In the sunny embrasure of Mrs. White’s morning room Trude Romley sorted over the mail that Pepper, the butler, had brought in. So gay and colorful was the room itself with its cretonnes, its soft tinted walls, its singing birds, in wicker cages, that it seemed a part of the fragrant garden that crowded close to the French windows. A tiny fountain splashed azure blue water over delicately sculptured nymphs; a flowering vine trailed around the windows.

The mail arranged, Trude sat back in the cushions of a great wicker chair and with a long breath of delight enjoyed the beauty around her. Each day Edgeacres enraptured her anew and roused in her a wonder as to why it should be her lot to be there. “It ought to be Vick or Issy,” she would apologize to the nodding flowers or to Mitie, the yellow warbler.

And as might be expected Trude had found innumerable ways of making herself useful to Mrs. White as an expression of her gratitude. There were telephone calls she could answer, letters she could write, shopping she could do, ordering, she even conferred with old Pepper and Jonathan, the gardener. She drove with Mrs. White in the afternoon and served tea to the callers who flocked to the house from the nearby summer hotels.

“I do not know how I ever got along without you, my dear,” Mrs. White had said more than once. “What do you do to make yourself so invaluable? It seems as though just to look at you one leans on you! Even Pepper is saying ‘Miss Trude thinks this and Miss Trude thinks that—’”

Her benevolent interest in her husband’s wards, a certain pride in saying to her friends: “My husband, you know, is looking after the daughters of Joseph Romley, who was a college friend of his,” had grown into a real fondness for Trude. “I have never appreciated the dear girl when she’s been with us before,” she declared to her husband. “I suppose it was because we were in town, then, and I was too busy to get acquainted with her. Why, she’s really pretty. And she makes such a slave of herself to her sisters! She hasn’t any life of her own. I don’t believe they appreciate it, either. It’s a shame she doesn’t marry some nice young man—” Mrs. White’s kind always found virtue’s reward in the proverbial “nice young man.”

Mr. White agreed with her on every point but this. “If she deserted that household it would fall! She’s the only one that isn’t like her father.”

“Then she must find someone who’ll take the family with her,” Mrs. White asserted determinedly. But having no godmother’s fairy wand she had not been able, during the summer weeks, to bring the prince to Edgeacres; her husband’s acquaintances were too bald and round to play the part of princes.

Trude had not minded the dearth of young men. Since her unhappy experience on a former visit she was glad of that dearth. The serenity of the summer, the relaxation and rest from responsibilities had brought a lovely freshness to her face, a brightness to her eyes that was not all a reflection of the brightness about her. The sheer luxury of loafing, of not having to think out petty problems or worry one single minute was all her old-young heart now asked. Once in awhile, of course, she fretted because Isolde was not enjoying Edgeacres with her, or getting to know how really nice Aunt Edith White was. Where Vick and Sidney were concerned she had no remorse for Vick was seeing new lands, doubtless conquering them, and Sidney was happy at Cape Cod; but she could not help thinking that Issy must be working too hard at the Deerings—getting up early in the morning and typing all through the hot day and doubtless fussing over the housework and the small babies as well.

Trude thought of the mail. Again there had been no letter from either Issy or Sidney! Sidney really ought to write. Perhaps it had not been wise to let her go off alone with relatives of whom they knew nothing!

Suddenly a postmark on one of the letters on the little table at her elbow caught her eye. Provincetown. Trude caught it up apprehensively. That letter might be from their Cousin Achsa! She turned it over and over, wishing she might open it.

“Good morning, my dear! I get up with the birds myself and find that you’re up before me!”

Trude laughed, to cover her anxiety. “I told Jonathan I’d inspect his new beds this morning.”

“There, didn’t I say you were supplanting me in Jonathan’s esteem? But he only wants you to admire them and smile at him. He knows you know nothing about gardens, even though you are a very wise young woman! Ah, the mail—is there anything there worth looking at before breakfast?”

“Two cards, three advertising envelopes and—and two personal letters.” Trude held out the two letters, her heart beating in her throat.

