“Do you know, Helen,” exclaimed Nathalie, looking at her friend with reminiscent eyes, “that it is only three weeks since I met you, but it seems like three months.”

“That is because you have been on probation for a Pioneer,” retorted Helen smilingly, “and are beginning to take life more seriously.”

“Not very seriously, I am afraid,” lamented Nathalie, “judging from the bungle I made in trying to learn that square knot.”

“Oh, you will learn,” encouraged Helen, “but I must be off, for I have some typing to do for to-morrow.” Yes, Helen’s new friend knew that she was learning to be a stenographer. When that little fact had been divulged in the natural course of events, Nathalie had listened with great interest to Helen’s declaration of her life purpose—to be independent—not only for the pleasure that independence would bring to her, but because she wanted to earn money so that she could give her mother little comforts and luxuries that Mrs. Dame had been denied because her husband’s income was limited.

Instead of scorning her, as the girl had feared, Nathalie had wished her great success, apparently appreciating the unselfish motive that actuated her, while lamenting that she herself was not as clever.

“O dear,” she had impulsively declared, “I want to earn money, too; oh, if I only had a purpose in life! I do not want to be a drone.” And then on the impulse of the moment she had confided to Helen her many disappointments, and how anxious they all were about her brother Dick, fearful that he might never recover the use of his leg. To Helen it had seemed that since these mutual confidences a closer friendship had grown up between them, much to that young lady’s joy.

She had just finished hearing Nathalie recite the Pioneer Pledge and laws, give the names of the Presidential party, as Nathalie called them, adding the name of the governor of the State in which she lived, describe the United States flag, sew a button on—as it should be done, she had declared with solemn unction—and then exhibit her skill at tying a square knot.

“After you become a Bluebird at the Pilgrim Rally to-morrow, I shall begin to drill you in the tests necessary to make you a Second-Class Pioneer,” Helen had declared when the lesson was over and she began to gather up her sewing materials.

“Oh, will you?” cried Nathalie, “but when can I become one?”

“In a month,” was the reply, “if you pass the tests; but there, I shall never get my work done if I stand here and talk,” and Helen started for the steps.

“Yes, and I am in a hurry to hear what Dr. Morrow says about Dick’s knee,” returned Nathalie as she followed her friend to the edge of the veranda. “You know he was in this morning to examine it; I am so anxious to hear what he had to say.”

“How did your brother injure his knee?” asked Helen as she paused at the foot of the steps, “I have often wanted to ask.”

“Why, he slipped on the ice just two days after Father’s death,” rejoined Nathalie, her eyes darkening sorrowfully. “The New York physician said it was only sprained ligaments and would be all right soon. But he has been growing worse—it pains him dreadfully sometimes—oh, you don’t know how worried we are—” her voice quavered, “suppose he should be lame for life!”

“Oh, don’t get nervous over it,” advised Helen cheerfully, “but hurry in and see what Dr. Morrow said. To be sure he is only a one-horse-town doctor, but it is claimed that he is an expert surgeon,” and then with a smile and a wave of her hand she hastened toward the gate.

Nathalie watched her friend with brightening eyes as she hurried across the lawn. Somehow the girl’s companionship had revived her drooping spirits; the many little chats they had had about the Pioneers and the tests, coupled with the anticipation of becoming one, had in a measure brightened her life. To be sure, they could never take the place of her friends of the city, but might perhaps dull the longing for the things of the past and the desires that at times threatened to overwhelm her. She realized that she was beginning to take a keener interest in her surroundings, and felt that it was all owing to the Pioneers.

“Nathalie, I am here—in the sitting-room!” called her mother’s voice faintly a few moments later as she heard the girl’s step in the hall. An apprehensive pang seized Nathalie’s heart as she flew to her mother’s side.

“What did the doctor say, Mumsie?” she demanded anxiously. “Will Dick be lame?”

“I hope not, Nathalie, but there will have to be an operation—” her mother’s voice sank to a whisper, “and oh, it will cost us several hundred dollars.” Here Mrs. Page broke down, and burying her face on her daughter’s shoulder wept silently. The girl gently patted the gray-streaked head as she hugged the slender form closely, but with intuitive divination she let her have her cry out, although she was seething with impatience, for she knew it would prove a relief to the mother heart.

“It is all right, I am just a coward.” Mrs. Page choked a moment, then imprinted a wet kiss on the rounded cheek so close to her own as she felt the comfort of her unspoken sympathy. “I am sure Dick will be all right in time—but I am so worried—I have had bad news, too. It does seem as if misfortunes never come singly, as they claim,” she said, thrusting a crumpled sheet of paper into her daughter’s hand.

The girl’s eyes swept the type-written page, once, twice, then in a tense tone she demanded, “Oh, Mother, do you mean that the Portland cement bonds are in danger—why, I thought—”

“They are to stop paying interest while the company is being reorganized; something has gone wrong. I was afraid of it, as they say cement is being sold at a very low figure.”

