SCHOOL began the first day of October—fortunately, repairs to the building had delayed the opening. And there was Rosa Marie still on the Cottagers' hands, still a dark and undivulged secret. In the meantime, Mabel had paid many a visit to Mrs. Malony, who for reasons of her own had kept silence about the borrowed baby. Probably she felt that Mrs. Bennett would blame her for advising Mabel to harbor the deserted child.

"No, darlint," Mrs. Malony would say, encouragingly. "Oi ain't exactly seen her, but she'll be back prisintly, she'll be back prisintly—Oh, most anny toime, now. Just do be waitin' patient and you'll see me come walkin' in most anny foine day wid yon blackhaired lass at me heels an' full to the eyes of her wid gratichude. Anny day at all, Miss Mabel."

Buoyed by this hope, Mabel had waited from day to day, hoping for speedy deliverance. And now, school!

"We'll just have to get excused for part of each day," said Marjory, always good at suggesting remedies. "Last year, all my recitations came in the morning; perhaps they will again. Then, if one of you others could do all your reciting during the afternoon we could manage it."

The year previously Mabel had been obliged to spend many a half-hour after school, making up neglected lessons. Now, however, she studied furiously. If she failed frequently it was only because she couldn't help making absurd blunders; it was never for lack of study. In this one way, at least, Rosa Marie proved beneficial.

The united efforts of all four made it possible for Rosa Marie to possess a more or less unwilling guardian for all but one hour during the forenoon. It grieves one to confess it, but Rosa Marie spent that solitary hour securely strapped to the leg of the dining-room table; but, stolid as ever, she did not mind that.

It was there that Aunty Jane discovered her, the second week in October. Aunty Jane had missed her best saucepan. Rightly suspecting that Marjory had carried it off to make fudge in, she hurried to the Cottage, discovered the key under the door-mat, opened the door and walked in.

Rosa Marie was grunting. "Eigh, ugh, ugh, ee, ee, ee, hee!" to her own bare brown toes.

"For mercy's sake! What's that?" gasped Aunty Jane, with a terrified start. "There's some sort of an animal in this house."

Arming herself with the broken umbrella that stood in the mended umbrella jar in the front hall, Aunty Jane peered cautiously into the dining-room. The "animal" turned its head to blink with mild, expressionless curiosity at Aunty Jane.

"My soul!" ejaculated that good lady, "what are you, anyway?"

The pair blinked at each other for several moments.

"Are—are you a baby?" demanded Aunty Jane.

No response from Rosa Marie.

"What," asked Aunty Jane, cautiously drawing closer, "is your name?"

Still no response.

"Who tied you to that table?"

Silence on Rosa Marie's part.

"I'm going straight after Mrs. Mapes," declared Aunty Jane, retreating backwards in order to keep a watchful eye on the queer object under the table. "I might have known that those enterprising youngsters would be up to something, if I gave my whole mind to pickles."

Excited Aunty Jane collected not only Mrs. Mapes, but Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Bennett, before she returned to the Cottage. And then, the three mothers and Aunty Jane sat on the floor beside Rosa Marie and asked questions; useless questions, because Rosa Marie licked the table-leg bashfully but yielded no other reply.

This lasted for nearly half an hour. And then, school being out and the four Cottagers discovering their front door wide open, Jean, Bettie, Marjory and Mabel, all sorts of emotions tugging at their hearts, rushed breathlessly in. On beholding their mothers and Aunty Jane, they, too, turned suddenly bashful and leaned, speechless, against the Cottage wall.

"Whose child is that?" demanded all four of the grown-ups, in concert.

"Mine," replied Mabel.

"Mabel's," responded the other three, with disheartening promptness.

"What!" gasped the parents and Aunty Jane.

"I borrowed her," explained Mabel, "so she's mostly mine."

"She's spending the day here, I suppose," said Mrs. Mapes.

"Ye-es," faltered Mabel. Marjory giggled, and Mabel turned crimson.

"I hope," said Mrs. Bennett, severely, "that you're not thinking of keeping her all night."

"I—I—we—" faltered Mabel, "we—we sort of did."

"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Bennett, not knowing how very late she was, "I guess we've come just in time. Mabel, put that child's things on and take her home at once."

"I can't," replied Mabel.

"Why not?"

"She hasn't any home."

"No home!"

"No. It's—it's run away."

