streets, a chill wind cutting her face, an iron fence enclosing a
deserted triangle of dead grass and filthy papers--a kind voice telling
her not to cry--of course, her Prince! She peeped almost fearfully at
Dale who was joking with Beryl. _He_ did not know--he had forgotten, of
course. He had been a big boy, then, and he had not gone on playing the
little game the way she had. How wonderful, how _very_ wonderful, to
find him. And Beryl's brother! She did not mind at all what he had said
about the Forsyth's. If he said it, it must be true. She would find out.

Mrs. Lynch, beaming over her simple dinner, little knew that Destiny sat
at her board, shaping, moulding, gathering and weaving the threads of
life, golden and drab.

To Beryl's disgust, after the meal Dale brought forth his "toy." But
Adam Kraus, instead of showing the boredom which Beryl expected, studied
it with absorbed keenness, quickly grasping what Dale wanted to do.

"Have you ever shown this to Morris?" he asked Dale.

Dale shook his head. "No use to do it now--until I've worked the thing
out to perfection. And I can't do that--without money."

Robin, wiping plates for Mrs. Lynch, caught Dale's words and Adam Kraus'
answer.

"I wonder if Norris would see what an invention like that--if you can
make it do what you say you can--would be worth to these mills. It would
lift them out of the boneyard of antiquity and put them fifty years
ahead of their competitors. Why, I'll bet Granger's would give you a
cool twenty thousand for that just as it stands. It would serve Norris
right, too."

Dale's face flushed with excitement. "Do you really think all that,
Adam? Pop and I've gotten so down in the dumps trying to work the thing
out that we've lost our sense of values."

"Inventors never have any," laughed Kraus, with a change in his voice.
And he commenced hastily to talk of other things, to Dale's
disappointment.

Robin pulled timidly at Dale's arm.

"Who's Grangers?"

"Grangers? Don't you know the big mills up at South Falls?"

"Would they--if they took--that--you'd go there--" She tried desperately
to voice the fear that had shaped in her heart; Grangers taking this
funny wooden thing that Mr. Kraus said was worth so much, and Dale going
away from Wassumsic, and Dale's mother--and Beryl.

"You just bet I would," and Dale laughed. "But don't worry, we won't be
going for a while."

Robin had so much to think about that night that she could not