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Show clttiome Utinlti that wtrt to bring blessings upon the God-given Increase, In-crease, and solemnly to assure the listening saints that rather than have one mortal sin committed beneath be-neath this new roof, she would resign re-sign the new domain gladly and gratefully, and go back to the poverty pov-erty and obscurity of the old days again. And this ceremony had told her children more than any words of hers might have done, excactly what significance the adventure had for Ma. And Ma, for the first time, had a room to herself. And Sheila had gotten a Job. bootleggers and everything " "Who said so?" Frank Interrupted, Interrupt-ed, almost ai much excited as his brother. "The police. This country cop came all the way down to identify the purse. They telephoned here, a couple of hours ago; you were asleep, and everyone else was out, and I beat it right over to see him. Well, there was your blue purse all right, with Gert's Initials and our address on it, Sheila." "And they found the place wrecked?" "They say the fellows must have stopped using it right after they took us up there." "This is interesting!" Frank said. "Frank, they'd like to ask Sheila some questions. Could she and I go over there now?" "Hang it." Frank said, "you ought to have someone, Fop or me, with you! " "We don't need anyone!" "How much" There was rising excitement in Frank's voice. "How much'd 1 have to walk, Pete, If I went with you?" "Oh, Frank, you oughtn't!" Sheila urotested. XVJm w - I'll Maihleen Norris . 0 KATHlfEH NOMU WNU 5ERVICB CHAPTER XV Continued "Yes, but you aren't gtiessinR!" he enswered shrewdly. "Be a sport, Sheila. I won't tell on you!" She looked at him steadily, unable un-able to speak, unable to smile or j move, chained in her chair, the apricot apri-cot color Hooding her face, her blue that Angela called. "Sheila!" "Woo-hoo!" Sheila returned, from the depths of the house. "Mr. Mc Cann is here!" Angela shouted. "Mr. Mc Cann what?" (There ; were hairpins in Sheila's mouth.) "Mr. Mc Cann is here." "Yes, he is!" Sheila said in a clearer clear-er tone. "Well, amuse him until I put on some lipstick. Dance and j sing to him, dear, and give him a j sweet kiss!" she added. And quite audibly she went on, "Ma, I'm mixed up with those Mc Cann boys again!" "God forbid!" Mrs. Curscadden's j voice said fervently. i "I really am, Ma." "There's worse things than death. If the truth were known," the older woman observed solemnly. "Sheila!" Angela called sharply. "Mr. Mc Cann really is here!" "What!" they could hear Sheila gasp in a sharp whisper. She came to the door of the sun porch; she saw him, tall and dark and smiling. "Well, really, Angela," she said, in the last stage of horror and exasperation. exas-peration. "Really!" "Well, what else could I do?" J CHAPTER XVI Sheila's Job was not much of a Job, to be sure, nor was she to be needed until May first. But it was near; It was In the department store over under the elevated road, five blocks away, and she could walk to and fro, so that the fifteen a week was almost pure gain. Sheila was to sit near the main entrance in a sort of little pulpit, and tell arriving arriv-ing customers where everything in the store was to be found. A small, heavy brass triangle would stand near her hand, and printed on it would be "Miss Carscadden had been chosen because of her exceptional excep-tional courtesy and efficiency. It will give her real pleasure to help you." "Shucks, it cun't hurt me!" "You wouldn't have to walk a step, Frank. We can get a taxi. "I'd like to go. I'd know what they were after." "It wouldn't hurt you a bit." "I don't believe It would," Frank said slowly. "Aw, come on, Frank! Come on. All they want is to ask Sheila a few questions." "It wouldn't take us fifteen minutes" min-utes" the invalid mused, tempted. "You were out yesterday," Peter urged. "You managed that all right." "I know. What harm can it do?" Frank exclaimed, throwing hesitation hesita-tion to the winds. "Get me my coat, Pete." He hobbled to the head of the stairs, managed them easily; Sheila fearfully fluttering ahead, with his stick and his hat, and Peter accompanying accom-panying him anxiously and warning-ly. warning-ly. They reached the lower hall, moving slowly but steadily to the front door. "I'm all right. I feel fine!" Frank said. The taxi was waiting; they could see It as they reached the top of the brownstone steps. Sheila took the stick again; Peter again caught a firm hold of his brother's arm. They had gained the sidewalk when a limousine drew up ajiead of the taxi, and three women and a stout, gray-headed man got out. The eyes fixed on his. j For a long time they looked at j each other In silence. Color had come into Frank's face, too. After a while he smiled, his kindest, his simplest smile. "I'm sorry." he said. And after a pause he repeated it. "I'm terribly ter-ribly sorry." "Oh, that's all right," Sheila assured as-sured him politely, clearing her throat again. And for a long time neither could seem to find anything further to say. "It must sound kind of flat for me to say that I like you awfully, mote than any any girl your age I ever knew," Frank presently ventured, ven-tured, with an awkward laugh. "No, I'm glad," Sheila responded very simply and honestly. She looked up at him, looked down again She wt s young, almost childish-looking in the big chair, with her .Moe hat curving off her face tike taij. 