking eleven.
"Why, I had no idea of the time!" cried Frances. "Mamma will think I'm stolen. I must hurry and get into my present-day things and fly home. We've had a lovely time, dear Grey people! There never was a place where people had so much fun without trying, and because they couldn't help it, as in the little grey house."
"And there never was a place where good luck was more needed, nor where people were more grateful for hearing that it had come to them, than in the little grey house to-day," added Rob, as she wound her arm around her friend's waist, and bore her away to her room.
"Oh, Rob," said Frances, "and oh, Wythie," she added, turning back to include Wythie in the caress she gave Rob, "you know how glad I am of what that man told you! It's well you do, for I can't begin to tell you how glad I am. Isn't it perfectly blessed?"
"It's the beginning of the end of our troubles, that's all it is, Francie," said Rob. "This isn't the little grey house to-night; it's Pandora's box, with everything bad flying out, and only hope left."
CHAPTER TWELVE
ITS TRAGIC SIDE
"Maimie Flinders is sick," said Prue, coming in from school the next noon, and hastening to thrust first one foot and then the other into warmth issuing from the open oven-door, for the day was cold. "I met Mr. Flinders, and he said 'Maimie was pretty miserable, and they was worried about her.'" Prue pulled down the corners of her mouth, imitating Farmer Flinders's drawl as she spoke.
"I must go see her," said Rob. "Poor little Pollykins! She's a misfit in that household—a dear, quaint little soul! None but a very nice child could admire me the way that mite does. I think I owe her a cheering visit. Look out, Prudy; let me get the pudding out."
After dinner Rob girded herself in her warm, ex-parlor-curtains coat, and having selected from her accumulation of the Rutherfords' contributions to her entertainments some things that she thought would amuse the sick child, started out to make a call which was not alluring for many reasons.
Farmer Flinders lived in a yellowish-brown house from which the green blinds that adorned it in summer had been removed to save them unnecessary wear during the winter. It was square and bare, and Rob felt its bleakness anew as she entered the gate, passing the straggling stalks which in summer developed into a lilac and syringa bush, and pulled the octagonal glass door-bell, remembering the solitary and sensitive child who was trying to grow into a woman in these surroundings.
Mrs. Flinders opened the door, cautiously displaying a little of her gaunt person.
"We heard that Maimie was sick," said Rob. "I should like to see her, if I may."
"Come in," said Maimie's mother. "She's pretty mis'rable, but if anything could do her good 'twould be seein' you. I always say that to Mr. Flinders when he's talkin' of the bother he has with your place, an' you bein' pretty spunky. 'Eliab,' I says, 'there's got to be good in a girl that children take to, an' I never see our Maimie take to anyone 's she doos to Roberta Grey. She makes her laugh,' I says, 'an' she seems to chirk her right up.' An' you can see yourself, Roberta, that if you'd had seven children, an' all had died but jest this one, you'd take to anyone she took to yourself, no matter who 'twas."
Roberta accepted these dubious remarks as complimentary, that being, on the whole, apparently their intention, but she had considerable difficulty in keeping her face straight, for it did not seem to her necessary for Mrs. Flinders to apologize to her, either for her liking for Rob, nor for her desire to have Maimie made happy.
She followed Mrs. Flinders into the kitchen, which was also the sitting-room, and saw the little white face which she hoped to make smile, languidly looking out on the glimpse of the world allowed the child by the enormous chintz arm-chair, with its extended side-pieces, in which she was very nearly swallowed up. A long, thin, little hand came out from the plaid shawl enveloping Maimie and waved feebly to Rob, while a piping voice cried: "Oh, Rob Grey, I'm awful glad to see you!"
"That's right," cried Rob, running over to give the child a hug. "So you should be, because I'm glad to see you, though I'm not one bit glad to see you ill. But, you see! I always told you they ought to call you Polly, and not Maimie—because it was 'little Polly Flinders sat among the cinders, warming her pretty little toes.' And if you're not among the cinders, you're close to the stove, Pollykins! But we're certain sure you're not the real Polly Flinders, in Mother Goose, because 'her mother came and caught her, and whipped her little daughter, for spoiling her nice new clothes.' That can't happen to you, you know, because you've got on your wrapper!"
The child laughed out. "You're funny, Rob," she said, stroking Rob's cheek.
"And you're funny, Polly; as funny as a fiddler-crab, with this big chair high up above your head, and your thin little face peering out! What do you play all day—do you play you're a little turtle and this is your shell?" laughed Rob, her heart full of pity for the wan little creature.
"Nothin'," said Polly. "I don't play nothin'; I just sit an' sit."
"Read?" hinted Rob.
Polly shook her head. "I can't read fast, 'cause I didn't go to school much, an' it makes me awful tired."
"Well, now, reading is hard work, because they won't stop writing books long enough to let us catch up," laughed Rob. "I've been telling stories, telling them to lots of little children, and we do have the most fun!"
