“What is it, honey?” asked Josie as they left the rickety old building, the second floor of which was occupied by the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“What’s what?” asked Marie Louise.

“What’s the matter?”

“The matter?”

“Yes, honey, you can’t fool your great-aunt Josie! There is something that is making you pale and thin and sad-eyed—something that keeps your eyes swimming in tears half the time. There is no use in pretending you didn’t come down to the shop to see me alone if possible and talk over something that is worrying you to death. Now is there?”

Mary Louise smiled, “Well—y-e-e-s! But how did you know?”

“By a pricking in my thumb, perhaps! Anyhow—out with it!”

Mary Louise breathed a sigh of relief. It was rather nice to have Josie be so direct and uncompromising and businesslike. She had come to see her in hope of getting a word alone with her, but, when the opportunity arose, she had half determined not to take advantage of it. She had not known just how to begin and now Josie had taken the bit between her teeth and there was nothing to do but sit tight and let Josie have her way.

“I know you hate to start but you’ll feel better when once you begin. Is it something about Danny?”

“Partly!”

“Anyone else?”

“Grandpa Jim!”

“Aren’t they getting along as well as they used to?”

“Oh, Josie—I am nearly dead about the way Grandpa Jim is treating Danny. I can’t make it out at all. He used to be crazy about Danny and wanted me to marry him and seemed to love him like a real son—but lately he is so strangely unkind to him.”

“How does Danny take it?”

“At first, his feelings were hurt and he didn’t know what to do about it, but now he is angry and impatient and just sees as little of Grandpa Jim as possible. He hardly ever comes home to dinner and, when he does come home, it is awful because Grandpa Jim makes the most terrible insinuations about money and all kinds of things and Danny just flings himself out of the house and then Grandpa Jim says he is neglecting me. Whenever I go anywhere with Danny, Grandpa Jim gets furious with him and says Danny monopolizes me so that I have no time to give to my poor old grandfather who has made every sacrifice for me.”

“The Colonel is nutty, just plain nutty, I think,” suggested Josie without mincing matters in the least.

“Oh don’t say it! Please don’t say it!” cried Mary Louise. “He is as clear headed as can be and attends to his business just as he always has and he plays chess with Uncle Peter and can beat him as often as he gets beaten. A man who was not quite in his right mind couldn’t do that.”

“Well, honey, I should think you would rather your old grandfather was off his bean a bit than just plain mean and cantankerous. I fancy you think I put it pretty baldly,” noticing how her friend winced at her words, “but I see no other way to put it. Have you talked it over with Danny?”

“Oh, Josie, I just can’t talk it over with him because it would be so disloyal to poor Grandpa Jim! Think of all he has done for me! Think of what he sacrificed for my mother and how he was willing to go on and sacrifice himself forever for me if it had not been for the wisdom of your dear father.”

“Yes, honey, I am thinking of that. Don’t you know your grandfather loves you better than anybody in the world and he would die rather than hurt you, that is, if he is in his right mind? Don’t you realize that this poor old man who is deliberately wounding you every moment of the day—because he would ordinarily know that there can be no wound deeper than the one he is inflicting when he says hard things about your husband—don’t you know that this is not your real grandfather but a sick man, your grandfather with his brain not functioning properly? Just as my father refused to let your grandfather go on sacrificing himself uselessly for your poor mother, who had passed beyond his care and solicitude, so I am trying to make you see that you must not let your dear Danny be sacrificed just because you refuse to face the truth.”

“Josie, you are hard on me!”

“So I am, but not as hard on you as you are on yourself. Can’t you see, Mary Louise, you are being as unfair to Grandpa Jim as you are to Danny? Can’t you see that the real Colonel Hathaway would die before he would do what he is doing if he had his senses about him? He really should see a doctor. Why don’t you get that young Dr. Coles to look in on him?”

“It would make him furious. He likes Dr. Coles but, if he should come to see him professionally when he had not sent for him, he might be rude to him.”

“Well a little rudeness isn’t going to kill a nerve specialist. That’s what Coles is I believe. Get him to come in a kind of friendly way and see if he thinks your grandfather is normal.”

“You don’t think it would be underhanded?”

“Sure it would be underhanded! But sometimes being underhanded isn’t such a bad thing to be.”

So persuaded by the astute Josie, Mary Louise agreed to stop at Dr. Coles’s office and have a little talk with him concerning her grandfather.

