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Show Xfy BKATHLEEN NORRIS Vf NOftHlS CHAPTER I "That's the child that's Cherry," Sister Seraphine said in her serene voice. Her hands were crossed and Hidden within her wide sleeves, but a motion of her caped and coifed head indicated a certain girl among the milling masses, and the man who was her companion looked at the girl keenly. The tableaux and the play were over, but many of the girls still wore their make-up and a theatrical excitement possessed the hot, crowded hall. It was not a large hall; just now it was filled with spectators, nuns and performers mixed indiscriminately. Bright lights flooded auditorium and stage; groups formed and reformed. re-formed. The man watched the girl he had identified for a few minutes and thought that she was a vital young creature, anyway; she was not a bad-looking young creature, anyway; she seemed popular enough, anyway. Obviously she was the center of everything that went on. As the daughter of an Indian chief she had taken the leading part in the play that had concluded the program, pro-gram, and had appeared also In more than one of the tableaux that preceded it. Judson Marshbanks saw her questioned, kissed and congratulated; con-gratulated; saw her drop her proudly proud-ly feathered head more than once in a deprecating fashion, as if she were embarrassed by praise. After some fifteen minutes of this post - performance bedlam when some of the audience were already drifting away a nun drew her quietly quiet-ly aside. The girl's laughing expression ex-pression changed, as she glanced in his direction. She joined him immediately. im-mediately. "Cherry, this is Judge Marsh-banks," Marsh-banks," said Sister Seraphine, and the judge watched her dark eyes brighten suddenly, and felt the touch of her warm, young, quickly All she said was a somewhat shy how-do-you-do, but her look added what she did not say: "I know your name! I know something about you." "Well, so you led the pioneers out of danger?" Judson Marshbanks asked amiably. Color showed under un-der her Indian brown and he thought with satisfaction that she was a handsome, glowing sort of girl who ought not to have too much trouble getting along. "It was a silly sort of play," the girl said quickly. He remembered that she had written it, and smiled. "Come over here and sit down, Cherry; I want to talk to you a minute," he said. "I'll not keep you long. I'm joining a friend who is flying his plane down to San Francisco Fran-cisco tonight." Cherry looked dazed with excitement excite-ment and surprise. A man coming to see her, who had not averaged a caller a year in all her twenty years, and coming just now, when she was still flushed and breathless from the evening's thrills, created a situation that silenced her. She sat down and looked at her companion com-panion expectantly and could pot speak. "I thought it was a very good play," said the judge. "I understand under-stand that you wrote it? It was sort of allegory a pageant, wasn't it?" "Well, they all have to be pageants, pag-eants, because of having to get all the girls in," Cherry answered in a shy voice. "Oh, you have to get all the girls in?" he asked aloud. "Oh, yes. Last Halloween we had only fifteen girls, so that wasn't so hard. I coulif have used more!" "I see. And do you always write the plays?" "Well, usually. Yes, I guess always." al-ways." "And who wrote the song?" "That Madeleine sang? Didn't she sing that beautifully? Sister Claude," Cherry went on, suddenly warming to confidence, "went to opera once. You know, real opera." "I didn't think Sisters did." "Oh, but this was before she entered!" en-tered!" the girl reassured him. And for the first time he heard her resonant reso-nant joyous laugh. "You wrote the words to the song, too?" "Oh, well, yes," Cherry said carelessly. care-lessly. "And she said Sister Claude did, that Madeleine sang like the prima donna she said so, really." "You acted the leading part, too," the man said. "Yes, I had to! Miriam Foster was twenty and so she had to go home. We thought she'd be here until at least Christmas, but her mother sent for her. So I took her part." "Some of the girls here have mothers then, Cherry?" His tone had changed. It had dropped to a personal note of something like pity and tenderness, and he saw her flush brightly again as she faced him, realizing perhaps with a little fear that they reached their own aiTairs now. "Yes; some have," she said almost al-most inaudibly. "And you know that you lost youri when you were very small. W.N.U.RELEAS 1 hi A Her head went suddenly down on the table. She covered her faCS with her hands. The judge cleared his throat. my dear?" "Seven," she said unsteadily. "I remember her, and living in the country." "You came here at seven. Thirteen Thir-teen years! But they haven't been unhappy years, have they. Cherry?" "No. They've been heavenly years!" she said loyally, after a moment. "But, of courseof course I've wanted someone of my own someone . . . Her head went suddenly down on the table, she covered her face with her hands. The judge cleared his throat. "Of course you have, of course you have," he said a little thickly. "I'm very sorry," she said composedly com-posedly in the voice and manner of a much older woman. "I don't cry much. I don't know what started me. We've been decorating and rehearsing re-hearsing until I suppose I'm tired. But of course, they