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Show . S!J i GIIMGIlSR. J :S Ic ELLA ! I . Edcl Ilucston r i 'i , Illustrations by l " I Irwin Myers !1 Copyright. llot!i Merrill Oo, CHAPTER VII Continued 14 They tUt not try to pin n fur the future, llir.v simplj' contented litem selves lth tlie knowledge lli:u wluit ever cnnie to tlieui must le Komi They did not look iil.eud tu the win ter without a cliiiivtl. without a :i r somite, with a mender twenty the dollars month to provide food nn.l clothes nnd a roof over their lionets They merely accepted t tie present Hint wns Klveo them, and smiled nt each other, and strove In every way pos silile to Impress upon themselves the sutilltnltv of their faith, the hound lessness of their possibilities Id divine love. As they went out lo the car answering an-swering the call of Eddy Jackson's siren, they met the postman coin Ins Id. (iinuer ran ahead of the others, nod took the mail from his hand. "Three for father, one for Marjory mine, mine the res' Is for me." Cinders watchfulness over Mar Jury and Hiram liuckwortti Increased She Intercepted every glance, endured the soft smiles with a glowering strltn ness, answered every Mylil sally as though It were intended for her ears alone. One evening, soon after dinner. H'ram Buckworth decided that he niUL'l wiilidniw to his room to prepare his sermon for the tvilowini; Sunday, and Marjory thought she would go upstairs and manicure her nails. Hut Gingei aas Dot lo tie dis'nu-ted by mere plans foi the future. She saw them both upstairs, saw the door of hei father's riniii closed behind Itiinin Iiuckworth's rigid b::ck. saw Miriam ensitmced or the foot of her bed with tiles, oningewood sticks nnd bulTers. Then she went to ih.- studio with a sigh of relief. There ;-he settled down to a complete balancing of her accounts. ac-counts. She counted the dimes in the doll's trunk. She made careful entries In her huge ledger. Her waste basket she found full to overflowing of discarded letters, little white angels, which had accompanied the contributions to ihe home. Ginger was systematic and orderly. These angels were to be burned. So with ; waste basket In one hand lantern In the other, she made ner way carefully over the narrow beams, and down the wabbly ladder. She noted, comfortably, that the two doors remained closed as she had left them, and a pleasantly soothing stillness pervaded the house Softly, happily, with waste basket and Ian tern, she slipped anund the curve of the circular staircase and stopped She stopped aghaU electrified, spell bound. For beneath her. before her - - very eyes, there lay revealed a scene whose unutterable disgust lDgness was beyond her power of description. The wide living room was lighted, dimly lighted, by one small corner reading lanp, and ir the shadowy, semi darkness. Ginger saw two figures her sister. Marjory. aDd Hiraa) Buck worth whom she bad left behind be-hind their seperate closed doors not twenry minutes previous. By what strange intuillveness each bad discovered, dis-covered, behind those barring doors, that the other was descending to the common meeting ground of the living room below. Ginger never knew nor even which had made the Initial move-Em move-Em ooe foci was evident there they were. One of Hiram's arms was about her sister's shoulders, und his free hand was fondling very gently, very caress ingly. the soft gold of her hair. Marjory Mar-jory herself, plainly not to be outdistanced out-distanced Id madness, was raising her soft white fingers to his cheek, his lips, bis eyes. Ginger's Irrepressible gasp siartled thein. they looked up at her. gravely. They did not move. "Excuse me." Ginger's voice was cold and subdued, very small. "I thought you were In different places doing other things." She turned short around upon the stairs, and went up to the attic. In the studio she sat herself down, beav-ily, beav-ily, and fell to deep consideration. She saw clearly that the situation was critical. Marjory was hopeless She bad ogled Ihe grocery clerk. She had almost held hnnds with Tub Andrews nnd the ukulele. She even practiced