t idea."

"'T was a ride! I know it just as I knew he sent the roses! I was
right about the roses!"

"Rides and roses aren't the same!"

"No, rides are better--more good-timey. Dear, dear! I'd been
wishing he would ask you--and now!" Polly sighed. "Anyway, he
wanted to talk with you about something!" she chuckled. "But it's
so mysterious!"

She said good-bye and then came back.

"I happened to think," she whispered, "why can't you come over to
our house and telephone to him? He'll never know where you are."

Miss Sterling shook her head. "It wouldn't do! They'd ask me what
I was going for--and I couldn't tell!"

"Do they always ask that?" scowled Polly.

"Always!"

"Then let me telephone!"

"No, no! We'd better leave it to work itself out. I am not
supposed to know anything about it." She laughed uncertainly.

"It's a shame! Oh, everything about him always gets mixed up with
trouble! I wish it didn't!"

Juanita Sterling made the same wish as she sat alone in the hour
before bedtime. What could Nelson Randolph have wanted of her?
And why did Miss Sniffen and her subordinates strive so strenuously
to keep her from communicating with him or knowing of any attention
that he paid her? She wrestled with the hard question until the
bell for "lights out." Then she noiselessly undressed in the dark.

Sleep was long in coming, yet her nerves did not assert themselves
unpleasantly, as usual. In fact, she had forgotten her nerves, in
the strange, vague gladness that was half pain which flooded her
being. She would berate herself for being "an old fool," though
conscious at the same time of little, warming heart-thrills that
exulted over her reason. As Polly had said, the president of the
June Holiday Home had wished to talk with her about
_something_--that of itself was as surprising as it was mysterious.

CHAPTER XII

MRS. DICK ESCAPES

Juanita Sterling was making her bed when the soft tap came.

"What shall I do?" Miss Crilly whispered tragically, slipping
inside and shutting the door without a sound. Her eyes were big
and frightened. "I've kept out of Mis' Nobbs's reach thus far, but
I s'pose I can't very long! They are lookin' everywhere for Mis'
Dick--you know she wasn't down to breakfast, and I'd no idea she'd
come--all the while the rest o' you were lookin' for her. At
half-past five this mornin' _I see her go away with the milkman!_
I happened to be at my window. I coul