haven't been unhappy un-happy years," she said sensibly. "Sister Seraphine said that you were the most influential girl in the school," the man put in. "Oh, that couldn't have been Sister Sis-ter Seraphine; she never praises anyone!" Cherry smiled, with wet eyes. "It was, though. She said they would be sorry to lose you. Sorrier than over losing almost any other girl." "Did she say that?" Cherry had pushed off her headdress now and he saw that her hair was a warm tawny mixture of tan and brown. The significance of his last phrase came to her suddenly. "Sorry to lose me?" she repeated, the color leaving her face. "You mean I'm going out?" "You're twenty, aren't you? Isn't that the age when girls are launched from Saint Dorothea's?" "Yes, but yes, but " she whispered, whis-pered, and stopped. "Don't you want to? Don't you want a look at something outside these four walls?" the judge questioned. ques-tioned. "Why, yes; the others have. But I never thought of it as my turn!" the girl said. "And I have been out, you know," she reminded him. "In the city, I mean. I taught the last three terms at the kindergarten." kinder-garten." Her face was streaked with soot as she spoke, her eyebrows had . melted and her cheeks were pale. But she was giving no thought, he perceived, to her appearance; she was absorbed in the stunning news of the approaching change in her life. "Would it be to go to San Francisco?" Fran-cisco?" she asked eagerly, like a child. "I don't suppose you would rather make it somewhere else?" he asked in return. "What I had to suggest was a secretarial position in San Francisco." "A secretarial position?" she asked, flustered. "I don't think I could take a position. That is except ex-cept in a kindergarten! I can typewrite, type-write, and I'm getting better at stenography, ste-nography, and I speak a little French and some Spanish. We have two sisters here from Belgium and two from Madrid. But would that be enough?" "Plenty, at first. Later, if you wanted to study anything specifically," specifical-ly," the judge said, "anything like-well, like-well, library work or nursing or going go-ing on with kindergarten work, we could find out what the requirements are, and I don't think there'd be any trouble." "But " Her pale, tear-streaked and paint-streaked face reddened suddenly. "But have I any money?" mon-ey?" she asked hesitatingly. And then, with a little trembling return to emotion, "You see, I don't know much about myself. I know my mother's dead, and I suppose my father. And some of the girls here have told me about themselves, and I've thought I've suspected, that that was true of me, too I mean that perhaps I haven't any right to my father's name. Perhaps you could tell me that?" tier voice raiterea, Dut sne neia it as firm as she could, and looked straight into his eyes. "I can't tell you very much, Cherry," Cher-ry," said the judge, with a straightforwardness straight-forwardness as simple as her own, and with a great ache at his heart I know that we had in our family for many years a fine housekeeper named Emma. She was a trained nurse, took care of my brother and me, when we were boys, and afterward after-ward of my father. She was a silent creature, but very capable and reliable. Some years ago well, perhaps almost twenty she gave up her job to live with a Mrs. Rawlings who was ill." "Emma!" said Cherry, with a brightening face. "I remember her! She took care of my mother and me." "Yes; that same Emma. After your mother's death quite a sum of money was left for you. Emma came to me about it. You were to be sent here, she said. Well, you were sent here! Your own mother chose the place." "She would know about my motherEmma," moth-erEmma," the girl said, "she could tell me." "She mightn't tell you. She has another position now, housekeeper to a very lovely old lady. I don't see Emma often. But during these thirteen years, when you've been ill you were ill once, weren't you?" the judge broke off to say, speaking comfortably, as if the subject presented pre-sented no difficulties, and smiling with the question. "I had scarlet fever, and then I broke my leg falling out of a tree," Cherry supplied. "Well, about things like that she would consult me. Your mother made me your joint guardian with Emma." "Guardian for what?" the girl asked quickly. "A sum of money for all your expenses, ex-penses, for your education." "But Emma," the girl said quickly quick-ly and proudly, "wasn't paying that She was she was only my mother'a nurse!" "No; it had been left with her for you, and she put it into my hands. Through Emma that account had taken care of you all these years. And even now I know there is enough left to help you into any profession pro-fession you choose." Cherry considered this, bright-eyed bright-eyed and thoughtful. "Emma got in touch with me ten days ago," the man said, "to remind re-mind me that you would be twenty this week. She was the one to get you this position." "You didn't know my mother?" the girl asked with a steady look. "I never saw her." "Emma never said anything of my father?" "I know that he is dead." "I think," Cherry said, "I've always al-ways thought that I was an unwanted un-wanted baby, and that I caused my mother great trouble, and that Emma was a friend who came to stand by her at the end." "Why mightn't you think that your mother had been widowed, and was as happy in having you as any other mother?" (TO BE CONTINUED) |