It was on the day of Gloria's visit with the District Nurse that Mr. McAndrew came home to luncheon, which was rather an unusual proceeding for the busy attorney during hot weather. Mrs. McAndrew, seated with her mending on the shady piazza, could see a worried expression upon her husband's face even before he reached the steps.

“Something is the matter,” she said, rising hastily, while spools and scissors fell upon the cat dozing near. “Something is the matter or he would never have come home in this boiling sun.”

“What is it, dear?” she asked, as the middle-aged, slightly bent figure toiled up the steps exhaustedly.

“Where is Gloria?” was Mr. McAndrew's reply, as he dropped with a sigh of relief into one of the piazza chairs.

“Gone with Miss—I can't think of her name—the District Nurse. She would go—you mustn't blame me. Ask Abou Ben if she wasn't the settest little thing!”

“I was afraid so—felt it in my bones. Now, why,” groaned the lawyer, “must she have selected today? And here I've come up home at the risk of my life all to no end! I wanted to make sure she wasn't poking round in that miserable street today, of all days—and you have to tell me she is!”

“You mustn't blame me,” his wife repeated mildly. “You know yourself when Glory's set—”

“Yes, but you ought to have been set, too! Why didn't you put your foot down that she shouldn't go off to such a foolish place? No knowing what mischief it has done!” worried a look as did her husband's. Then she added, “If we had explained the whole thing to her at the start, it would not have been so difficult. But how is anyone to tell her now? She is so intense, and she's hardly more than a child to reason with. And in the meantime she's gotten so many ideas into her head that she wouldn't have had, maybe, if she had known the situation from the first, and grown up with it.”

“I acted for the best,” her husband grumbled. “Such things are coming up in life all the time. But when women are mixed up in 'em, there's no making them see straight. It wasn't fitting that Gloria should have everything explained to her at the start. It wasn't businesslike. When she comes into full control of things herself, it will be different. I am afraid Richards is not quite the man to have charge of things down there. I have given him his own way too much. But one has to with Richards. He's a good collector.”

“But the stair-rail, dear,” interposed his wife. “Stair-railings should be secure, above all things.”

“Yes, Richards ought to have seen that everything was safe. I cannot understand a glaring negligence like that. He's always given me the impression that things were kept very fairly shipshape.” Having said this, Mr. McAndrew rose and began pacing the veranda.

“Richards said it was a poor, half-witted creature,” he murmured, as though thinking aloud.

“But, dear,” interposed his wife, “half-witted creatures can be killed!”

Aunt Em's thoughts seemed to be keeping pace with those of the man marching up and down the piazza floor.

“Oh, she won't die. That sort o' folks don't,” her husband answered.

And at that moment Gloria was standing in Rose's room in No. 80, listening to the dying away of the footsteps of the angry mother of Sal, the woman vowing vengeance on the one who could leave a house to tumble down over people's heads. And in with the angry tones were the protesting ones of the District Nurse.

A few moments later Rose's door opened, and the District Nurse, flushed and worried, entered.

“Sal's mother has been drinking, and she's wild over the accident,” she said in tones as steady as she could make them. But Gloria saw that she was strangely wrought up.

“Drink or no drink,” said Gloria, with a bridling of her head. “I should think a mother had cause to be worked up over an accident like that.” A look of hauteur was on the young girl's face. “That such things can be, and no note taken of them, is a disgrace to the century.”

The nurse's face paled, as she looked into Gloria's eyes.

“Don't, Gloria, don't!” she said pleadingly. “It is pitiful enough. Don't—” she stopped.

“And may not one even utter a protest against the existence of such a thing?” said Gloria. “Well, I shall go to the hospital and see Sal. I can at least do that.”

“It can hardly do any good,” said the nurse in a discouraged tone. “But if you really wish to go, Gloria, I will go with you.”

“Very well,” said Gloria, “we will go just as soon as we get rested after luncheon.”

At the corner near Gloria's home, the District Nurse bade Gloria good-by, as she had an errand to do on her way home. Gloria watched her to a car. Then she turned and made her own way back to Treeless Street. It was on the corner near No. 80 that she came upon the very one she was wishing for.

“Oh, Dinney, I am so glad to find you! I want your help. You are a good business man, and I want you to do something for me.”

“I a good business man?” said Dinney, grinning from ear to ear. “I should say! What's your business, Miss?” And having said this, he doubled up with droll laughter.

“Don't!” said Gloria, laying her hand beseechingly upon him. “I am really in earnest.”

Dinney straightened, and then in as decorous a manner as he could command, said:

“I'm your man for business.”

“Very well. Now, Dinney, you're listening. I want you—to—find—out,” said Gloria, impressively speaking each word distinctly, “who it is that owns No. 80. I want you to find it out, and I want you to tell me and no one else. If you will find out and promise not to tell anyone else, and will come to me with the name, then I will give you a five-dollar gold piece.”

Dinney's breath was fairly taken away. He stood there on the sidewalk stock still, looking into the face of the girl before him. At last he said in an awed voice:

“Honest?”

“Honest,” answered Gloria.

The boy drew a long breath. Five dollars! Instantly there came before him some little red shoes for Hunkie, and some stockings, and maybe a little red cap. But there was not time to go further into the matter as to what five dollars might stand for. Gloria's hand was grasping his shoulders with a firm grip.

“Will you find it out, Dinney? Will you? Will you come to me straight with the name and to nobody else?”