"What! That baby?"

"No," stammered Mabel, "that baby's home. Not—not the house. Just her mother. She—she—Oh, she'll be back, some day."

"Mabel Bennett!" demanded Mrs. Bennett, suspecting something of the truth, "how long have you had that child here?"

"Not—Oh, not so very long," evaded Mabel.

"Mabel," demanded her mother, "tell me, instantly, exactly how long?"

"About—yes, just about five weeks."

"Five weeks!" gasped Mrs. Bennett.

"Five weeks!" shrieked Mrs. Tucker.

"Five weeks!" groaned Mrs. Mapes.

"Fi—ve weeks!" cried Aunty Jane.

"It'll be five to-morrow," said Bettie.

"No, the day after," corrected Marjory.

For the next few moments the mothers and Aunty Jane were too astounded for further speech. The girls, too, had nothing to say. All four of the Cottagers kept their eyes on the floor, for they knew precisely what their elders were thinking.

"Jean," began Mrs. Mapes, reproachfully.

"I—I wanted to tell," stammered Jean.

"I wouldn't let her," defended Mabel, looking up. "They all wanted to tell, but I wouldn't let them. Truly, they did, Mrs. Mapes."

"But five whole weeks!" murmured Mrs. Bennett. "I wonder that you were able to keep the secret so long. Why! I've been over here half a dozen times at least to ask for my scissors and other things that Mabel has carried off."

"So have I," said Mrs. Mapes.

"So have I," echoed Mrs. Tucker.

"And so have I," added Aunty Jane, "and I've never heard a sound from that remarkable child."

"You see," confessed Bettie, flushing guiltily, "we kept the door locked. Whenever we saw anybody coming we whisked Rosa Marie into the spare-room closet."

"If Rosa Marie had been an ordinary child," explained Jean, "she would probably have howled; but you see, every blessed thing about us was so new and strange to her that she just thought that everything we did was all right. And anyhow, she doesn't have the same sort of feelings that Anne Halliday does. Anne would have cried."

"You naughty, naughty children," scolded Mrs. Mapes, "to keep a secret like that for five whole weeks."

"But, Mother," protested Jean, gently, "we never supposed it was going to be a five-weeks-long secret. We didn't want it to be. We've been expecting her horrid mother to turn up every single minute since Rosa Marie came."

"It was all my fault," declared loyal Mabel. "They'd have told, the very first minute, if it hadn't been for me. Blame me for everything."

"What," asked Mrs. Bennett, "do you intend to do with that—that atrocious child?"

"She isn't atrocious!" blazed Mabel, with sudden fire. "She's a perfect darling, when you get used to her, and I love her. She isn't so very pretty, I know, but she's just dear. She's good, and that—and that's—Why! You've said, yourself, that it was better to be good than beautiful."

"But what do you intend to do with her?" persisted Mrs. Bennett.

"Keep her," said Mabel, firmly. "She doesn't eat anything much but milk and sample packages."

"You can't. I won't have her in my house. Why! Her parents are probably dreadful people."

"That's why she ought to have me for a mother and you for a grandmother," pleaded Mabel, earnestly. "But if you don't like her, I'll keep her here."

"But you can't, Mabel. It's so cold that there ought to be a fire here this minute, and you can't possibly leave a child alone with a fire."

"Couldn't you take her, Mrs. Mapes?" pleaded Mabel.

"No, I'm afraid I couldn't. If she were the least bit lovable——"

"Oh, she is——"

"Not to me," returned Mrs. Mapes, firmly.

"Wouldn't you take her, Mrs. Tucker?"

"What! With all the family I have now? I couldn't think of such a thing."

"Then you," begged Mabel, turning to Aunty Jane. "There's only you and Marjory in that great big house. Oh, do take her."

"Mercy! I'd just as soon undertake to board a live bear! Why! Nobody wants a child of that sort around. She's as homely——"

"I'm extremely glad," said Mabel, with much dignity and a great deal of emphasis, "that my child doesn't understand grown-up English."

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Mapes, smiling with sympathetic understanding, "we four older people had better talk this matter over by ourselves. Suppose you walk home with me.

"I think," said Aunty Jane, forgetting all about the saucepan that had led her to the Cottage, "that the orphan asylum is the place for that unspeakable child."

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Bennett, "she'll certainly have to go to the asylum."