"Father told about that," cried Polly eagerly. "He said 'twas queer folks paid to hear 'em, but I know! You've told me stories, an' I know! I wish I could be there when you tell 'em, but father wouldn't get a ticket, not ever."
"What does the doctor say about Polly, Mrs. Flinders?" asked Rob, who had been forming her own unprofessional opinion, and deciding that poor little Polly was dying of pure dreariness.
"He says she ain't any stamina, an' he's afraid she'll go like the rest. He says she don't seem to have any real disease, but too much Flinders—you know Dr. Fairbairn, an' the way he says things. I guess he means she'll go like the rest," said Mrs. Flinders, apparently oblivious to Polly's intense gaze.
Rob thought that she did indeed "know Dr. Fairbairn," and read in his diagnosis of "too much Flinders" confirmation of her own judgment on poor Polly. The mite looked so frightened at the prospect of "going like the others" that Rob was divided between pity for the shrinking child and wondering wrath at her obtuse mother.
"Now, I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Flinders," cried Rob, "Polly isn't going like the others; she isn't going at all. But she's sick and lonely, and I think a bit of cheering would do her more good than medicine—or even than splendid Dr. Fairbairn can do! I want you to lend us Polly. We've plenty of room in the little grey house—we always have room and time to do what we want to do—and I'll take Polly under my special charge, so the others shall not have any trouble about it. I'll tuck her up in the little bed we three girls had in turn when we were little, and we'll let her play with our dear white kitten Kiku, and she'll hear us chatter, and I'll tell her stories, and you see if she doesn't get to be another Polly in no time!"
"Oh, mother, mother!" cried Polly, starting up in uncontrollable rapture and clasping her thin hands prayerfully. "Oh, mother, mother!"
Mrs. Flinders stared at Rob in amazement, then she wiped her eyes on the corner of her faded apron. "Well, Roberta, you're a good girl, an' I'll say that for you," she said, her reserve dropping from her suddenly. "Young as you be, you see what's the matter with Maimie. The child's just pining and pindling out of the world, an' I can't stop her. He's near; you know how he is. He's got plenty money an' no one but us, an' if Maimie dies, what's the use of it all? But he won't send the child away—says it's all nonsense. An' the house 's lonely, an' I can't amuse her, an' so I stand by an' see her going the way they all went, till it seems 's if there wa'n't enough vim in me to git her supper—let alone savin' her. If you could—and would—take her awhile, I know she'd come right up. But they ain't many's 'd do it, an' I guess he's been tryin' enough to you fer you not to feel gret interest in his child. An' what'd your folks say?"
"I'd do anything I could for dear little Polly, Mrs. Flinders," said Rob. "And as to my mother and father, the one thing that makes them happy is a chance to do a slight kindness for someone. You needn't be afraid that Polly won't be welcome. I know, or I wouldn't have spoken—or at least not until I had first consulted them. You get her ready, and I'll ask the Rutherford boys to come here and carry her off to the little grey house. Will Mr. Flinders let her go?"
"He'll do anything as long's it don't come out of him," said Mrs. Flinders, bitterly. "I know in his heart he'll be pleased, for this child's the only thing he doos care about. An' I guess you no need to ask those boys to fetch her; we've got a horse, an' if she's goin' visitin' I'll see she gets there properly."
"Then it's settled!" cried Rob, and, turning to Polly, who had been listening to this conversation with her breath fluttering over her parted lips, and color coming and going in her pinched face, she added: "Are you glad to come, Pollykins?"
"Glad, Rob!" cried little Polly. "It'll be 'most heaven. I'm sure I'll have a better time than the others."
And Rob knew that she referred to the other little Flinders, and was as delighted with Polly's gratitude as if she had not seen how much the small creature dreaded following them to greater happiness than the little grey house could give her.
When Rob announced at home the prospective visitor there was consternation for a time, but it was not long before her mother and Wythie were planning for Polly's comfort with as much pleasure as Rob felt, and Prue fell to washing and setting in order the wardrobe of her discarded doll for Polly's delectation.
Mrs. Flinders drove the child over in the buggy with the purpling wheel-spokes and the wood obtruding through the back of the seat. Polly was wrapped so closely that only her dilated eyes showed, and her mother sat, uncompromising and severe, beside her, hauling on the reins which guided the temperate horse.
The Rutherfords were at the grey house when the little invalid arrived, and Bruce's strong arms lifted her out with a gentleness that warranted his choice of vocation, and bore her into the warmth of the open fire in the dining-room.
"These are her drops," said Mrs. Flinders, setting a bottle on the table. "We're very much obliged to you for taking Polly, Mis' Grey. He's obliged too—I guess he's some ashamed of being so cantankerous to you about the garden truck. If she's troublesome you let me know, an' I'll fetch her back."
"She will trouble us only by looking pale," said Mrs. Grey. "If she gets better as fast as we hope to have her she will trouble us no more than a little cricket on our hearth."
"We shall have to hide Polly from Aunt Azraella," said Wythie, returning from seeing Mrs. Flinders's departure. "If she disapproved of our extravagance in having a kitten, what will she say to a child in the house?"