's cap. and her coppery Mlo' oi M r Hiinost in her blue ayes. "My father says you're moving to Astoria," Frank said. "Next month." "Will you be glad, Sheila?" "Glad!" she echoed. "Angela and I'll have a room to ourselves!" "Oh, and where'll Joe be?" "Joe and Ceely want to get married." mar-ried." "Ah. and now they can?" "Your father told Ma that If she'd Angela retorted, aggrieved. "I don't know what you'll think I never dreamed -I wish I could remember re-member what I said how are you?" Sheila said, looking so lovely in her confusion and pleasure and anger an-ger that Frank gave an embarrassed laugh, and stammered on his own account as he greeted ht r. "You didn't say anything, except that your sister was to dance and sing for me, which she hasn't done." Mrs. Carscadden now majestically majestical-ly adding herself to the group, Frank addressed himself to her in tones not quite loud enough to drown out her scathing observation to Sheila Shei-la to the effect that perhaps now, she, Sheila, wouldn't feci it necessary neces-sary to wake the dead when anyone called her a message. "I did say Sunday in my wire,'' Frank admitted, "but today was such a heavenly day, and I was free" "There was nothing said to me of a telegram," Mrs. Carscadden assured as-sured him. "That's the manners of today," she continued. "They'd niv-er niv-er tell you annylhing. the lot of them. My own good motlier'd niver have a dispatch an' it was few she had, thanks be to God, for ivery last wan of them had death in the flr'rst wor'rd of it but' she'd niver have one of them what the whole lot of us wouldn't run to her like a flock of bir'rds. We kep' nothin' "The place is full of that sort of bunk, but who cares? I don't care what they think about me," Sheila had said, indulgently, upon reporting report-ing this fact. "I'm reformed, anyway," any-way," she had added. "I'm all for citizenship and helpful house spirit I'm going in fur character building, clean finger nails, and a low, rich voice." "Ma" Sheila had pleaded, and It was then that she had added, while she spread and tossed her blazing hair, "I never told you and Angela what really happened, Ma." "An' God preserve me that you Iver wud!" her mother said simply, "There's niver a breath of blame cud be said against ye, but we'll all be up In the Death Row itself if iver y get another chance to do good to somebody, or get yourself out of omethin I" "Now, on Palm Sunday afternoon," after-noon," Sheila continued pleasantly, "what harm did it do me to drive to a police station with Peter and Judge Mc Cann, make a short statement state-ment and have Judge Mc Cann give me a dollar for my taxi home? I stayed in the taxi," Sheila added, in reminiscent tones, "until it said thirty thir-ty cents, then I gave him a ten-cent from her, nor she from us. "Telegram used to mean trouble, Pop says," Frank contributed cheerfully. cheer-fully. (TO BE CONTINUED) O i man was Judge Paul Mc Cann; one of the ladles was his wife. The other two were Gertrude Keane and Bernadette Kennedy. Peter, Frank and Sheila stood tooted to the pavement, the recent arrivals stood stricken, too, gazing at them, at the taxi, back at them again. "Well, you have both the boya J now, haven't you?" Bernadette Ken-I Ken-I nedy finally said sweetly. "I never told you and Angela exactly ex-actly what happened. Ma," Sheila said. She had washed her bright coppery cop-pery hair, and as it tumbled In rings and fishtails on her neck, the spring sunshine struck dazzling lights from it. A towel was spread across her ! shoulders, and belted trimly about the curves of her young body was an old blue cotton kimono. The three women of the Carscadden Carscad-den family were in the sunroom of their new home. It was the corner h.iitca ft a r(im mnn nl afM Ktnrtr rt keep the eight houses rented for him she wouldn't have to pay any rent; she'd get paid, herself." " "Does she like that Idea, Sheila?" "She said It was an answer to prayer, and Juo is working." There was a long pause. Sheila knew that she ought to go. now. But her limbs refused to obey the languid lan-guid Impulse of her mind. She ought to go she ought to go ' But that would end it. When she went ' now, she never would see him again. The black thick hair, and the dark-blue of the shaven jaw, and the little half-smile he so often gave her, and the ways In which he was so old and so wise and the ways in which he was so young and so simple all gone out of her life, when she walked out of this house. "I remember the night you first celled here, you you were all gotten got-ten up as a beggar," Frank recalled. re-called. "I came into the hall and asked Mamie who had let the ragbag rag-bag in. And she said that Ger- tip. Jumped Into the subway, and made fifty-five cents on the Judge!" "It makes me nervous to have ye talk about thim Mc Canns, Sheila. I'd niver know what minute ye'd be In throuble again." her mother said. "Peter and Gertrude Keane are getting married next fall, Ma; that's all the trouble amounted to there." "Yes, an' what about the other poor feller?" "You mean Frank?" Sheila asked dreamily. The name sounded like music on her lips. "I don't know" she admitted slowly. "Whin did ye see him?" the mother moth-er demanded suspiciously. "Mother, I give you my word I haven't seen him since that Palm Sunday nearly three weeks ago." "Sheila Carscadden," Angela said Instantly, when they were alone, "you had a wire this morning." "I know It. But Ma only asked about seeing him." "All right," Angela said, In displeasure, dis-pleasure, "if you want to