her blandishments on Eddy Jackson, who had the fortitude to withstand her wiles And now she was flagrantly flagrant-ly necking the young minister. Ginger writhed in helpless fury. The tin ister! Even a grocery clerk may aspire to ownership, a bank Janitor may progress slowly upward. But once a preacher, always a preacher. Plainly, then, responsibility rested upon none other than Ginger, and Ginger squared her sLoulders to receive re-ceive it Marjory was lacking in strength at character so much was evident, nut Minim llurkworth. now lu wiia a minister, b must have some right plni'lpUi within an appeal to hint, perhaps Ginger regret ted Hint she could not entirely abandon M.nlor.v to her own misguided ways The home for the blind was on ltd way to firm eslnhllsl nt, It wim true lint alas, so innn.v dimes went lute the purciinse of n load if coal, a month's groceries, a delicate opornllot (or the c.ic.t An appeal, then, to I II rum Htickworth The net illuming lefore breakfast, Ginger, alei i and w.ili htnl. saw him walking down the tlagsnuie path lie twocn Hie rows of Mowers. Inhaling great iireailis ol the tresh morning air, his entlic milliner and countenance retltvtiiii; :i smu and sntlstied con icnimcul with the world at large. She Inn rlcd dim n. nnd .tned him "Mr. I'.uckwoi t h," sle began tlrmly. "excuse ne for hulling In and It ivittlv Isn't n thing against Marjory, von know, for she Is Just as nice as she M'ems to hi1 " "I should sn she Is !M 'lint I ve kiiowi. her a long time, ami really, sle Is a terrible flirt, though a heart she doesn't mean a thing b. It 1 don't kuow whether she bus told you I mean You see. It 's already arranged M "Kilenl Irni don't niean tbat Marjory-that she Is engaged The use of the word relieved tier. She was llmlitig It unaccountably hard to express herself In way that would gain the desired result, without coin mining herself to falsehood. "Well, yes. In a way. Not exactly engaged, you understand, hut it Is all understood. If you know wlnit I mean." "Yes, I do know what you metm." The bright ruddiness went suddenly wwm ml She Stopped Aqhast, Electrified, Spellbound. Spell-bound. out of Hiram Duckworth's face. "1 understand entirely too well. Too are a good sport for tipping me off. 1 see." And then he went quickly Indoors, and said nothing else. The apeal to Hiram Buckwortb had Indeed reaped results after a fashion, but Ginger did not feel very well pleased. Hiram Buckworth. although anything but a romantic figure, was s nice chap. And the shocked look oa bis face, the strange, hurt, stricken look, had touched her heart. He had looked sorry. Ginger did not enjoy seeing people look sorry, no! even disgusting pretenders who pawed and held hands. Breakfast, usually such a gay and cheery meal, proved an awkward occasion. oc-casion. Hiram Buckworth seemed every Incb a minister, unsmiling, grave, and stiffly formal. He talked exclusively to Miss Jenkins, and not very entertainingly. He did not look at Marjory, who had ;ome In a little late with her nsual bright morning radiance. But her radiance was of short duration, paling swiftly to startled, wide-eyed wondering. She had no appetite, toyed idly with ber fork, and kept her eyes upon his face, curiously, as though her eyes were seeking something, asking questions. But always they found ' nothing, received re-ceived no answer. Immediately after breakfast he excused himself, and weDt quickly out of the room. Ginger was very cncomfortable indeed. in-deed. She tried to tell herself that she was merely imagining that these things were so that It was a mere chance that Hiram had not looked at Marjory, that Marjory could not eat her breakfast But she was uncoin fortable. Not even a trip to the stufilo. and a painstaking count of her doll's trunk of dimes sufficed to put her Id a cheerful frame of rntnd. Not 'It t"M 1 t I t I I-1 I I M I t I 1 ' I I 1 even the corning of In postmnn. with sixteen letters for K Tolllver, made her really happy. I hi tlshi'd two imill packages from his hag and handed them lo tier. "1 see you're .jetting some more of those Haiiiplcn." lie added