What she saw of honesty and truth in Dinney's face so satisfied the girl that her hands fell from the thin shoulders, and she in turn drew a long breath as though she had found at last something she had long been seeking. Then she looked down at Dinney. “I am going to tell you, Dinney, just why I am wanting to find out. You would like to know a nice secret; something we can keep to ourselves—a wonderful secret!” Dinney was all expectation. At last he said, “Ma used to tell me things. She told me lots the rest of the folks didn't know. All about pa and how it was when they first married and lots more. I never told anyone else around, as she said not to.”

“And you won't tell this? We will have it all to ourselves, and it will make you want to help me. Sometimes boys can find out things big folks can't. It came to me when I was walking along with the District Nurse that you were just the one to help me. You're so—well, so sharp yet safe. If they suspected, they would not let us know, maybe.”

The two were now walking along in a companionable way back in the direction Gloria had come.

“Dinney, if you find out who owns that house I will buy it. I've got money; Uncle Em says I have. I will buy it and we'll fix it up good.” Dinney's face was aglow, his eyes shone, his breath was drawn sharp and quick.

“Would you put in new stairs and new ceilings and new window panes if you bought that house?”

“Yes, I would,” said Gloria. “At first I thought I'd tear it down. But I don't believe now I would, it's been home for so many. I'd just like to see it fixed up the way it should have been years and years and years ago.”

“And you'd fix the hole in the ceiling?” asked the boy. Evidently that break in the ceiling over the bed that had been his mother's had left a deep impression on him.

“Wouldn't I, Dinney!” And now the girl's eyes shone. “It is a secret worth keeping,” she said.

“I should say!” answered Dinney. “And I'll find out if—if—it takes my life, I will.”

Dinney was young in years, but old in experience. His small figure now straightened with determination, and over his face swept a look of honest manliness far beyond his years. Gloria, looking down upon him, felt glad she had taken him for a helper. “I wish mother had waited,” Dinney said quietly, and then the two parted.

After her late luncheon, eaten alone, her uncle having returned to the office, Gloria was ready for the District Nurse, who had promised to go with her to the hospital. Aunt Em was taking a nap, so Gloria did not disturb her. As the two walked along, Gloria's impatience broke forth afresh.

“A coat of tar and feathers would serve the one right that allows such things to exist!” she said.

“Don't, Gloria!” cried the nurse, in the same tone of terror she had used in the hallway when trying to quiet Sal's mother.

“But I mean it!” said Gloria. “I don't see how the owner of that building with all those trippy places can sleep nights. Think of anyone taking rent for a house like that! I never knew such places were allowed in the market.”

“I don't believe I would be so hard, Gloria, if I were you. Let it rest.” There was a strange note of wistful pleading in the nurse's voice. But Gloria did not heed it.

“Let it rest? Never!” she answered.

The hospital reached, the neatly-uniformed interne who came down to answer the District Nurse's inquiry, assured them that their patient was resting quietly. He even went so far as to say that possibly the fall might work good in the end.

“I only say might in a general way. If the poor creature's mental apathy has been due to an injury of the head, it may possibly be. Do you know the cause of her mental condition?” he inquired of the nurse.

The nurse gave the information desired.

“If that is so, then the second blow may neutralize the first. It is certainly an interesting case.” But at the end he assured his visitors that time only could prove what the outcome might be. “Poor Sal!” said the nurse, as they left the large building, and went quietly down the stone steps. “I wonder if it would be comforting to her to know she is an 'interesting case.' Sal was never interesting before.”

“But just think if he should be right!” said Gloria, quivering with excitement. “Wouldn't it be beautiful, just beautiful, if it should come true! It would almost make me forgive that awful man who did not mend the railing.”

“But then,” said the nurse, “unless life changes all through for Sal, it might be worse to be beaten and starved and feel conscious of it, than to be beaten and starved in a half-demented condition.”

“Oh, don't put it that way!” said Gloria.

“I could not help thinking how little you can see of what her life all these years has been—you with your young sheltered life.”

Gloria's face softened. “No; one cannot discern—that is, I mean I could not before to-day. But anything seems possible after all that has happened to-day.”

It was while Gloria was standing on her own steps, having watched the District Nurse close her door, that she caught sight of a little figure flying up the street. It was Dinney. She waited impatiently for his approach.

“I've got it, Miss Gloria!” he said, coming panting up the steps. “I've got it! I struck the very man and he told me. He wrote it down for me. It belongs to an estate. Here it is.”

Gloria looked down at the card that bore a few lines indifferently traced. But what her eyes met caused the color to drift from her face.

“Are you sure, Dinney?” she said sharply to the boy. “Are you sure? Quick!” A faintness was seizing her.

“Sure,” answered the boy.

The girl laid a trembling hand upon the door. “I will get the money for you, Dinney, when I know you are dead right.”

The voice was not the voice Dinney knew. Looking at the girl, he saw that tears had sprung to her eyes. She was fumbling blindly with the latch-key.

“Miss Gloria,” he said, in an awed voice, as he took the key and fitted it for her, “don't you go to feeling like that.” Suddenly he was a man in his protective earnestness. “It ain't nothin' to you.”

But Gloria had passed him and was already ascending the broad flight of stairs leading from the reception hall. She had forgotten her key, she had forgotten to close the door. Dinney thoughtfully took the key out and placed it on a stand near. Then closing the door after him, he went slowly down the steps.

Somehow the brightness had gone from the day—he knew not why. But it was gone. He turned toward Pleasant Street—Gloria's “Treeless Street”—but there was no whistle now upon his lips.