The following Wednesday had been set for Mrs. Lynch's dinner of "pot roast and cabbage salad."

"You'll think we're awfully poor, Robin, when you see that mean old cottage," Beryl complained as the girls were dressing for the dinner.

Robin, hesitating between a Madonna blue and a yellow dress, turned quickly at the tone in Beryl's voice.

"Oh, Beryl, what difference does your house make! I want to know your mother and your father and—Dale."

"Well, there's no use your dressing up—it'll just make everything else there look absurdly shabby."

Robin laid the garment she held down upon the bed. A puzzled look darkened the glow in her eyes. There were a great many times when she found it difficult to understand Beryl's changing moods. She herself was too indifferent to clothes to know that it was the two pretty gowns she had brought out from her wardrobe that had now sent Beryl into the dumps.

"I won't dress up, Beryl. I just thought your mother would like to have me—out of respect to her party. I didn't think you wouldn't like it. But if you think I'm going down there to stare around at the things in the house and pick to pieces the dishes and the food—you're wrong, Beryl. I think your mother must be a wonderful woman and I am just crazy to meet her and I know I'm going to love your father and I never talked to a boy in my whole life except in school when I had to! There!" Robin stopped for very lack of breath.

This unexpected show of spirit, so unlike Robin's usual gentleness, took Beryl back. Fond as she was of her mother she had never thought of her as exactly "wonderful" or of anyone wanting to know her, or her poor, crippled father, or Dale. She laughed a little shamefacedly.

"Oh, wear what you want to, Robin. I suppose I'm jealous because I haven't anything except that old gray thing that's just tottering with age. What a joke to call Dale a boy! Why, he's never been a boy, because he's worked so hard for everything."

"Well, I'm glad I'm going to meet him, anyway." Robin spoke with excitement. It did not matter at all what she wore—without a moment's hesitation she put away the blue and the yellow dress and brought forth the mouse colored jersey she had worn when she arrived at Gray Manor—she was going to meet Beryl's family. Robin, who had never had any family except "Jimmie," imagined beautiful things of family life, mostly colored by books she had read and pictures she had seen. Brothers were always big strong fellows who sometimes teased their younger sisters but were always ready with a helping hand; fathers—well, she knew about fathers, having had Jimmie, but Beryl's father must be very different because of his accident. It was "Mom" that she most wanted to know. She hoped Beryl's mother would kiss her. At the thought her heart gave a quick little beat.

When Percival Tubbs, to whom Harkness, uncertain as to the propriety of a Forsyth dining at one of the Mill cottages had appealed, had mildly endeavored to point out to Robin that this dinner-party was not exactly "fitting," Robin had simply not been able to understand and had answered so honestly: "Why, just because I'm a Forsyth doesn't make me a bit better than those people who work in the Mills, does it?" That Mr. Tubbs had abandoned his point with a mental reservation not unlike Mrs. Budge's beloved: "Things are going to sixes and sevens."

And below stairs the loyal Harkness, putting off his own doubt, had met Mrs. Budge's scorn of the whole "goings-on" with a grand defense of his little mistress: "Some lydies in 'igh places distribute their bounty in baskets but if Miss Gordon sees fit to carry 'ers in her pretty little 'eart, I don't say it's for us to be a thinking it isn't the 'appier way," and Budge knew he was very much in earnest because he forgot his h's, a little trick of speech he had long ago overcome.

For a finishing touch to her despised "best" dress, Beryl brought forth her green beads. Robin exclaimed over them, taking them out of Beryl's hand to hold them to the light.

"Oh, they are lovely, Beryl, see the deep glow! They're like the sea. You ought to be proud of them."

"They're just some beads an old priest gave mother when she was a girl," Beryl explained, making her voice indifferent. She loved Robin's enthusiasm but half-suspected it might be "put on" in order to make up to her for the things she did not have. "They do look nice on this dress, though, don't they?" She laid them against her neck and stared with satisfaction at the reflection in the long mirror.

The Lynch cottage, in honor of the occasion, sparkled with orderliness. Mrs. Moira looked very gay in a pretty foulard she had made over from two of Miss Lewis' old dresses; her fluttering hands alone betrayed her nervousness and her fears that though the most tempting smells came from the stove her dinner might not be "just right" for little Miss Forsyth and for Dale's new friend, too.

