e. At noon the nurse arrived from New
York, and that evening the word spread to every corner of Wassumsic that
little Miss Forsyth had the "sickness."

CHAPTER XX

ROBIN'S BEGINNING

Robin had done something that couldn't be counted--or spurned--in
dollars and cents.

From door to door in the village the story spread; how Robin had gone
into the stricken cottage which even the neighbors shunned, and had
performed a last little act (and the only one) of respect for poor old
Granny, then, with her own fur around the child's neck, had taken Susy
back to the Manor. The doctor told of Robin's sensible care and how ably
she had shared with him the night's long vigil. The story was told and
re-told with little embellishments and often tears; the girls in the
Mill repeated each detail of it over their lunches, the men talked about
it in low tones as they walked homeward.

And Robin's little service had a remarkable effect upon the Mill people.
Tongues that had been most bitter against the House of Forsyth suddenly
wagged loudest in Robin's praise; some boldly foretold the beginning of
a "better day." All felt the stirring of a certain, all-promising belief
that a Forsyth, even though a small one--"cared."

But what was to be the cost, they asked one another, with anxious faces?

Upon hearing that Robin herself was ill, Beryl had rushed to the Manor,
in an agony of fear. Robin mustn't be sick--she couldn't die! It was
too dreadful--She ought never to have gone into Granny Castle's
house--or touched Susy.

Among the books Robin loved so well Beryl waited in a dumb misery for
hours, for some word. Harkness only shook his old head at her and Mrs.
Budge ignored her. Finally, standing the suspense as long as she could
she crept to the stairs and up them and in the hall above encountered a
cherry-faced white-garbed young woman.

"May I see Robin, please?" she implored desperately.

The young woman looked at her, hesitating. "Are you Beryl?" she asked.
Beryl nodded. "Then you may go in for a few moments but don't let that
old man and woman know--they've been hounding me to let them see her and
I've refused flatly."

"Oh, thank you so much. There's something I have to tell Robin before--"
Beryl simply could not say it. She closed her lips with tragic meaning.

The nurse stared at her a moment with a hint of a laugh in her eyes,
then nodded toward the door.

"Second door, there. Only a minute!" And then she went o