“But perhaps it will only be for a time, you are crossing your bridges before you get there as Father used to say,” Nathalie replied with attempted cheerfulness, “but did you not say that they were first mortgage bonds?”

“Yes, but child, we have got to live,” exclaimed her mother irritably; “that money, the interest, is part of my income, and it is little enough—expenses are so heavy. And where the money will come for Dick’s operation I am sure I don’t know—but there, don’t worry—it will be all right in time, I know.” She sank back in her chair and dabbed her reddened eyelids with her moist handkerchief.

“But, Mumsie, tell me, why is it necessary for Dick to have an operation?” questioned Nathalie insistently with anxious eyes.

“The doctor says there is a bone in his leg infected. It will have to be removed, and a new bone put in.”

“A new bone put in!” ejaculated Nathalie, “why—”

“Yes, it is something new in surgery,” replied her mother. “Dr. Morrow says thousands of cripples have been made well by this new method of treating cases like Dick’s. He says—” a long sigh—“if Dick does not have an operation, he will probably be lame, if he is ever able to walk at all.” The tears began to glisten in Mrs. Page’s eyes again, as Nathalie, with a sudden sharp realization what this would mean for Dick and all of them, turned and rushed from the room with the dread that if she remained a moment longer she too would fall to weeping.

She hastened up the attic stairs to her den; she wanted time to think. Oh, suppose there should be no money for the operation, and Dick should be lame all the rest of his life, Dick, who had always been so well and robust, and who for his athletic prowess had won so many silver cups and medals! She threw herself into the low rocker, and leaning her head on her desk began to cry softly; she did not want Mother to hear.

Oh, why did they have so much trouble? How hard it was to lose her father, her beautiful home and friends, to give up college, to have to live in that poky old town—even the Pioneers could not compensate for that—and then to have Dick lame because they had no money! Nathalie wept on in woeful lamentation, feeling with the untriedness of youth that she was a great martyr. Did not God’s world owe her happiness? Was it not sinning against her in denying her right to its joys?

But even sorrow has its limit, and gradually her sobs died away to a shiver, as her head dropped wearily on the back of her chair. Oh, if she were not so helpless, if she could only earn money like Helen! But what could she do? She couldn’t sew, she had no musical ability—like Lucille! A Bob White whistle, followed by a “Tru-al-lee!” beneath her window reminded her that she had promised to take a walk with Grace Tyson.

Yes, Nathalie knew that “Tru-al-lee!” for that young lady was the only Pioneer who could so successfully imitate that little bird’s sweet trill. She jumped up quickly, and then with the buoyancy of youth cast all her dismal forebodings skyward and hurried down to the lower floor.

“I’ll be down in a moment,” she called out to Grace, who had just entered the hall and was chatting with Dick, who had been reading on the couch. She flew into the bath-room, scrubbed her face vigorously a moment, and then flying into her room grabbed her hat from its peg in the closet, and then hastened down the stairs humming blithely a new ragtime song as she went.

“I want to say good-by to Mother,” she exclaimed as she nodded to Grace and hurried into the sitting-room. But when she saw the big pile of mending on the table in front of Mrs. Page, a sudden guilty pang assailed her.

“Oh, Mumsie,” she cried, “don’t you do that mending. I will do it when I come back. I meant to do it yesterday,” she excused herself lamely, “but I forgot all about it.”

“Never mind, daughter, perhaps it will keep me from worrying,” was the reply; “as ’tis said, there is nothing like work to keep up one’s spirits.”

“Oh, Mumsie,” the girl cried impulsively, rubbing her hands caressingly over her mother’s cheek, “don’t let’s worry any more. We’re just silly to cry over what may not happen,” and then she added hopefully, “I’m sure things will come out all right.”

Mrs. Page’s eyes filled as she bent forward and kissed her would-be-comforter. “Yes, we are silly, no doubt,” she smiled through her tears, “to waste time and strength worrying over what, after all, may not happen.”

“But, Mother,” suddenly questioned the girl with uneasy eyes, “do—do you think I ought to become a Pioneer?”

“Why not, Nathalie?” inquired Mrs. Page in surprise. “Perhaps it will teach you some of the many things you should know, for if we are to be poor, you may have to earn your own living. Resourcefulness, courage, those will be the things—” her mother’s voice ceased abruptly.

Nathalie remained silent; there was a note in her mother’s voice that seemed like reproof. A sudden depression seized her again as it came to her with renewed force how helpless she was, what things Helen did to help her mother, and the many useful things the Pioneer girls—plain girls, too, who had never had the advantages that she had had—could do.

