“But she is so young, Margaret,” he had replied.  “I am sure we can supervise.  And you know, Jack has been taking a lot of my time lately.  Yet the doctor says her ultimate cure depends on her cheerful frame of mind, and she is getting along so beautifully.  He expects to try the strength of her limbs in ten days more.”

It was this arrangement that won the day for Tessie, and once more the black clouds of anxiety rolled away to disclose a rift of new interest, and a gleam of new-found joy.  No one could touch the life of Jacqueline Douglass without sharing its delight.  The child, temporarily disabled through an acute ailment, had been enjoying every delight her handsome big brother could procure for her, and even in this almost unbelievable paradise “Jack” remained unspoiled, and her active brain was still capable of inventing new wonders.

The home was nothing short of paradise to Tessie.  Even the lovely Osborne home seemed unimportant compared with Glenmoor, the country estate of wealthy Gerald Douglass and his pet sister.

The house was of stone and brick, its trimmings beautifully grained oak and its decorations, all in mellow golds and browns, were as soft yet as varied as the tones of the early chestnut burr.  Jacqueline was a russet blonde, just gold enough in her hair to deepen the glints, and with the blue eyes and that incomparable complexion so often associated with “red gold hair,” it seemed to Tessie nature had been very partial indeed in bestowing her gifts when Jacqueline Douglass was fashioned.

It was the second day of her service at Glenmore that Tessie overheard her young mistress use the name “Marcia” when calling over the telephone.

“Marcia!  Might it be Marcia Osborne!” Tessie almost gasped.  Then when she heard further a “good-bye, and Jacqueline hoped they would all have a lovely trip west,” Tessie breathed freely.  Yes, the Osbornes had planned a trip west, and no doubt they were going.  This seemed to Tessie rare good luck.  Marcia, Phillis and Mrs. Osborne were surely off for their trip.

“Now I’m going to write Dagmar,” decided Tessie—­“poor little kid!  I feel like a quitter to have left her alone all this time.  I wonder if I couldn’t go out there and look for her?  Everything seems to be blown over, and even mother and father might be glad to see me.”

With a girl’s unqualified impulse, Tessie quickly wrote an effectionate letter to her mother and sealed in it a five-dollar bill.  This would surely prepare the way.  Then she wrote a second letter, this one to Dagmar, care of the Flosston post-office, and as the mail for Rose Dixon and Dagmar Brodix was promptly mailed to Mrs. Cosgrove at Franklin, Tessie planned better than she knew in hoping thus to reach her abandoned companion.  Her letters finished, Tessie (for the time Stacia) slipped down the palatial hall to the door of Jacqueline’s sunset room, to inquire if the young mistress needed any attention.  It was one of those prolonged days in early summer when night seems unable to break in on the soft, pelucent shadows of sunset meeting twilight.  Tessie found Jacqueline sitting in her Sleepy Hollow chair, the shaded green robes tossed about giving the picture such tones as a pastel might embody.