The Girl Scouts at Home Part 17

"Mrs. Horton, now that the dear child is stolen and by this time probably murdered and buried, and no one the wiser, I think it is only right to tell you that it is all your fault. While I was working here and felt that I could do for Miss Rosanna, I was careful to say nothing at all, and it can never be laid to me that I said one word against you to your granddaughter. No, ma'am, Mrs. Horton, I was true to the wages I earned. I never said one word even to my young man about the way you froze all the happiness out of that dear departed child. And what I could do I did. I tucked her in at night and always kissed her, and when I found out how she wanted to be held tight, I held her and told her fairy stories. And I found out all I could about her father and mother from the other servants, and from cook who has been here for forty years or so, and I told her all the funny things her father did when he was a little boy, and she said it made her feel real acquainted with 'em.

"And she heard or read about putting candles and flowers in front of the statues and paintings of the saints, and she wanted to do it with her mother and father, but she knew she would be told not, so she used to put little bunches of flowers back of the pictures between them and the wall, and mercy knows if they have stained the wall paper. And when they was faded I used to take them out, and oh dear, she was so sweet!"

Minnie choked, Mrs. Hargrave cried quite openly, and Mrs. Horton, deadly pale and dry-eyed, sat shaking like a leaf, her eyes fixed on the painting of her son on the opposite wall.

"And I think it was a _shame_ and a SIN and a CRIME," said Minnie hotly, "that n.o.body but me did these things for her, Mrs. Hargrave, ma'am!

"And now she's gone, and I'll say she's somewhere dead of a broken heart just because she wasn't let to have a single friend and that Helen, the nicest child I ever did see except Miss Rosanna, and what if she _was_ poor? And I don't know what good blood is if it don't show in nice manners and pretty speech and pleasant thoughts and Helen Culver had nothing else.

"Oh, I just feel we will never see Miss Rosanna again, and what did she wear off?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Horton, speaking for the first time.

"You better find out!" said Minnie tartly.

"The detectives know," said Mrs. Horton.

"Oh, Mrs. Horton I sound hard on you, but it's all true, and I can't take it back, and I'm not working here or I wouldn't have said it: but I wish there was something I could do. What _can_ I do? I'd like to pick up her room if I might, please."

"The detectives do not want it touched," said Mrs. Horton. "There is nothing you can do."

Minnie, wiping her eyes, vanished in the direction of the kitchen to see the cook, and Mrs. Horton turned to Mrs. Hargrave.

"Does it seem to you that these people have any right to attack me like this?" she asked with dry lips. "I was not hard with Rosanna. I loaded her with toys and pleasures, and I think they are all very hard on me."

"What do you think about yourself?" asked Mrs. Hargrave gently. "Did you ever hold her and laugh with her, and tell her stories?"

"No; it was not my way," said Mrs. Horton.

"But it was the way of a child," said Mrs. Hargrave. "The way of a tender little motherless child! I do not want to be hard on you, but I have told you for forty years that your pride would be your undoing."

"The telephone!" said Mrs. Horton. She rushed to the instrument and talked for a little with a member of the police force, then she came dragging back to the library.

"They have finished searching the hospitals, and nowhere is there a child answering to the description of Rosanna. I was actually hoping to find her in one of the hospitals."

Suddenly she buried her proud head in her hands and broke into hard sobs. Mrs. Hargrave went over and put an arm around the bowed shoulders.

Presently Mrs. Horton said: "If we only get her back! I never meant to be hard, but I did try so hard to bring her up so she would never have to live and die as unhappily as my little sister, and I felt that if she could be made unbending and proud she would never choose unworthy friends."

"But you were wrong, my dear," said Mrs. Hargrave. "Don't you see it now? There is nothing to be gained in this life by remaining narrow. We must know life and our fellowmen in order to be able to choose wisely and well. How can we tell the worthy from the unworthy unless we have known enough of people to be able to recognize both the good and bad?