"We always have plenty of what we don't want," said Rob. "We run no risk of impoverishing ourselves in sharing our deprivations with Pollykins."
"It's a funny little grey house, with all its bothers," said their mother. "It always seems to be able to bear a bit more—that often cheers me when I think it has almost more than it can bear."
"We have to go up to the attic, Pollykins, to put away lots and lots of old clothes—the oldest kind of old clothes!" said Rob, on her knees before Polly, unbuttoning the child's coat. "Some day, when it's warmer, or you're strong enough to go where it's cold, I'll show you the funniest old hats and bonnets and dresses you ever saw in all your little life! We don't like to put them away, but we must. Last night we dressed up in them, and danced, and so to-day we have to pay the fiddler—that means we have to pack them all away again, whether we like to or not. You won't mind if you have to stay here alone with Hortense, do you? That's the doll's name. By and by Prudy will come in, and we shall be down soon."
"I don't mind, Rob," said Polly, eying Hortense longingly. "I'll play house and rock that dolly. Does she shut her eyes?"
"Yes, indeed; goes to sleep like a good baby whenever she is bidden. Why, you're better already! You didn't feel like playing house when I saw you after dinner, did you?" cried Rob, delighted.
Polly shook her head with happy solemnity. "I never had such a nice doll," she said.
Mr. Grey came in looking pale and tired, but he smiled at white little Polly, and said, as he tipped up her chin: "Rob says you're little Polly Flinders who sat among the cinders, but I think she's turned you into a little coal of fire, right out of the cinders. Do you know what that means—to be a coal of fire?"
Polly smiled, evidently feeling it safer not to commit herself, and trustingly confident that whatever it meant to be a coal of fire, it was something pleasant.
"I am going to lie down here, please little Polly, and if you will sing to Hortense while you rock her I shouldn't be surprised if you made me go to sleep too," said Mr. Grey, stretching out on the old couch with a sigh of relief.
"Do you feel ill, Sylvester dear?" asked Mrs. Grey, stroking the hair from his forehead. "You look tired."
"Not in the least ill, Mary dear, but tired, yes," replied her husband, kissing the gentle hand. "I did not sleep much last night—too excited and happy, you know—but I am quite well, and still most happy. Still happy? Why, I'm going to be happy all my days!"
"You've won, Sylvester," said Mrs. Grey, and she laid her cheek for a moment where her hand had rested.
"I've won—we've won through Rob, my son! That's what I've been saying over and over, for the past twenty-four hours," cried Mr. Grey, triumphantly. "You never can know what a help and a comfort you are, Rob boy! It's a good deal of a joy to a man who has been accounted a failure, to know his brains have given his dear ones all they need! If you orderly housewives don't make too much noise in the attic, I'm going to sleep, to dream of my happiness, and for the first time in all my life waken from such a dream to find it true."
"Put me in your dream, Patergrey," cried Rob, as she ran out of the room, seeing that little Polly had already established herself in the small rocking-chair brought out for her use, and was hushing Hortense to sleep with low croonings.
Wythie joined her mother and Rob in the upper hall, and all three went atticward, laden with the garments of last night's frolic.
It took a longer time to put them away than they had foreseen, for the chests had been sadly upset, and required much rearranging.
The brief winter light had nearly faded before Mrs. Grey straightened herself, and said, with a sigh for the knees which the bare floor had hurt: "Dear girls, it must be more than time to put the kettle on!"
"Perhaps Polly has done it; she ought, to preserve the unities. I don't know what the unities are, but I mean well, and I'm trying to quote 'Polly, put the kettle on' in that clever, indirect way people make allusions in novels," said Rob.
"Thanks, Rob," said Wythie, quietly. "We know the poem."
The little procession of three filed down the narrow stairs, stepping slowly and carefully in the dusk. The house was absolutely still; Prue had evidently not come in, and perhaps Polly had fallen asleep with Hortense, Wythie suggested.
There was a faint glow in the dining-room from the fire burning low on the hearth. By its light they saw Mr. Grey lying on the couch as they had left him, and Polly's little figure drooping over Hortense in her arms, sound asleep in Prue's outgrown chair.
"The palace of the Sleeping Beauty," whispered Rob, thinking it a pretty picture.
"I can't bear to disturb your father, but we must get tea," whispered her mother back.
Wythie struck a light and Polly stirred, straightened herself, looked, startled, around the room, and then smiled at Rob.
"I didn't know where I was," she said, running to her idol. "Your father woke up and said something quick, and I woke up, too, but when I went to him he was asleep, so then Hortense and I went to sleep again."
"What did papa say, Polly?" asked Wythie, with a sudden fear.
Her mother had crossed to the couch, and knelt beside it. She took her husband's face in her hands, and something in her attitude brought her girls to her instantly. Mrs. Grey laid the beloved head back on the pillow and raised her face to Wythie and Rob without a sound.