However, when Robin came into the room with Beryl she looked so appealingly small that Mrs. Lynch promptly forgot she was a Forsyth and that the dinner might not be good enough and put her arms around her and kissed her. And Robin with an impulsive movement snuggled closer to the warm embrace.

"Why, it's a mite of a thing you are," cried Mrs. Moira with the singing note in her voice that always came when she was deeply moved. "And hungry, I hope. Well, Dale will be here in a moment and then we'll dish up."

Then everything was just like Robin had hoped it would be. Beryl's mother called them "children" and let them help her with the finishing touches of the dinner. Beryl's father smiled at her and patted her hand. She did not see the little room with Beryl's eyes, its limited space into which so much had to be crowded, the cracked shade on the lamp, the dingy carpeting that held together through some kind miracle, she only thought it cosy and homey; she liked the queer old clock and the blue bowl filled with artificial jonquils and the crocheted "tidies" with dogs designed in intricate stitches.

"Here's Dale!" whispered Beryl. "I'm crazy to meet his friend. I'm going to sit next to him at the table, see if I don't."

In the excitement of Dale's arrival and of introducing the strange "Mr. Kraus" no one noticed Robin for a moment, or that she stared at Dale with round, puzzled eyes. Had she ever seen him before? When Beryl turned suddenly and said: "Dale, this is Gordon Forsyth," she hoped he would say: "Why, I know her." However, he merely mumbled "How do you do," stiffly, and turned away, to Beryl's indignation and Robin's vague disappointment.

The pot roast and the cabbage salad were as delicious as Mrs. Moira's loving pains could make them; Dale's friend talked mostly to big Danny and Mrs. Moira listened and Dale occasionally put in a word. Over her plate Robin watched first one and then another, her eyes invariably coming back to Dale's face. Beryl, annoyed that no one noticed her and Robin and treated them "as though they were just children," ate ravenously, in dignified silence.

The talk centered about the Mills. Adam Kraus freely ridiculed the Forsyth methods. "They're miles behind the times," he declared and compared them glibly with other similar industries. "Old Norris belongs to the has-beens. Look at the machinery he uses—all right in its day, of course. But if a fellow went to him with some new kind of a loom, would he look at it? Not he! The old's good enough."

"Hear that, Pop?" put in Dale, exchanging a meaning glance with his father.

"And look at the way they house the mill hands here, putting a fellow like Dale with his cleanness and his brains and his possibilities, into a dump like this. They don't recognize the human element in industries of this sort or what it's worth to them. Why, there's no argument any more as to the increased efficiency from giving better living conditions—but I'll bet Norris hasn't heard of it."

"We haven't been here long enough to know—" Mrs. Lynch began gently but Dale interrupted her, his voice rough.

"It isn't Norris alone, Adam. You've got to go further up—it's the House of Forsyth. They're feudal lords—or like to think they are. Do you suppose it mattered much up there, when the little Castle girl had her arm crushed in that old wheel last month and died because her body wasn't nourished enough to stand under the amputation? A lot they cared—just one bit of machinery gone for a day—another—"

"Dale—" cried Mrs. Lynch, in distressed embarrassment, and suddenly everyone looked at Robin.

Robin had been listening to Adam Kraus and Dale with deep interest. It was not until Mrs. Lynch exclaimed and all eyes turned in her direction that she connected what they were saying with her own self. Under Dale's sudden scrutiny she flushed.

"I forgot you were here, little Miss Forsyth." But this was so far from an apology that Mrs. Lynch looked more distressed than before and Beryl glared at her brother.

"Oh, please don't mind me," begged Robin. She was glad Dale did not say he was sorry for what he had been saying; she wanted to know more. She wanted to tell them that she called the Mills a Giant and that she hated them and that Cornelius Allendyce had told her she should look for a Jack who could climb the Bean Stalk, only she was afraid of the stranger and a little of Dale, too. "Won't you tell me all about the—the Castle girl?"

"There isn't much to tell about her that's different from ninety-nine other cases. She was supporting a younger brother and sister. The brother's only twelve years old but he had to go to work—said he was sixteen. The kid sister helps the grandmother as much as she can."

"Do they live in one of these houses?"

"In the old village. They're cheaper, you see. The boy can't earn as much as Sarah Castle did and they had to move up the river."

"Could I go to see them—sometime?"

Mrs. Lynch answered for Dale. "Of course you can, dearie. And I'll go with you. It's from my own county they say the grandmother comes and likely she'll know some of the old people."

