A day or so after this memorable meeting of the Girl Scouts things commenced to happen so rapidly that Rosanna was fairly dizzy.

Uncle Bob's affairs straightened out and the family set off for New York, where they were to take passage for France, their first stopping place. Rosanna, with a heartache that she could not control, went over with her modest little trunk to stay with Claire. It was a tremendous sacrifice for the little girl to give up this marvelous journey, and all her fine generosity and tenderheartedness failed to save her a few deep pangs. But if ever a girl was repaid, it was enough to pay anyone to see the wordless gratitude of Claire.

When Claire found that the Hortons were going abroad and that Rosanna intended to remain with the Maslins, it was necessary to tell her something of the reason why, for of course she could not understand the common sense of Rosanna remaining with her. So Colonel Maslin explained that a new doctor was going to try the effect of an operation on her mother. Doctor Branshaw did not want to operate until he was sure that his patient was in good condition, so he insisted on waiting for awhile and to Claire this waiting would be the greatest strain of all. So much depended on the operation. Her mother, her beautiful, gay, young mother restored almost from the dead, or else.... Claire stopped there. She did not feel herself strong enough to think of anything but her mother getting well.

The doctor and Colonel Maslin agreed that it would not do to worry Claire, and so the wistful and frightened girl was thrown more and more on the kindness of Rosanna. Claire was frightened. It dawned on her that perhaps her mother might die in this terrible operation that was coming. Rosanna did not fail her. She carried Claire out of her despairing moods by her own cheerful, hopeful presence and, thanks to her, the time passed quickly.

School ended and vacation commenced. The summer heat beat on Louisville, and even the shady byways and lanes running through the beautiful parks were breathless. Colonel Maslin begged the girls to go into the country but Claire refused to leave him.

The Troop of Girl Scouts went off for a week's camping, but as Claire would not leave her father, Rosanna decided not to go. The girls returned, sunbrowned and bubbling with funny accounts of the trip. Every evening a row of them came and sat on the Maslin porch, and told new stories.

Claire and Rosanna almost felt as though they had been present. When Jane and Estella and Elise and Helen came, all talking at once, it was hard to figure out just what had happened.

But the funniest one of all was Mabel Brewster. Whether it was her experiences on the staff of the Times-Leader or her evident happiness in her return to her home, it was hard to say; but she had become a fine story-teller and was the life of the party. She always saw the funny side of things and could tell a joke on a girl without being bitter.

There came at last hot and stifling days when the thunderheads piled high in the west and the leaves hung sagging on the branches. The girls kept within doors in a desperate effort to keep out of the worst of the heat. At noon Colonel Maslin came in, looking troubled and worn. He sat down on a wicker chair near the girls, who were flat on the floor propped on their elbows, trying to read.

"Claire, I have just had a telephone call from the doctor," he said. "He wants to see me. Will you come? I think you had better."

"Of course, daddy!" said Claire at once. She got up. "At what time does our train go?"

"I thought we might drive over," said the Colonel. "It would be so hot on a train a day like this. Will you come too, Rosanna?"

"I would love to," answered Rosanna.

"Just tell Chang to get ready, will you, dear?" asked the Colonel of his daughter. She left the room, and they heard her calling to Chang in the distance.

"Rosanna, the time has come," said the Colonel in a voice which shook a little. "We won't tell Claire until we reach Cincinnati, but this weather is undoing all the weeks of preparation, and the doctor says the operation must take place immediately. Mrs. Maslin has been feeling so well that he is very anxious to try the experiment when she is at her strongest and best. He promises nothing. It may result in her death, but we must try it, Rosanna, if only for Claire's sake."

"Does she—Mrs. Maslin know about it?" asked Rosanna.

"She knows nothing, my dear," said the Colonel sadly. "Just sits and looks into space all day long. And she was the gayest, brightest, happiest creature. They called her the most popular woman in the Army. I can't tell you what she was to us." He bent his fine head and a sigh that was nearly a sob shook his shoulders. "We may lose her," he whispered.