"Mardy!" cried the girls together, dropping on their knees beside her.
There was no need of question nor of answer; no need of the frantic pressure of the motionless heart. No need of Rob's rushing to meet Prue, who opened the door at that moment, nor of bidding her hasten for her life for Dr. Fairbairn.
For they knew, the stricken wife and daughters, that Sylvester Grey had slipped painlessly, quietly away from them, and from the joy of the triumph of his loving efforts for them, into the joy that should never end.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ITS DANGER
The days that followed its bereavement passed like a dream over the little grey house. There is no preparation for grief; Mr. Grey's death came upon those who had loved him as if there had been no warning of the danger in which he lived, and, as they met the necessary claims and performed the hard tasks their sorrow laid upon them, it was impossible for them to realize that it was the dear dreamer whom they were laying away to dreamless sleep up on the hill, under the great elms of Fayre's old graveyard.
But when these confused days were past and the tall, thin figure no longer cast its shadow over the old doorway, nor the nervous step fell on bewildered ears, unconsciously straining to hear it, Sylvester Grey's wife and daughters began dimly to realize that he had gone away. Of the three girls the loss and loneliness was bitterest to Rob, but it was she who met it most bravely, resolving to be, indeed, to her mother the "son Rob" her "Patergrey" had always called her.
Aunt Azraella, in her own way, had been a comfort during this first, disturbed week, coming in with perfect efficiency to plan and execute the arrangements from which the Greys shrank, but it was "Cousin Peace" on whom they all leaned now that, everything done, they sat down with sorrow.
One morning, when her sister-in-law had been widowed ten days, Aunt Azraella came down to the little grey house for a business conference. "Little Polly Flinders" was hastily smuggled upstairs, with Hortense to bear her company. She was a different little Polly than Rob had found pining away in the big chintz chair; color was coming into the white little face, and in the necessity of making things cheerful around the child, all four Greys found help and comfort. It was much to feel that they were establishing in health and life the pathetic child who had chanced to be the one to hear the last tones of that voice now forever silent.
"I came down, Mary, to talk with you about your prospects," said Aunt Azraella, unwinding her long barège veil as she seated herself before the fire.
"You must make up your mind precisely what you are going to do. Of course, Sylvester's death doesn't affect you like the loss of a business man such as your brother, my husband, was, but it does settle the question of that invention. Whatever it is, it must remain, so I advise you to see if you can do anything with it, if it has any practical value."
"There was a Mr. Marston, from New York, here to see it two weeks ago," said Mrs. Grey, quietly. "We had a letter from him this morning, offering to buy the machine."
Mrs. Winslow gave a start of genuine pleasure. "Well, I am surprised," she said. "How much did he offer? I hope it will take the mortgage off the house, and leave you a little. But I suppose it wasn't much."
"No; only four thousand dollars," replied Mrs. Grey. "Rob thinks he is trying to take advantage of our necessities, or what he hopes will prove necessities."
"Rob thinks!" ejaculated Aunt Azraella. "Why, Mary, it's a wonderful offer! I hope you wrote at once! If you haven't written, write now, and I'll post the letter when I go out."
"We haven't decided to accept it," began Mrs. Grey, but got no further.
"Now, Mary Winslow Grey," cried Aunt Azraella, "for mercy's sake, don't listen to that child! Even allowing she's not flighty, as I know she is, you have to admit a girl of sixteen is not a competent adviser. You accept that offer on the spot, on the spot, do you hear? Four thousand dollars! Why, you can pay a thousand and clear the mortgage, and have three thousand to invest—that'll be quite an addition to your income. It will leave you better off than you were with Sylvester alive."
"Oh!" gasped Wythie. Roberta began to speak very slowly, with manifest effort to be dignified, and to lay aside her natural quickness of speech and retort.
"Aunt Azraella," she said, "you do not understand the invention—no one here does, except me. Either the invention is worth nothing, or it is worth a great deal—more than ten times as much as this offer. You see, the offer proves it is worth something, and if we accepted it we should be cheating ourselves out of about fifty thousand dollars."
"Fifty thousand dollars!" Aunt Azraella tossed her head scornfully, words failing to express her opinion of this visionary estimate.
"You see; I told you you had no idea of the value of that invention," said Rob. "Pater—our dear father said, the day Mr. Marston was here, that he should refuse an offer of less than fifty thousand dollars. I feel that we have no right to throw it away, for his sake, if not for our own."
"If you don't close with this offer at once it may be withdrawn," said Mrs. Winslow, seeing the effect of Rob's argument on her mother.
"That's precisely what Mr. Marston writes," said Mrs. Grey, "and that's what frightens me. I am so afraid of refusing the only offer we may ever get."
"And I think that proves him dishonest," cried Rob. "He wants to frighten us into closing with him, because he knows if we took time to investigate, we should find out the true value of the machine. He saw enough when he was here—our doing our own work, and our simple way of living—to guess we should need money now we were alone. He is trying to take advantage of a woman and three young girls, and if I have my way, he won't succeed! I hated him the day he was here—he's a villain, if ever there was one, a smiling villain at that."