But mentally pushing these reproachful thoughts aside with the rebellious feeling that she had never been brought up to do these things, that she had been born a lady, she stooped and kissed her mother hastily and hurriedly joined Grace on the veranda.

“Where shall we walk?” she asked that young girl, as they passed down the street. She glanced up at the blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted like rudderless ships at sea.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, but Mrs. Morrow has asked me to deliver a note to ‘The Mystic.’”

“‘The Mystic?’” echoed Nathalie in doubting amazement, “why I thought she had never had anything to do—”

“To do with the people of the town,” finished Grace. “Well, she doesn’t as a rule, but she is one of Dr. Morrow’s patients and had the grace to return Mrs. Morrow’s call. I hate to go, as I know she dislikes young people, but of course I could not say no to Mrs. Morrow, and then, too, I rather think she is writing to ask her if we could have her lawn for one of our demonstrations. We had a lovely idea for a May-Day celebration, but we had to give it up, as we had no place to hold it.”

“What were you going to have?” inquired Nathalie, as the two girls turned up the hill leading to the big gray house enclosed in its barrier of gray wall.

“We were going to get some ox carts and decorate them with Mayflowers, and parade to the grounds. There we were to choose a queen and dance around the May-pole in welcome to the goddess of spring. Fred was to be Robin Hood—O dear,” she suddenly ejaculated with a dismayed face, “I do believe I left the note at home. What a ninny I am! Why, I pinned it to the cushion so I wouldn’t forget it and then walked straight off and left it.”

The girls stared blankly at one another a moment and then Grace cried, “Come, we might as well go back for it; do you mind? It is only a few blocks out of our way.”

On receiving Nathalie’s assent she added contentedly, “I’ll get Dorcas to make us some lemonade to cool us off, and—why, I can show you my Pioneer room!”

“Oh, I should just love to see it!” enthused Nathalie; “Helen told me about it. She said she was going to suggest that the groups of the Pioneer band have a Pioneer room.”

“Isn’t it old-timey?” she mused a half hour later, as Grace ushered her into a low-ceiled room whose walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of many-colored tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly Dutch and for that reason had been selected.

Nathalie’s keen eyes were lured to the photographs, water-colors, etchings, and cuts from magazines, all representative of pioneer days, that peeped from between the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of New Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story houses, with their gable ends notched like steps, and weather vanes surmounted with grotesque designs of horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.

Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the four-poster with its dimity valance, and then on to the oval dressing table, resplendent with silver candle-sticks, snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.

“But that clock is a dear!” she murmured as her gaze lingered admiringly upon a tall grandfather’s clock in the corner, which returned her glance with such old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie’s brain became a movie screen, one scene after another presenting themselves to her vivid imagination.

“Father gave that clock to me last birthday,” informed Grace with pride; “it belonged to the Very Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my forebears. See, there’s his picture over the mantel,” pointing to a seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear, who looked down at them with stolid complacency.

“Yes, it is very old,” continued Grace, “some unimaginative relative of Papa was going to chop it up with Georgie’s little hatchet, but Father rescued it just in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel. Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief.”

“Yes,” she rattled on, “I stole a satin bow from her old wedding gown for a souvenir, and when she discovered what I had done, the old dear not only forgave me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff. But come, let’s go down and have the lemonade, I’m dying for a cooling drink.”

As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly sprang up crying, “Oh, there’s Fred! I want you to meet him!” She began to wave and call frantically in the direction of the lawn, where a tall, well-formed youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his tennis-racket.

“Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I’m in a hurry!” came in response a moment later, as the youth stopped and eyed his sister impatiently, vigorously mopping his face, for the day was warm.

But as he caught sight of Nathalie, his excuses suddenly ceased, and with a few strides he reached the veranda and was eyeing the new girl’s health-flushed face and sparkling brown eyes with much favor. After a hearty shake of the hand in answer to his sister’s introduction, he dropped into a chair by Nathalie’s side, and soon they were all chatting and laughing merrily as Fred told of some Scout adventure that had happened on their last hike.

“But you had an adventure, too, did you not?” he asked suddenly, looking at the young girl by his side with a glint of mischief in his eyes, “the day you were rescued by the Pioneers?”

“Oh, did you hear about that?” Nathalie cried, her face taking on a deeper tinge of pink. She had always felt the least mite ashamed of that mishap.

“Yes, and how about the blue robins?” he continued in a quizzing tone.

“Oh, Grace,” exclaimed Nathalie, “you have been telling tales!” and then with a laugh, she told of finding the bluebird’s nest, excusing her ignorance by the plea that she was a city-bred girl.

The conversation soon drifted to Boy Scouts, Fred being a Patrol Leader, and greatly interested in the organization. Finding that Nathalie had had some difficulty in learning knot-tying, he kindly volunteered to give her a lesson in that intricate art. His pupil proved an apt scholar, as it was not long before she had mastered the weaver’s, the overhand, the reef, and had gained a fair insight into several other knots. Before the lesson had ended Fred had asked if he might not come up some evening with Grace, and give her another lesson and meet her brother Dick.