"Oh, will you?" Robin's eyes shone like two deep pools reflecting starlight. "I'd like to know everyone here in the village and what they do. Perhaps the—the other Forsyths wanted to really know the Mill people, too, only they—they've been so unhappy. But I'm different, you see—I'm a girl and so sort of—little."

"Bless the warm little heart of her—defending her own," thought Mrs. Lynch, and Dale, his face softening until it was boyish, smiled and said: "You are a little thing, aren't you?"

At his smile, a wave of memory rushed over Robin with such suddenness that a breathless "oh" escaped her parted lips. A dark night and lonely streets, a chill wind cutting her face, an iron fence enclosing a deserted triangle of dead grass and filthy papers—a kind voice telling her not to cry—of course, her Prince! She peeped almost fearfully at Dale who was joking with Beryl. He did not know—he had forgotten, of course. He had been a big boy, then, and he had not gone on playing the little game the way she had. How wonderful, how very wonderful, to find him. And Beryl's brother! She did not mind at all what he had said about the Forsyth's. If he said it, it must be true. She would find out.

Mrs. Lynch, beaming over her simple dinner, little knew that Destiny sat at her board, shaping, moulding, gathering and weaving the threads of life, golden and drab.

To Beryl's disgust, after the meal Dale brought forth his "toy." But Adam Kraus, instead of showing the boredom which Beryl expected, studied it with absorbed keenness, quickly grasping what Dale wanted to do.

"Have you ever shown this to Morris?" he asked Dale.

Dale shook his head. "No use to do it now—until I've worked the thing out to perfection. And I can't do that—without money."

Robin, wiping plates for Mrs. Lynch, caught Dale's words and Adam Kraus' answer.

"I wonder if Norris would see what an invention like that—if you can make it do what you say you can—would be worth to these mills. It would lift them out of the boneyard of antiquity and put them fifty years ahead of their competitors. Why, I'll bet Granger's would give you a cool twenty thousand for that just as it stands. It would serve Norris right, too."

Dale's face flushed with excitement. "Do you really think all that, Adam? Pop and I've gotten so down in the dumps trying to work the thing out that we've lost our sense of values."

"Inventors never have any," laughed Kraus, with a change in his voice. And he commenced hastily to talk of other things, to Dale's disappointment.

Robin pulled timidly at Dale's arm.

"Who's Grangers?"

"Grangers? Don't you know the big mills up at South Falls?"

"Would they—if they took—that—you'd go there—" She tried desperately to voice the fear that had shaped in her heart; Grangers taking this funny wooden thing that Mr. Kraus said was worth so much, and Dale going away from Wassumsic, and Dale's mother—and Beryl.

"You just bet I would," and Dale laughed. "But don't worry, we won't be going for a while."

Robin had so much to think about that night that she could not go to sleep. She did not want to go to sleep. Up to this day she had been just little Robin Forsyth, "Red-Robin," at Gray Manor to let Jimmie have his chance; happy, because Jimmie was having his chance and Beryl was with her and Beryl was unfailingly interesting.

Now she realized that a Forsyth couldn't be just "anything." A Forsyth ought to care about those awful Mills, that were in some sort of a "boneyard," and about the people who worked in them—especially poor Sarah Castle's brother and sister. And there were probably many other boys and girls. She'd ask Mrs. Lynch—or Dale.

Beryl stirred and Robin ventured to speak.

"Beryl, are you awake? If Mr. Norris bought that invention of your brother's, would it make things easier for—the Mill people?"

Beryl jerked herself up on her elbow.

"Red-Robin Forsyth, are you crazy? Fussing over that absurd toy of Dale's at this hour? Why should you care?" Beryl sank back into her pillows and stretched. "Didn't Mr. Kraus have the most glorious eyes?"

Robin answered with amazing positiveness. "No, I hated his eyes. They were not true eyes. But—I like Dale—lots." And just here, for the second time, she locked her lips on her precious secret for Dale must never know that she remembered him; all that belonged to her childhood. Beryl might laugh, too, as she often did at her "fancies," and call her "funny."

Thinking of Dale brought her thoughts back to the Mills so that while Beryl snuggled her sleepy head back into her pillow, she stared at the thin shaft of light that shone under the door and wished she was big instead of "a little bit of a thing" and very wise so that she would know what to do to show these people in Wassumsic that she—a Forsyth, did care.