cheerfully. "Those are foi the twins." she an swered, Hushing. "'f rHoiinlly, I wn not luteri'Hted In beauty preparations." The day paused dully, a bun day. as oatuida.vs always are In parson ages where arrangements are always lending up to tim clltiiiuic Sabhath 1 1 Irani lluckworth remained down town for luncheon. Marjory a al III. wltlle Mnrlory. busied herself In a at lulled way about H o work of the house. And dinner in the evening was an Increasingly painful repetition of Ihe lu.irtiliig neat. j When Ihe dishes were dotio, (linger repaired to the veranda. Miss Jenkins sat there, alone, solemnly rocking. "Where's Margie?" "She went to bed. She has a head ache." "Oh. I see." Ginger went upstairs, and knocked gently tit her sinter's door. "I'm In bed," called a muffled voice In answer. Ginger opened the door, and went In. "I Just wanted to see if I could do anything for your headache." She gave her sister a sharp look. "You've been crying." "I think I'm getting hay fever," aald .Marjory "My eyes ellng. I'm going to sleep now." Ginger, at this dismissal, dis-missal, turned toward Ihe door. "And Ginger, don't you go and talk about It to Miss Jenkins or anybody. If I have a henda he nud hay fever It's j nobody's buslnest but my own. Not that anybody would care anyhow." "I won't talk ibout It Go to sleep now, Margie, I'll be ery quiet not to disturb you," And Ginger closed the door softly behind her. CHAPTER VIII Sunday, ordinarily such a pleasure-ably pleasure-ably hurried day In the parsonage, was no less than a dreary ordeaL Marjory appeared very late for her breakfast She need not have appeared ap-peared at all. for she ate nothing. "Headache all gone?" Inquired Ginger. "M'm." Hiram, Instead of walking compnn- ! lonahly to church with the girls, ex- ! cused himself and went on Id advance, i explaining that he wished to Bee some- , body about something. Marjory dreamed ab?ent-mindedly during the ! service, while Ginger, on the con- I trary. listened attentively to every I word, ,-eporfing confidentially to her i sister. Inter on. that she didn't think so much of tlie sermon. In the afternoon, Eddy Jackson came i In the car to take them to Pay Dirt j nnd although Illntm tried to be excused ex-cused from the party there vas no evading Eddy's friendly Insistence. But while there was great gaiety at Pay Plrt, the arrival of the car from the parsonage btought a sudden ; slump In their hlgb spirits. Alexander Murdock was there, and Ginger's wrath, long slumbering, vented Itself upon his unoffending head. Why should he spend all ot bis spare time : at Pay Dirt? What had a mere can ! grocer to do with the conduct of agriculture? ag-riculture? And why. If mere friendship friend-ship for Eddy attracted him thither, did he so openly Ignore his friend In I his ardent attentiveness to Miriam? And why, for that matter, should the j so-sensitle Miriam, be suddenly tbnt gay and shining? "What's the matter with everybody anyhow?" demanded Eddy crossly. "That's some grouch of a preacher. If yon ask me. Margie's clear at the bottom the dumps, wirst thing In the world for her complexion. And even you. Ginger, you're nc cheerier than a brokeD crutch." "Well. I have a lot of trouble," said Ginger dully. The one bright moment Id ihe afternoon after-noon for Ginger was when Alexander announced that be was leaving the next day for the farther West "Walking?" she Inquired coldly. "Ob, no. Business has been quite good. 1 shull be able to ride quite a little distance before I connect np with another Orange and Black.", "Sort of a can tour." "Something of the sort, yes." But If tbe parsonage group had little to contribute to the day's enjoyment It was more than compensated by the glad hilarity of the others. Mr. Tolllver Tol-llver laughed like a boy at tbe bald and ribald Jokes of the can grocer. Miss Jenkins aDd Mrs. Jackson exchanged ex-changed giggling reminiscences of j their own nntrammeled youth. Ml- ! riara and Alexander were ringleaders j In the day's recreation, doing all sorts of absurd young tilings. (TO BE CONTINUED) I I I I I I t H t I 1 I I 1 I I 1 I I 1 t I t t ! |