"What do you propose doing, then?" asked Aunt Azraella, satirically. "If you are taking matters into your own hands you ought to have some other plan to propose instead of this certain one—for I hope you realize, Roberta, that you are trying to use your influence with your mother to urge her to throw away a certainty, on the chance of something better, and on the advice of a girl of sixteen, who has as much knowledge of the world as my Tobias has."
"I do realize, aunt, and it frightens me, but I was my father's helper all through the last four years he was working on this machine, and I feel I must stand firm, now that he has left it to me. I know we shall be cheated if we take this offer, and sell the bricquette machine to this Mr. Marston," cried Rob.
"Mary, Mary, I have no patience!" cried Mrs. Winslow. "Will you, or will you not, listen to reason and be guided by someone with judgment? You see Roberta does not answer my question! Oh, for the land sakes, why do we talk about it as though she were a person to be listened to? What has she to do with it, anyway? I tell you I have no patience. Go over to that desk, and write that man you accept his offer, and I'll post the letter before I go home."
"I didn't mean not to answer you, Aunt Azraella," said Rob, with new dignity. "My plan is neither to refuse nor accept, but to write Mr. Marston that we must have a few days in which to look into the matter. If he's an honest man, he won't object; if the machine is worth four thousand dollars to him, he will take it a week later as well as now, and if—and I know it is—it is worth six times that, why, we save ourselves from a trick, that's all."
Mrs. Winslow turned to Rob with a touch of respect in her manner. "That has a little the ring of sense," she graciously remarked. "But you must remember that he may have some reason for wanting that machine this moment or never, and it may be worth four thousand to-day, and nothing a week hence, unless he gets it now. That often happens in business matters. Mary, write your note."
"I confess I'm strongly inclined to your view, Azraella," said Mrs. Grey, "but I can't write to-night. Rob seems to me not like my young daughter, but like her father's representative, and I cannot disregard her, as I should Wythie, for instance."
"And what is Oswyth's opinion?" asked Aunt Azraella, turning to her favorite niece.
"I'm a coward," said Wythie, with a faint smile. "I'm afraid to refuse a certainty of even a small piece of good fortune."
"Sensible girl!" said her aunt, approvingly. "Then Roberta is the only one that stands out against good luck?"
"Stands for good luck, Aunt Azraella," said Rob, rising, as her aunt arose, with the air which had come upon her, adding years and dignity to her, since she had learned to suffer.
"You won't write, Mary?" insisted Mrs. Winslow, wrapping herself in her barège defence from the cold wind.
"Not to-night; to-morrow will still be time," said Mrs. Grey, also rising.
"Then I wash my hands of you, and if you come to grief, don't appeal to me for sympathy nor help. I foresee the end; this girl is so headstrong, and will so appeal to your desire to carry out your husband's will, that she will get her way, and your one hope of peace will be gone. You can't help confessing, Mary, no matter how you mourn him, that Sylvester knew nothing of business, and for you to allow sentimentality and a girl's ignorance to wreck you, is little short of criminal." Having delivered this valedictory with crushing effect, Mrs. Winslow stalked away.
Prue came back dissolved in tears from closing the door behind her aunt; she found her mother, Wythie, and Rob sitting silent and sad around the fire.
"Oh, Rob, dear Rob," cried Prue, hysterically, "you mean well, but how can you be so obstinate? Don't listen to her, Mardy; we shall never be happy again; we shall lose our home, too, if you do!" And Prue dropped, sobbing, in the big chair Mrs. Winslow had vacated.
"Mardy, Mardy," cried Rob, starting up, pushing back her hair with her old, impulsive gesture, and running over to fall on her knees beside her mother's chair, "it makes me nearly crazy to feel I am taking such a responsibility, but I must, for I know, I know I'm right! I wasn't going to tell Aunt Azraella my plans, and have her make a worse fuss than ever, but I've laid them, and you must, you truly must, let me have my way. Write this Marston scamp you must take a few days to consider his offer, that you are not prepared to accept or refuse it for a week. It can't possibly make any difference, unless he is a scamp, and then we want it to. And to-morrow you let me go to New York, and find out what the machine is really worth, and what can be done with it."
"To New York! You, Rob, alone? And you find out what can be done with the invention, you, a young, inexperienced girl? My darling, you are crazy!" cried her mother, while Wythie and Prue sat up with gasps of amazed horror.
"Mardy, I am not in the least crazy. If we had anyone else to do it, we would let them, of course, but who is there? I will go straight to Mr. John Lester Baldwin, the lawyer, Patergrey's college chum, whom he said he would trust utterly. I took his name and address the day Mr. Marston was here, you know; Patergrey wanted me to remind him to write him, but there was no time—" Rob stopped short, and Wythie made a little moan.