Oh, Virginia! I feel that Rosanna will come back to you, to us, and we must remember that we are old women, and she is a child, and like calls to like. We must remember that G.o.d expects us to love and guide her but she must have friends and outside interests."

"Oh, if she only, only comes back!" cried Mrs. Horton.

CHAPTER XVII

The dreadful day dragged to a close, while the detectives and the entire police force scoured the city and the surrounding country.

For the one day they had succeeded in keeping the disappearance out of the papers, hoping that if Rosanna was actually in the hands of kidnapers they would not be frightened into taking her away or harming her to insure their own safety.

Mrs. Hargrave went restlessly back and forth between her own house and Mrs. Horton's, while Mrs. Horton walked endlessly up and down near the telephone, listening and praying for news and imagining horrible things.

Throwing her pride to the winds, Minnie settled herself at Mrs.

Horton's, determined to be on hand if her darling Miss Rosanna needed her. Minnie, for all her dismal predictions, did not give up hope but the thought of what might be happening to Rosanna almost drove her wild.

She could not keep out of Rosanna's room, yet she could not bear to touch a thing that the delicate little hands had handled. She wouldn't dust. Rosanna's brush and comb lay on the dresser, and Minnie looked at them tenderly, thinking of the long curls and wondering where and how that lovely head was resting.

Mr. Culver went down town to a friend of his and borrowed a small car.

In this he scoured the city, and penetrated the most disreputable portions with carefully worded questions concerning a child that had strayed away. At lunch time Helen asked him if he would take her over to see Mary and Gwenny. Helen had been spending her money for Gwenny, and wanted to get her purchases where she could not see them and have them remind her of Rosanna. Poor Helen had cried herself almost sick. With all her broken, loving little heart she had prayed that she might be of some help in finding Rosanna, for she too was sure that she would be restored.

Mr. Culver was glad to take Helen over to Gwenny's, so Helen did the things up in a neat parcel and they started.

"Don't you suppose if everyone knew that Rosanna was lost that they would all help to look for her?" asked Helen.

"It will all come out in to-morrow morning's paper," answered Mr.

Culver. "They were afraid of scaring the people who are holding her, if someone is holding her. The police hoped to find her before the kidnapers were scared into carrying her a long ways off, or hiding her perhaps in some of the caves around here. You see, Helen, with a family as rich as the Hortons are, a child is sometimes held for what they call ransom; that is, an immense sum of money which the parents are glad to pay rather than have the child killed."

Mary and Gwenny were greatly shocked at the news, and wanted to hear all about it over and over. Mr. Culver went on an errand and Helen waited there with the two girls.

"Are they sure she wasn't hurt when she was trying to go somewhere?"

asked Mary.

"Mary saw a little girl run over by an automobile last night," said Gwenny.

"She wasn't really run over," corrected Mary, "but pretty near."

"You don't think it was Rosanna?" cried Helen eagerly.

"Oh, no, it wasn't Rosanna," said Mary. "Rosanna never had on a dress like that; it was just the kind of a dress I would wear and, besides, her hair was cut short. And she wasn't pretty like Rosanna."

"Did you see her close up?" asked Helen curiously.

"Not very," confessed Mary. "She was all covered with dust where the automobile had rolled her into the gutter, and her head was cut, and she was unconscious: but she didn't look like Rosanna any more than I do. I was just wondering if they had been to the hospitals."

"Yes, they went through them all," said Helen. "There were lots of children that had been hurt one way and another, and there was one little girl who had been hurt on the head, and couldn't tell who she was, but she was not Rosanna. The detectives took a picture of Rosanna along so they could be sure."

"That must have been the little girl I saw hurt," said Mary. "It was right on Third Street, and they took her down to the Morton Memorial Hospital right away. But it wasn't Rosanna."

"No, of course not," sighed Helen.

"Of course not!" echoed Mary.

"I wish it _was_ Rosanna," said Helen with a sob. "I wish it was!"

Leaving these thoughts to worry Mary and Gwenny, Helen went off with her father, and in the course of time reached home.

There was a message from Mrs. Horton asking Helen to come to her as soon as she could.