lie." "I didn't He!" "You practically did," Angela per- two-story, two-flat buildings that stretched in every direction across the gently rolling levels of what had recently been a dump for the greatest of all the cities. On top of the dump real-estate developments de-velopments had been started; every corner bore signs advertising the merits of this "five-room home" or that. The downstairs apartments were all alike; , all had five rooms, one bath, and tills delightful feature of a sun-porch; a square, bare, unimaginative un-imaginative twelve by seven feet of space at the front, glassed In from the street. The streets were paved, but still showed patches of wet cement and i protecting board-work here and I there. There were handsome lamp-j lamp-j posts at the corners, but the globes i had all been smashed. The names j of the thorough-fares were posted: Trafalgar Way, Versailles Avenue, Rhododendron Court. There were listed. Sheila's expression grew suddenly disarming and young. "Listen, Angie. I was knocked completely In a heap when I got It I" she Interrupted herself. "How'd you know it was from Frank Mc Cann?" she demanded. "I didn't read it, if that's what you mean," Angela answered. "But the way you've been acting since it came" she explained eloquently. "I know" Sheila murmured, looking away. "You've been talking character for weeks now," the younger sister pursued. "You've been horribly quiet we've all seen it. You've jumped whenever anyone spoke to you, and you've gone off into sort of trude by the way, where is that purse?" " "Most of the money, luckily, I left with Mamma." Sheila explained. '"But the purse I lost. I had it up in the farmhouse In Connecticut, I remember, because my make-up was in it, and t powdered my nose there -I remember that. But then In 611 the excitement of getting way, and the queerness of It all, I dropped it, somewhere. And I lost my blue hat the day of the smash." "Well, 1 think 1 owe you a hat," Frank said. "Oh, no, you don't! This one," Sheila told him. "cost me ninety- i eight cents. !t was in a window. They had every hat with the two copper cents lying next to It." "The two copper cents?" "Lying next to It. Your change from a dollar," she explained. " "Ah-?" Sheila stood up, smiling a good-by. good-by. Frank took her hand. "'There was time for no more. Sudden Sud-den .footsteps sounded in the hall, and with tremendous uproar, Peter McCann was In the room. "Frank!" he shouted. He stopped short at the sight of Sheila. ' dreamy states" "I know," Sheila admitted again, still staring Into space with tranced eyes. "And I knew it was Frank!" Angela An-gela concluded triumphantly. The other girl spoke slowly: "I've known all along that it was a great many empty new stores with whitewash still smeared on their new, unwashed window-glass, and elms of the thickness of a child's finger were planted at regular Intervals Inter-vals along the curbs. Passengers for Oyster Bay or Southampton might have passed through this district with a "shudder. "shud-der. It was a rawness, ugliness, cheapness; the barren, ashy earth cut into great gashes for sewers and . pole holes; the cheap buildings of yellow brick, pink brick, stucco, exposed ex-posed mercilessly to the light, without with-out a protecting tree or the shadow of a hill, without garden or the mellowness of lawnj and ' stone fences to soften their nakedness. . Blocks of it. miles of it, and tht Carscaddens' particular corner only one of a thousand corners. But to them it was no less than heaven. As for their mother, she had been In a state of dignified outrage since Sheila's latest escapade, and bad been reluctant to express enthusiasm enthusi-asm about anything. But it was noted that her first act in the new home had been to gather her children chil-dren about her: Shella,f Angela, Joe, Cecilia, Marg'rei ' and Mar-g'ret's Mar-g'ret's Lew. Neely" and his Lizzie, and kneeling down solemnly to re- Frank." "And In his wire Sheila, do you think he likes you?" Angela demanded demand-ed eagerly. "Angela, I don't know. He only says, 'Coming to see you Sunday.' " "Tomorrow?" "I guess so." "Sheila, what'll you do if Frank Mc Cann is just coming down here to tell you he's going to be mar-ried?" mar-ried?" the younger sister asked after aft-er a silence. 'I thought of that." "But after all, why should he?" Angela asked sensibly. "It's Just one of the things he would do," Sheila mused. "Well." she added, with spirit, "he'll not see me lose my nerve!" "But will you feel terribly. Sheila?" Shei-la?" Angela asked timidly, after another an-other pause. Sheila brought her gaie back from .far spaces. ' "Oh, Angela, it will be very hard, she answered, simply. It was not fifteen minutes later i "Hello, Sheila," he said. "HeUot Sheila responded, simply. They stood looking at each other a moment, then Peter, with a return re-turn of excitement, turned toward his brother "Frank, d'you know ; what's happened? Gee, I'm glad Sheila's here for this!" ' "What's the matter?" "They've found the farmhouse! They found the place those fellows took us, Sheila!" " "They've found the farmhouse!" Sheila exclaimed. "Oh, Peter!" " 'Membei you drew a plan of the rooms for the police? Well, listen, lis-ten, they want to see you again, and check up on that plan, and they found your purse, and everything! every-thing! Listen, Frank, two school teachers or artists or something irotn Boston have that place, and they went up there for school vacation, vaca-tion, see?-and they found signs of |