Mrs. White glanced at them indifferently. She turned one as though to tear open the envelope, then stopped to play with Mitie. Next she gave her attention to Pepper who appeared in the door to summon her to breakfast. And all the time Trude’s eyes were beseeching her to open them—to open one of them quickly.

Trude followed her into the breakfast room and sat down across from her. After she had eaten her fruit Mrs. White took up the envelope that was postmarked Provincetown and studied it while Trude waited.

“Why, that’s from Laura Craig—a cousin of mine. I remember now she said she was going to study in a summer school on Cape Cod. I hope the girl’s getting on. She’s dependent upon her own labor.” As she spoke she spread out the sheet. A sketch dropped to the table.

Trude drew a long breath. She had not known how worried she was. She wanted to laugh aloud now from sheer relief. Because she had to do something she took up the sketch with a murmured: “May I?”

“Laura writes it’s a little sketch she made in class. ‘This will show you I am improving. It’s from life. It will give you an idea of the delightful types we find around here, types that you will not find anywhere else. These are two little vagabonds whom you see almost anytime on the beach or around the wharves—as wild and free and beautiful as the seagulls—’”

Mrs. White looked up from the letter to take the sketch and exclaimed aloud at Trude’s face. It had gone deathly white.

“My dear, what is it?”

For a moment Trude could not answer. She was staring at the sketch as though she could not take her eyes from it.

“Read that again! These are types—you find these girls any time on the wharves—wild—vagabonds! Oh, Aunt Edith that’s—that’s—Sidney!”

“Why, it can’t be, Trude. You said—”

Trude shook her head. “I can’t help what I said. It’s Sidney. I—know. The likeness is true—there can’t be anyone else who looks like Sidney! But she’s barefooted—and—and so—slovenly—and—her hair! She’s cut her beautiful hair!”

Mrs. White took the sketch forcibly from Trude. She frowned over it. One of the girls certainly did look like Sidney as she remembered the child from their one meeting.

“How do you explain it, Trude?”

Trude sighed heavily. “I can’t explain it. There’s something wrong somewhere. And it’s my fault, Aunt Edith. I—I consented—we all consented to let Sidney go off down there just so that we could go ahead with our own plans. But we thought—we felt certain that these cousins were very nice—I—I mean had a lovely home and were rich so that Sidney might get something out of her visit that she couldn’t get at home. It sounds shameful to say it.”

“I understand, my dear. But what made you think so?”

“The—the letter this Cousin Achsa wrote. It was a very nice letter!”

“Well, I have always thought you could judge anyone’s character and background by a letter. There must be something wrong. This girl—” pointing to the sketch, “is positively shocking! At least she would be around here.”

“I remember now something Sidney said—when she was begging us to let her go away. ‘I want to be different! I want to go somewhere where I won’t be Joseph Romley’s daughter. I want adventure and to do exciting things—’ Those were her very words! I didn’t take them seriously then, but, oh, Aunt Edith, perhaps she meant them more than we guessed!” Poor Trude rose quickly to her feet. “Aunt Edith, I simply must go to Provincetown at once. May I ask Pepper to find out about trains? You’ll—you’ll understand, won’t you? I can’t be happy one minute until I see the child. I feel that it’s all my fault.”

Mrs. White was all concern. She summoned Pepper and instructed him to find out the first train; she sent her maid to Trude’s room to pack her clothes. And last she wrote a generous check.

“You may need it, my dear. It is nothing. Don’t thank me. I wish I could do more. Somehow your shoulders seem too young to carry so much responsibility!”

So on the selfsame day that Sidney and the others set out upon their adventure Trude was journeying to Cape Cod. She missed connections at Boston and hired an automobile to take her to Provincetown, in her heart thanking Mrs. White for the check that made this possible. Two blow-outs delayed her journey so that it was midnight when she reached her destination. She could scarcely hunt out the Greens and Sidney at that hour. She took a room at the hotel for the night and sat for a while at its window straining her eyes out into the darkness. The howling of the wind intensified her apprehension; somewhere out in that strange blackness that enwrapped her was her little sister. Perhaps Sidney needed her that very moment!

Finally she crept into bed and fell into a troubled sleep. She did not hear the running steps that passed under her window or the muffled voices of excited men.