"No, indeed!" said Rosanna. "I know Dr. Branshaw is going to make her perfectly well again. I don't feel worried at all. I feel so happy I don't know what to do. So glad! Oh, Colonel, just think! Claire will have her mother again. You can't think how a person wants her mother. It doesn't matter how many other people are good to you no one is like a mother. I am sure this is so, because you know my mother is dead, and I feel so lonely and empty, even when I have my grandmother and Cita and Uncle Bob. Somehow nobody's shoulder feels the same as a mother's. My mother died when I was a baby, but I know it, just the same."

Tears started to Colonel Maslin's eyes as he listened to the brave, uncomplaining little girl.

"You are quite right, my dear," he said. "And I pray that your doctor will give Claire's mother back to her. If she is cured, it will be your gift. Not one of the specialists we have had ever discovered the piece of bone pressing on her brain."

"She will be well," declared Rosanna. "I wish the operation was all over with."

She wished it more than ever the next day when they swallowed a heavy apology for a breakfast and drove to the hospital where Mrs. Maslin had been taken. Rosanna will never to the end of her days be able to look at certain magazines without a shudder. The two girls sat or walked restlessly around the bare waiting-room, turned over the pages of the periodicals on the prim table, or gazed silently out of the window where they could see the usually impassive and unmoved Chang pacing restlessly up and down beside the limousine.

Occasionally Colonel Maslin came in, made a brief comment, and dashed out again. Each time he left Claire whispered, "Poor father!" little guessing that her father, rushing back to the operating-room, was whispering to himself, "Poor Claire! My poor baby!"

Somehow or other time dragged on, the anxiety growing with every moment until at last, looking more haggard than ever, Colonel Maslin entered and took his daughter in his arms.

"It is over, darling," he said huskily. "It was very bad. She may not live. You must be brave. She is coming out of the ether, and the doctor wants us to be with her when she becomes conscious. Can you be quite calm and natural?"

"You know that I can," said Claire quietly. "Come, dad!"

They left the room and Rosanna, forgotten, clasped her hands passionately. "Oh, please save her! Please make her well! Claire needs her mother," she prayed over and over.

In the silent room upstairs Claire caught a blurred impression of whiteness and watchfulness. Her mother's bloodless hand lay on the counterpane and a doctor watched the fluttering pulse. Another doctor stood ready to administer an injection in case the feeble heart should fail. A couple of nurses moved swiftly but noiselessly here and there. They made way for the man and girl and beckoned them close to the bed. Colonel Maslin dropped on one knee and standing with her arm around his neck, Claire looked at her mother whom she had not seen for so long.

Her head was closely bandaged, but oh, how beautiful and how dear she was! After what seemed an endless time there was a flutter of the white eye-lids, and they lifted slowly. For a moment the beautiful eyes stared blankly. Hope died in Claire's heart. Then the weary eyes found them, looked at the Colonel, studied Claire in a curious way, and then seemed to embrace them both. A faint smile flickered across the face, and a faint whisper trembled on the air.

"My two sweethearts!" Mrs. Maslin said, and as though even that was too great a tax drifted off into unconsciousness again.

"She is all right," said Doctor Branshaw. "Better go now, Maslin. I will see you downstairs."

Tears were pouring down the Colonel's face as he rose and with a long, adoring look at his wife, left the room, Claire clinging to his hand. But out in the long corridor, the door safely closed behind them, Claire gave a deep sigh and quietly fainted.

The Colonel picked his daughter up, turned into the first unoccupied room and laid her on the bed. Then he hurried after a nurse. When Claire came to herself, Rosanna, rather pale, was holding her hand. She was trying to swallow something bitter, and her father stood near her, looking as though he was to blame.

"Oh, I am so sorry, daddy!" she said as soon as she could speak. "I feel all right. What a silly thing for me to do! How is mother?"

"If you are going to behave yourself now, dear, I will go and see," said Colonel Maslin. He kissed her and hurried off. Claire, feeling strangely weak but so happy, turned to Rosanna.

