She was alert, frightened, her heart beating so fast that she almost feared the aunts outside the curtain would hear it. She held her breath and listened.

The lawyer was reading the will. She took a deep breath. Then Daddy had left a will. Of course he would. Of course he would not leave them all at the mercy of these unfeeling relatives! She began to listen again through all the maze of legal phrases. Some of it she understood, and some was not even lucid to her, but she sat there with her brown curls bobbing and her eyes like two great angry stars shining from the gloom of the room.

There were long involved paragraphs that seemed utterly unnecessary to her when all she wanted to know was what her father had planned for them. But as the phrases rolled on in the other room concerning stocks and bonds and properties and the time of the coming of age of each of them, she gathered enough here and there to calm her troubled spirit. It was evident, gloriously evident, that their father had planned for them no such shunting off into the world of boarding schools and European trips and marriage as the relatives had suggested, and she meant to foil them in any attempt to spoil her father’s plans.

Gradually a purpose began to form in her own mind. If those combative aunts and uncles, who were even now interrupting the lawyer with questions designed to clear the way for their ideas, had but glanced behind them into the next room and caught the gleam of those bright angry eyes, the set of those determined red lips, they would have been startled to see how much Jennifer Graeme looked like her dead father, in spite of the fact that she had inherited a great deal of the beauty of her dead mother.

It was Aunt Majesta who finally cleared her throat and broke in upon Lawyer Hemmingway’s monotonous listing of special bequests, under which the women of the conclave were growing restive.

“Really, Mr. Hemmingway, we aren’t especially interested in those trifling bequests that John left to his servants and henchmen. Couldn’t you just excuse the ladies of the party? We want to talk over what we are to do about the children and arrange for their welfare at once. It seems to me that is the important thing now. We can just step into this next room, the library, and be close at hand if anything important should come up for which we are needed. Come, Petra; come, Agatha! And, Lutie, would you care to come?”

Aunt Majesta had risen and taken hold of the heavy curtain that separated the rooms, drawing it firmly back for a few inches, so that Jennifer’s hiding place was in full view if any had been looking.

The lawyer gave Aunt Majesta a sharp reproving glance and said coldly, “That will scarcely be necessary, Mrs. Best. That can all be left to the children’s guardian. If he needs your advice, he will doubtless ask you. I am coming to that soon, if you will kindly be seated and be a little patient.”

“Guardian?” exclaimed Majesta Best hoarsely. “He!” And she slumped heavily back into her chair.

“As if any mere man would be able to cope with those children!” fairly snorted Petra Holbrook, rearing up in her chair.

But Jennifer did not hear any of this. At the moving of the curtain she had uncurled herself in a flash from the big chair and vanished out into the hall.

And just at that minute the doorbell rang and Stanton, answering it, came back toward Jennifer with a telegram in his hand.

There had been so many telegrams and letters of condolence that Jennifer naturally supposed this was just another, somewhat belated. She held out her hand for it.

“I’ll attend to that, Stanton,” she said in a whisper and, taking it, fled lightly up the stairs to her room. She didn’t want even Stanton to know that she had been hiding in the library.

She tore open the envelope idly, scarcely knowing why she thought it necessary to read it, just another expression of sympathy, of course! Then she caught her breath, her eyes grew frightened, her little white even teeth came down tensely on the pretty under lip, as she read the name signed to the message.

“Oh!” She read the whole message slowly.

Shall be delighted to come and stay indefinitely with John’s children. Will arrange to start as soon as you say.

Abigail Storm

Her face grew dark and her lips set in a determined line. She turned and stood staring out the window toward the lovely garden and the wide, hedged playground for the children.

She could see them out there now, Tryon and Heather over at one side of the tennis court idly playing a set of tennis, with the attitude of killing time. Hazel curled in a hammock under a tree with a book. Karen swinging Robin in one of the big swings hung from a tall elm. And Jeremy. Where was Jeremy? And what was she going to do about it all?

She gave another despairing glance down at the telegram that trembled in her hand and then, swinging around, fled down the back stairs. Jeremy would likely be in the garage or the stables.