"Now, Mardy, this is no wild scheme, you see; it is plain, practical common-sense," Rob continued. "Mr. Baldwin will put me somewhere to board where I shall be safe, and he will do all he can for me when I tell him who I am, and what has happened, if he is the man Patergrey thought him. If he says take the four thousand, I am satisfied, but if he says not to, don't you see how well it will be that I went? And I have my own money, enough still, for my expenses."
"Rob, Rob, you glorious girl!" cried Wythie, starting up in a rapture. "Let her go, Mardy; she is inspired, like Joan of Arc."
"My Rob, my dear Rob, my brave, reliable daughter," said Mrs. Grey, fondly, "what can I say to you? I am not willing to let you go alone, but if I were, the objections we made to putting off Mr. Marston still hold good. Suppose you fail, and we lose not only the offer, but the expenses of your journey and your stay in the city?"
"Mardy, I shall not fail," cried Rob. "Do you not remember that Patergrey said: 'It must not be less than fifty thousand dollars to be accepted?' That was the last time he spoke of it, you know. He understood its value. I don't like to bother you, but you see it's chiefly for your sake, and, besides, I worked with Patergrey all the time and I feel as though I could not desert the dear invention now, if I wanted to—let it be stolen from us, the work of all that dear life, and its only legacy to us, except the little grey house, with its mortgage. You must say yes, Mardy, my darling; I was Patergrey's 'son Rob,' you know, and I must defend his invention, and be the man of the family, his son Rob still." Rob's beautiful head dropped on her mother's knee, and the steady, clear, young voice broke pitifully.
Mrs. Grey leaned over and laid her wet cheek on Rob's bright rings of hair, with the red shining through them in the firelight.
"Go, then, my Robert of the lion-heart, go, you dear knight-errant, and have your way. And whatever comes of it we shall never regret it, for we shall remember that you loyally played your part in defence of us all—all, here and beyond," whispered Rob's mother.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ITS BRAVE DAUGHTER
There was but one really fast train between Fayre and New York, and that left Fayre at quarter to eight in the morning. Not too early, however, for Rob, acting rapidly on her hardly won permission to go to the rescue of her family, to be ready to take her place among its passengers.
There had been wild excitement in the little grey house on the previous night, after that permission had been won, getting together Rob's few requirements for her unwonted journey, and discussing in all its aspects the great feat she was to perform.
But now her pretty face, pale under the black hat surmounting the wayward hair, and big-eyed from sorrow and excitement, looked with brave smiles out of the car-window at Wythie and Prue and the Rutherford boys on the platform as they waved Rob on her way, and the train started. Rob had never felt more childish and dependent in her life than now, when, for the first time, she was acting like a woman, and going down to the great city to try to arrange a most important business matter.
When Fayre station was left behind, and Wythie and Prue could no longer see her, Rob allowed herself a good cry—the world seemed so big and hollow, and she felt so little and helpless! But in half an hour she was drying her eyes, and beginning to lay her plans, and to wonder, with quickened heart-beats, which were rather stimulating than depressing, how she was to find Mr. Baldwin, or even Broadway, since she did not know one street from another in the maelstrom that is the second city of the world.
It was almost the bright-faced Rob whom her father had known that drew her breath long and hard after the tedious tunnel was passed, and began setting herself right and pulling herself together as irregular and ugly buildings slipped by her in crowds, and the train entered the Grand Central Station.
She took her place in the line, edging her suit-case—hastily borrowed from the Rutherfords late the preceding night—between the wedged passengers, and crawled along toward the door, too confused to feel much beyond a strong wish that the person in front of her was shorter and leaned back less, since he entirely prevented her hat from keeping straight.
Out on the platform Rob still held her place in the crowd, and found herself at last standing bewildered near the Forty-second Street exits, wondering what she was to do next, and which way to turn to do it.
People jostled her without her knowing it, until a vicious shove of her case, and a muttered remark that reminded her of Farmer Flinders's addresses to his horse, aroused Rob to the fact that she was, in her small degree, impeding the course of progress, and she stepped out on the sidewalk and into the babel of "Cayb? Want a cayb, miss?" while the cab-drivers threatened her face with their whips.
Rob espied a tall policeman and steered her course for him through the maddening bedlam around her.
"Please tell me how to go to Broadway?" she said, looking up appealingly under her over-shadowing hat.
"Straight along that way—you can't miss it," said the policeman. "No, wait a bit. What part of Broadway do ye be wantin'?"
"It's near Liberty Street, if you know where that is," said Rob.
"Oh, well, that's different. Stand one side here a minute an' I'll tell ye. Ye don't know N'Yawk?" asked the policeman, taking kindly interest in Rob's case.
She shook her head, and the mammoth guardian of the peace considered, at the same time raising his hand warningly to two encroaching truckmen, and giving the time of day to a frantic woman who carried a bird-cage in her hand and a spaniel under her arm.