"She knew us!" she said. "She knew us both, and now, even if she dies, I will always have that to remember."

"She will not die!" Rosanna declared for the hundredth time.

"There are worse cases than your mother's," said the nurse comfortingly. "If she stands the shock, she will be all right, and I am sure she will. Don't you worry or think she is not going to be well. You want to send thoughts of courage and strength to her instead of thinking that she must die."

"That sounds like some of the new religions," said Rosanna.

"It is not," said the nurse. "It is just plain common sense. Just you try it!"

"I don't need to," said Rosanna. "I know Mrs. Maslin will get well, and Claire will know so, too, when she gets over being frightened."

Claire did get over being frightened, although for many days her mother's life hung by a thread. They stayed at the nearest hotel, and as Colonel Maslin had been given leave of absence they had the comfort of his presence.

As time went on and it became a certainty that Mrs. Maslin would live and be her own self again, Claire was allowed to see her mother. At first her visits were limited to a skimpy five minutes once a day, spent under the eyes of a stern nurse who watched the time and put her out without mercy. But as the days wore by and the invalid grew stronger, Claire was allowed to spend many happy hours with her mother.

Came a day when the Colonel was obliged to return to duty. And after a talk with her mother Claire went with him, Rosanna of course accompanying them. Rosanna had had a good time after the first period of worry, during which she never left Claire for a half hour. And Claire was grateful. Rosanna did not guess how grateful. She did not guess how often Claire talked to her mother and father about the Girl Scout's loyalty and devotion. And Claire was naturally so quiet that it was hard for her to tell Rosanna just what she thought about it all. But Rosanna did not mind. She knew without words what her companionship had meant to Claire during her time of trial.

Rosanna knew from that strange inner source that tells us so much and leads us so unerringly that she had done right to give up the chance to see the Ports of the World. And she was glad. Her sacrifice had proved to her, at least, that being a Girl Scout meant more than the happy companionship along the woodland ways in summer, or the friendly striving for merits in winter.

One little thing worried her: her task was to be finished sooner than she had thought. When Claire's mother came home, Rosanna did not want to be there. For one thing, she wisely felt that Mrs. Maslin would want Claire all to herself, and she knew that Claire would have no time or thought to give anyone else, even a friend as well loved as Rosanna knew herself to be.

Rosanna did not know where to go. The Hargraves had gone down to the old home in Lexington; Mrs. Culver and Helen were visiting in Akron, Ohio. Rosanna thought harder and harder as the days passed, and the bulletins from the hospital grew better and more encouraging. At last the doctor actually set a date. In three days Claire could have her mother. She was to come home slowly and carefully in the limousine. And there must be weeks and weeks of unbroken rest in her own home, with her devoted husband and loving child and the adoring Chang to anticipate every wish.

Then Rosanna had an inspiration. Her old nurse and maid, Minnie, was married and living with her nice, hard-working young husband in a rose-covered cottage in the Highlands. Rosanna knew that they would both be perfectly delighted to receive her.

She closed the book she was reading and went to the telephone. As she reached it, the bell jingled.

"Hello!" she said listlessly.

A voice vaguely familiar answered, "Is Miss Rosanna Horton there?"

"This is Rosanna," said she.

There was a slight pause, then the voice said in a queer mincy way, "Oh, yes, Miss Rosanna Horton. Well, can you tell me, please, where Mr. Robert Horton is?"

"He is in France," said Rosanna.

"Are you sure?" said the voice. "I heard that he had returned to this country on business and was here in Louisville. I heard he had come to see a niece of his."

Rosanna had heard enough. She commenced to jump up and down.

"Oh, Uncle Robert, Uncle Bobby, where are you? Oh, hurry, hurry!"

"All right, sweetness," said Uncle Bob in his own voice. "I am right behind the house in the garage. I thought I would let you down easy."

Rosanna did not hear anything after "garage." She dropped the receiver, went through the house like a whirlwind, and was clasped in Uncle Robert's arms, where it must be confessed she shed some real and comforting tears.

Rosanna's sacrifice had not been so very easy, you know.