am glad
Momsy wasn't here. It's all right, Amy," she called through the screen
doors.

"I am glad. I thought it was all wrong by the way you ran. Now let's
go back and get our rugs and the rest of the junk out of the canoe.
And, oh, me! Ain't I hungry!"

Jessie ignored this oft-repeated complaint, saying:

"We should have remembered about the bazaar committee meeting. Momsy
would go to that. Do you know, Amy, she thinks she can get the other
ladies to agree to have the lawn party out here."

"Here, in Roselawn?" asked her chum.

"Right here on our place."

"How fine!" ejaculated Amy. "But, Jessie, I wish I could think of some
awfully smart idea to work in connection with the lawn party. That
lovely, lovely sports coat that Letterblair has in his window has
taken my eye."

"I saw it," Jessie admitted. "And the card says it goes to the girl
under eighteen who suggests the best money-making scheme in unusual
channels that can be used by the bazaar committee. Yes, it's lovely."

"Let's put on our thinking-caps, honey, and try for it. Only two days
more."

"And if we win it, shall we divide the coat between us?"

"No, we'll cast lots for it," said Amy seriously. "It is a be-a-utiful
coat!"

That evening after dinner Jessie climbed upon the arm of her father's
big chair in the library, sitting there and swinging her feet just as
though she were a very small child again. He hugged her up to him with
one arm while he laid down the book he was reading.

"Out with it, daughter," Mr. Norwood said. "What is the desperate need
for a father?"

"It is not very desperate, and really it is none of my business,"
began Jessie thoughtfully.

"And that does not surprise me. It will not be the first time that you
have shown interest in something decidedly not your concern."

"Oh! But I am concerned about her, Daddy."

"A lady in the case, eh?"

"A girl. Like Amy and me. Oh, no! _Not_ like Amy and me. But about our
age."

"What is her name and what has she done?"

"Bertha. Or, perhaps it isn't Bertha. But we think so."

"Somehow, it seems to me, you have begun wrong. Who is this young
person who may be Bertha but who probably is not?"

Jessie told him about the "kidnaped" girl then. But it spilled out of
her mouth so rapidly and so disconnectedly that it is little wonder
that Mr. Norwood, lawyer though he was, got a rather hazy idea of the
incident connected with the strange girl's being captured on Dogtown
Lane.