“Don’t tell him what you think is the matter,” Josie whispered while they waited their turn to see the young doctor. “Just tell him you are a little uneasy about the old gentleman and for him to step around in a friendly way and look him over. Then, when he gives his verdict, you have a plain talk with Danny and make him realize it is not the true Colonel Hathaway who is behaving this way. Danny has disposition enough to carry it off without a murmur if he knows you know that your grandfather is simply suffering from a slight—er—er—derangement.”

“All right! I’ll do what you say if Dr. Coles thinks he has some brain trouble that is making him do this way. I do hope Grandpa Jim’s mind is not really failing.”

“Well, I’d a deal rather his mind would fail than his own kind heart. I’d hate to think that my dear old friend was just plain mean for meanness’ sake. I’d much rather think he was a bit batty.”

Mary Louise sighed and smiled in spite of herself. Josie was so simple and natural and spoke her mind so honestly and directly that there was no getting hurt with her, although it did seem a little heartless for her to speak of Colonel Hathaway as “off his bean” and a “bit batty.”

Dr. Coles was as direct as Josie and immediately grasped what Mary Louise wanted him to do and promised to do it that very evening.

“I’ll make an evening call, coming in quite naturally and asking to see you and Mr. Dexter as well as the Colonel,” he suggested.

“Exactly!” put in Josie. “Stethoscopes and blood pressure tests can follow later.”

“Now I feel better,” sighed Mary Louise as they left the doctor’s office. “Let’s go get an ice cream soda. I haven’t had the heart for one for weeks.”

“You poor lamb!” laughed Josie. “One does have to feel kind of perky for ice cream sodas.”

The sodas were enjoyed, the net for the curtains matched, and the two girls made their way back to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop.

“Sorry to be so long but I fancy you have been busy enough on the other darns,” said Josie. “Anything happened?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “a lady came in and wanted a mourning bonnet made in a certain way. You see ladies don’t wear bonnets any more, not even old, old ladies. Everybody wears hats. This dear old lady complained that she was too old for hats and the girls in the stores laughed at her for requesting an old-fashioned bonnet. She had heard that we did anything and came to us.”

“Too bad you had to turn her down.”

“But Josie, I didn’t. I just took the order on a venture. I felt there must be somebody we could get to do it. She left an old one to be copied as to shape, but she wants the new one trimmed a little more.” Elizabeth dived into a box and produced a little rusty black crÊpe bonnet with a widow’s ruche and a package of fresh new crÊpe.

“She was a sweet old lady,” put in Irene. “I wish I had time to do it for her, not that I am much of a milliner.”

“Do let me do it,” begged Mary Louise. “I just know I can although I haven’t made a hat for years. I used to get the most gorgeous results for my doll family. I make outrageous inside stitches, but the outsides look fine.”

“Oh, would you? That would be scrumptious!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “When can you do it?” “Right now! All I want is a thimble and some scissors. I’ll run round to the five-and-ten-cent store for a bonnet shape. I noticed this morning that they had a window full of them. I can get one nearly like this one and then cut it down to be exactly like it. Let me see how this one fits me so I can judge the size.”

Her hat was off in a moment and the sad little bonnet put on over her pretty curls.

“It fits exactly!” she cried, making a little moue at her image reflected in an antique gilt mirror. Antique mirrors were among the wares the Higgledy Piggledies dealt in.

Mary Louise was off in a jiffy, eager to make the purchase and get to work. It made her happier to have something definite to occupy her until she could get the doctor’s verdict concerning her grandfather and, also, until she could have the heart to heart talk she was planning to have with her Danny.

Irene shook her head sadly when her dear friend’s eager footsteps died away as she flew down the stairs to the street.

“Dear, dear child,” she said solemnly. “I do wish she had not tried on that queer old mourning bonnet.” “It gave me a turn too,” confessed Josie.

“I wondered if you felt funny about it,” said Elizabeth. “My old nurse used to tell us that it was the worst luck in the world to try on mourning unless you were already wearing it. Of course, she was an ignorant old woman but she used to say it was a sure sign of trouble coming. Were you thinking of that, Irene?”

“I am ashamed to say I was. Under those wretched widow’s weeds there was something about her sweet face, that certainly has been pale and pensive lately, that made me feel strangely superstitious—but I hate myself for giving it room in my mind.”