"You might take the T'ird Avner L, but ye'd niver find your way over, I'm thinkin'—get out at Fulton Street—no, 'twouldn't do!" the policeman meditated aloud. "An' takin' these Fourt' Avner trolleys is as bad. Ye take this crosstown, and get out at Broadway—tell the conducther to let ye out on the downtown side. There ye'll take a downtown Broadway car—see? Ask, if ye're not sure—an' keep on it till ye get to your number. You can't miss it thin. Not at all, miss; it's wan of our juties to help people. Wait, till I put ye on the car—it's confusin' here, wid the subway an' all. Good luck to ye, miss."
Poor Rob, feeling like a maiden of legend surrounded by dragons, with the yawning, yet unfinished, subway threatening her on one side, and insanely rushing crowds mercilessly assaulting her on all sides, gladly let the big policeman's strong arm clear a way for her to the car, which came westward through Forty-second Street.
"Broadway!" called the conductor, to whom she had confided her desire to know when that point was reached, and Rob was surprised to see six people, beside herself, rise to their feet, plunge off the car, and the men run as for their lives to swing themselves on another car, going in a different direction, just ahead of them.
"There can't be many Broadway cars," thought Rob, but looked up and down to see an interminable line of them coming both ways, and decided that this was the New York unreasonable rush, of which she had heard so much.
A woman with a gentle face, whom Rob timidly approached, put her in the way of getting the car she desired, and she perched herself sideways on the edge of the seat, watching feverishly the numbers, until she realized that she was twelve hundred numbers above the one which her father had given her as that of Mr. Baldwin's office, and subsided for a time to watch the whirl of life around her, with a dizzy interest that precluded all possibility of thought.
Keenly alive as she was in every sense, Rob could not help enjoying the ride, though it did seem interminable. Beautiful shops, displaying everything a girl cares for, were left behind, great buildings began to tower on either hand; truckmen swore at their horses, small boys tried to see how near they could come to the fender of the car in which Rob rode, yet escape unscathed; timid women ran—very like Farmer Flinders's chickens—head down and arms swinging, before the car, having waited until it was almost upon them; Broadway narrowed, yet increased in interest at every block.
An open square, set on three sides with picturesque old buildings—one really beautiful among them—and a statue which Rob immediately recognized as a figure of Nathan Hale, turned her thoughts to the revolutionary New York into which the car had brought her, but seeing, too, that the street numbers had decreased to the second hundred a few blocks lower down, her mind swung with renewed concentration to her own affairs, and her heart fluttered nervously.
Poised on the seat, ready for flight, she kept anxious watch, and at Cortlandt Street signalled the conductor to stop. Threading her way with difficulty through the narrow way, crowded at an hour so near noon, her suit-case proving a menace to others and a trial to Herself, Rob found at last the number she sought. Without giving herself time to be more afraid, she plunged in at the wide doorway, and joined the group waiting for an elevator to descend.
"Mr. Baldwin's office?" Rob said, low, to the man whose touch on the lever had caused the elevator to shoot upward, and all Rob's powers to seem to sink downward to her feet. The elevator was packed with passengers, all men, some of whom removed their hats, but most of whom kept them on, and stared at the young girl in mourning, with the wonderful hair, and the big, frightened eyes.
"Ninth floor," said the man, and continued his rising career.
On the ninth floor Rob, at a forcible reminder from the elevator man, stepped out, dizzy and confused, clutching her unwieldy case, her sole link with the life she had known. It seemed to her, as she stood staring at the door on which the too plain letters, black on the ground-glass, told her she had found John Lester Baldwin, that there was not left of the old, venturesome Roberta Grey even a voice to announce that person.
"Don't be a goose, Rob," she said, giving herself a vigorous mental shake. "The idea of insisting on coming, only to cave before the door!" She turned the handle softly and entered.
A tall man, with a close-cropped, full beard, and keen yet kind eyes, sat at a desk dictating to his typewriter; he looked up as Roberta entered, and seemed surprised—which was not strange—at the sight of a young girl armed with a suit-case, as if she had come to stay.
"Mr. Baldwin?" inquired Rob, faintly, setting down the case, and thus giving herself even more an air of permanency.
"My name is Baldwin, yes," said the lawyer, rising politely. "This is——?"
"Roberta Grey. My father—I am Sylvester Grey's daughter; do you remember him?" said poor Rob.
"Sylvester Grey, my old college mate? Well, rather! My child, I am truly glad to see you, though you make me feel older, finding you so tall, than my own girl does—perhaps because I am used to her," said Mr. Baldwin, coming over to take both of Rob's hands so heartily, that, to her annoyance, she could not keep back the tears. "I have heard nothing of Grey for some time. Come into my private office," he added, seeing the brimming eyes, and noting, with a quick change in his own, the black garments his young visitor wore.
Mr. Baldwin led the way to an inner, much smaller room, and put Rob into a chair.
"What has happened, my dear?" he asked, gently. "I am afraid you have nothing to tell me that I shall want to hear. You have come to me because your father told you that if you needed counsel, his old chum would gladly give it you? He was right, but I fear you need it because Sylvester can counsel you no longer—is this so?"
