“I don’t know where I’m going.  I won’t go home—­I daren’t.”

And Trudy answered: 

“Go to the Browns with me, then, Collin?”

But he shook his head.

CHAPTER XIX.

Mrs. Scott’s Idea.

Softly humming, Rosalie walked a little apart and pretended to find great interest in the still water, the scattering row-boats and the few belated bathers along the shore.

For want of other occupation she took off her hat and swung it till the daisy-wreath was in peril.  Trudy and Collin walked in silence.

But the active brain of Miss Rosalie Scott was by no means idle.  She hummed, but she smiled, too; she swung her hat, but she had a thoughtful frown—­not only that, a determined one.

Trudy was destined to see yet another remarkable instance of the impulsiveness without which Rosalie Scott would not have been Rosalie Scott, and which worked for good or ill as the case happened.

When they had covered the pier and had passed up the street as far as the Bellevue Hotel, had reached its broad entrance, she suddenly turned.

“Come in for a minute,” she said—­“both of you.  Oh, don’t look so scared—­just for a minute!  Trudy Carr has promised me a visit for a long time, anyhow, and—­well, you’ll have to come. Come!”

Rosalie was in earnest.  She took them each by the hand and pulled them up the wide piazza steps, reiterating her commands.  And Collin Spencer, who had had no notion of complying, found himself, before he could get his breath back, standing in one of the fine great parlors of the Bellevue Hotel, gaping in confusion at a long mirror and blue plush chairs.

“There, now, sit down,” said Rosalie.  She ran to a small knob in the wall and pressed it, and to the brass-buttoned boy who appeared said, “Please ask Mrs. Scott to come here.”

She went to the door when he had gone, and stood with her back against it.

“You shan’t get away.  Sit down, I say.  It’s only a notion of mine, that’s all.  I know you won’t care.  Maybe it can’t do any good, but it won’t do any harm.  I know something is the matter, and I—­I’d like to have my mother hear about it.  If you knew her!  She’s so good to everybody, and always does just the right thing, too.  I’ve known her to help so many people and think nothing of it.  That’s the way she’s made.  I don’t know what’s the matter, but I know you got me out of an awful fix, Trudy Carr, and that my mother knows it, too, and—­”

The door was pushed open.

“Why, Rosalie,” said the newcomer, “your father and Uncle Angus are here.  I thought you were to meet them at the boat?”

“I didn’t, mamma,” Rosalie answered.  “This is Trudy Carr again, and—­”

“Collin Spencer,” added Trudy.

And Rosalie’s mother, who had a face of sweet refinement, with clear gray eyes, and wore a handsome dark gown with billowy-lace falling from neck and sleeves, and had a pleasant voice and smile—­Rosalie’s mother shook hands with Trudy Carr and Collin Spencer, and sat down near them.  And Rosalie brought a stool and perched herself between them.