“Oh, isn’t it beautiful?  Isn’t it beautiful?” Anne exclaimed over and over.  “I told them America was the best.  I told them so.  I do wish Mademoiselle Duroc could see it and Louise and cook Cochon.”

Mr. Patterson was waiting for his son in the hotel lobby.  “Here, Pat, come here,” he said.  “Orton, this is my boy.—­Pat, here’s a streak of luck for us.  I’ve just run across this friend of mine who’s instructor at George Washington University.  He’s taking a party of boys to a camp in the Virginia mountains—­fine boating and swimming, all the fun you want.  Starting to-night.  Says he can manage to take another boy.  How would you like to go with him instead of to your Aunt Sarah?”

“Fine!” said Pat, eagerly.  “I’ve always wanted to go camping.  Good fishing, too?”

“Great.  You trot along with Mr. Orton, and let him help you get the things you need.  He kindly says he will.”

“There’s Anne, father,” said Pat, looking toward the little figure hovering shyly on the outskirts of the group.  “Is Anne going, too?”

“This is just a boy’s camp, Pat,” laughed Mr. Orton.  “There isn’t any room for girls in our rough-and-tumble gang.”

Mr. Patterson summoned a maid to take Anne to her room.  “I’m going to take Anne to Richmond to-morrow,” he explained curtly.  “I’ll try to run up and see you, Pat, before I get back to work.  Time’s getting pretty scarce, though.  Run along and get your rig.  Draw on me, Orton, for what you need.  Fit him out O.K.”

CHAPTER XIII

Leaving Anne at a Richmond hotel, Mr. Patterson drove to an orphanage on the outskirts of the city.  He had wired the superintendent that he was coming and had brought letters and papers from the Washington office of the Associated Charities.  He told Miss Farlow, the superintendent, the story of the child, without mentioning the jewel affair.

“Let them find her out for themselves,” he reflected.  “I’ll not start her off with a handicap.”

As he went out of the bare, spotless sitting-room into the bare, spotless hall, the children of the ‘Home’ filed past, two by two, for their afternoon walk.  There were twenty-six sober-faced girls in blue cotton frocks and broad-brimmed straw hats.

“They take exercise regularly, sir,” said the superintendent.  “We’re careful with them in all ways.  They’re well-fed, kept neat, taught good manners, and have all pains taken with their education and training.  We do our best for them and try to get them good homes.”

“I am sure of that.”  Good heavens!—­how he would hate his child to be one of the twenty-six!  Poor little Anne!  Mr. Patterson caught himself up impatiently.  He was no more responsible for her than for any, or all, of the others.  If his wife had lived—­but he—­a widower, whose job kept him thousands of miles away from home most of the time,—­it was unreasonable to expect him to keep an orphan girl whom his family had