Rob made a brave struggle to control her voice, helped by the low, even tones, and the little pats on her black sleeve which this good man was giving her—as if, she thought, she were a little child in need of comfort.
"My father had been working hard on a patent for years, Mr. Baldwin," said Rob. "He had angina pectoris, and the doctor warned him of the danger if he did not rest, but he could not rest, because we are poor, and he wanted to make us comfortable. He worked harder than ever, in fact, and now the machine is done. But the very day after a man came from here to see it, and told him it was a success, my dear father——"
Rob stopped short, and Mr. Baldwin patted her hand without speaking for a few moments.
"He had a sweet and beautiful nature, dear, and lived a life that was ideal, in many ways, and that end is mercifully quick. He must have been most happy to know that he had succeeded in providing for you," Mr. Baldwin said at last.
"The last words he said to Mardy and me were full of that thought, Mr. Baldwin. We left him to sleep, and when we came back he had gone," said Rob, trying to smile in the kind face smiling at her, though there were tears in the eyes of Sylvester Grey's old chum. "This was eleven days ago. I don't want to bother you, Mr. Baldwin, but it was to ask advice that I came. The invention Patergrey made was a bricquette machine. Nobody else understood it—not even Mardy—but I did, because I helped him on it for a long time—read his papers and worked the model, and handed him things, and all that, you know. Patergrey called me his 'son Rob'; we were especially much to each other. What I want is to ask you how much that invention is really worth? This Mr. Marston, the man who, as I told you, came to see it, asked Patergrey to let his firm have the option—don't you call it?—on the invention, and after he was gone Patergrey gave me your name and address, and said he intended writing you to ask you what its value was—I was to remind him to do it. But the next day he died, so suddenly, and we were left to dispose of the machine. We had a letter from Mr. Marston three days ago, offering us four thousand dollars for the invention, and telling us we must take it at once if we wanted it, or it would be withdrawn. All the rest want to accept it, but I begged hard to be allowed to come to see you, and for Mardy to write this man, telling him we must have a little time to think about it. For you see, Mr. Baldwin, Patergrey said he would not accept less than fifty thousand dollars, and I can't forget that. Besides, I think there must be something wrong about a man who offers so little, and wants us to take it that minute."
"What do you know about business, child?" asked Mr. Baldwin. "I wish witnesses on the stand stated matters so clearly."
"I only know what I tell you, Mr. Baldwin," said Rob, feeling cheered. "I suppose Mardy wouldn't have listened to me at all, but that I had been Patergrey's right-hand man all this time, and she felt as though he had given me a right in the case; as it was, I had an awful time getting her to let me come here and make Mr. Marston wait, and you can see that I must be frightened to take such responsibility, because if we did lose this offer, and got no other, it would be awful, and I should be to blame—no one else."
"I think you needn't be alarmed, Roberta—you said Roberta, didn't you? You are quite right in your reasoning; a genuine offer for a valuable thing would probably be open for a few days, and its owners should be allowed to investigate. Do you think he knows your father has gone, this Marston of yours?" asked Mr. Baldwin.
"Oh, yes; he spoke of it when he wrote," said Rob.
"Then you are more than ever right. Let me tell you, my child, that I admire your courage and strength of purpose very greatly. I'll send my clerk with a note to a friend of mine—a patent lawyer—and ask on general principles what such an invention might be worth, if it were worth anything—we see this is worth at least the sum offered. You lay off your hat while I write, and then you will sit here and talk to me while we wait the answer; I want to hear all about you, and my messenger won't be long." Mr. Baldwin drew up to the desk and wrote a note, rang a bell, and dispatched it, and then helped Rob divest herself of her coat and hat, and put her comfortably in the window while he won from her the story of the simple life lived in the little grey house, and learned to know the wife and children of his dead friend, whose family he had never met. Rob talked freely, drawn out of herself by the kindly charm which went far toward making Mr. Baldwin the successful lawyer that he was. He read between the lines, understanding much that Rob did not realize she was betraying, and he saw how fine had been the courage that had sustained his friend's wife while Sylvester had been accounted a failure, and how great had been the love for one another that had made life so sweet in the little grey house, while it lacked so much that less wise people consider more essential.
At last the clerk returned, and handed Mr. Baldwin the answer to his note. The lawyer read it and gave it to Rob without comment. In it Mr. Baldwin's friend stated concisely that, although it was obviously impossible to give an opinion as to the value of something of which he knew practically nothing, he could say that it was worth a good deal, if it were worth anything, and that in either case four thousand dollars was a preposterous offer—it was worth nothing, or it was worth decidedly a great deal more than that.
"That's what I thought!" cried Rob, starting to her feet, joyously. "Oh, Mr. Baldwin, I am so relieved—I was so frightened!"
"As frightened as your namesake, General Roberts, at the head of his troops," smiled her new friend. "Braving an unknown city and a grim, unknown lawyer for the cause of right!"
"Why, they call me 'Bobs' after General Roberts at home when I'm unusually daring," cried Rob, delighted.