Nathalie’s face dimpled; she hastened to assure him that she would be pleased to welcome them at the house, and that she knew her brother would be more than delighted to know a Westport lad. And then she told him all about her brother’s misfortune, and how depressed he grew at times without his chums to drop in and cheer him.

The clock had just struck four when the girls, escorted by Fred, who claimed he was going their way, neared the high stone wall overtopped with gray turrets and nodding trees that looked as if they yearned to leap beyond their barrier.

“Wasn’t it a queer idea to build a beautiful house like this and then fence it in like some old monastery?” questioned Grace. “See, here’s a bell in the stone gate, the way they used to have it in olden times.”

“Ugh! I hate to go in—the place gives me the creeps!” she shivered nervously. “Oh, Fred, do come in with us, we shall not be long.”

Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was not hurried for time yielded to his sister’s entreaties and rang the bell. Presently the door was opened by a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.

He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see Mrs. Van Vorst, but when Grace produced her note and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow’s wife, he reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.

Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with its old-time hedge and tall pines that swayed gently to the rhythm of the May breezes, leading to the handsome modern structure at the end. It was colonial in design, with low French windows and overhanging Juliet balconies here and there. A long veranda ran across the front, with high white pillars, and a porte-cochÈre.

“This is the old Dutch shack,” remarked Fred irreverently a moment or so later, as they stood in front of the weather-beaten landmark that clung like some ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered above it.

Nathalie’s eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled over the sloping roof with its red chimneys, where quaint dormer windows stood forth like thrust out heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch, only a foot from the ground, was almost lost to view behind the vines of honeysuckle and rambling roses screening the trellis. Bushes of hollyhocks, white peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous hedge around it.

Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a memento of savage ferocity, and told of the little Dutch maiden who, from a small window above the door, fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed out a grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse once stood, leading to an underground passageway, where the settlers at times took refuge when hearing the fiendish war-whoop.

As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading to the broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred turned back towards the gate, promising to wait outside for them.

As the great door swung open in answer to their ring, and the butler’s impassive face stared stonily at them, the girls were tempted to turn tail and follow Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness asked for Mrs. Van Vorst.

For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going to shut the door in their faces, but when Grace held out the note for confirmation of her words his impassivity relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he asked them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously about the hall, while a stag’s head above a quaintly-carved table eyed them glassily.

The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other curios that decorated the casement, beneath faded canvasses of ancient dames and sires, possessed a weird charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade that rose spiral-like to the floor above, and to her imaginative ear there came the swish of a brocade gown as some haughty fair one, kin to the canvassed beauties on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel down the broad stairway.

But no romantic thing occurred as the butler, still retaining his sphinx-like mask, ushered them into a little reception room opening from the hall fitted up to simulate a Chinese pagoda. The girls seated themselves on two teakwood chairs and stared silently at the many curios that gleamed from cabinet and screen, each betraying some eccentric custom of the land of the yellow peril.

“O dear, I feel as if I were a beggar!” observed Grace with an apprehensive shiver. “Ugh, I should hate to have that grim-looking man come back and tell me my company wasn’t wanted.”

Nathalie burst into a giggle, which was quickly suppressed in sympathetic recognition of her companion’s mood. Her eye was caught by a huge mandarin who grinned at her with a hideous leer, and she shivered, half wondering if some of the many evil spirits believed to inhabit China were not hidden behind his wrinkled brown skin, and were looking at her through his bead-like eyes, trying to hypnotize her with his sinister glare. Surely those glittering, shiny specks of eyes did move—oh, what was that? She jumped to her feet, crouching all of a heap in abject fear as she stared with horror-stricken eyes at the mandarin, as if that weird, shrill scream that had suddenly broken the grim silence had come from his mummy-like lips.

“Oh, what is it?” whispered Grace in a hoarse whisper, as she stared in paralyzed appeal at Nathalie.

Before Nathalie could answer another cry, more piercing and, if could be, more blood-curdling than the first, came echoing down the hall, followed by a demoniacal laugh which assured Nathalie that the terror was something more human than an old Chinese idol. Grace, with a frantic scream of terror that almost equaled in its intensity the one that they had heard sprang into the hall and rushed frenziedly toward the door!

Nathalie stood a moment in indecision, utterly at a loss to determine whence came the horrible shrieks, but in another instant, as another one rent the air with the same frenzied note of merriment, she hesitated no longer. As fast as her fear-tied feet would allow her, she flew into the hall, through the door that Grace had flung wide open, and with terror-winged feet and thumping heart rushed pell-mell down the wide steps and along the path after Grace!