Brentwood (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill

even for a minute."

      But Marjorie caught it together about her again and held it there.

      "Look here!" she said with authority. "Stop acting this way! I'm your sister and I've come to help you! You can't fling me off this way! And we haven't time to fight! We've got to get busy. What's the first thing to do? Make a fire? Where can I find a man to send for coal. Where is your telephone?"

      "Telephone!" laughed the sister hysterically. "We haven't had a telephone in years!"

      Marjorie gave her a startled look. "Well," she said suddenly, "we must get a fire going before that hot-water bag gets cold. Mother has got to be thought of first. Where can I find a man to make a fire?"

      "A man!" said the other girl. "A man to make a fire!" and she suddenly gave that wild hysterical laugh again. "I could make a fire if I had anything to make it with. I tell you there isn't even a newspaper left."

      "Well, where do we get coal? I'll go out and get some," said Marjorie meekly.

      "You can't," said her sister sullenly, "they won't trust us till the bill is paid, and we've nothing to pay it with." Her eyes were smoldering like slow fires, and her face was filled with shame as she confessed this, but Marjorie's eyes lit with joy.

      "Oh, but I have!" she cried eagerly, and put her hand into her purse pulling out a nice fat roll of bills and slipping them into her sister's hand.

      "There," she said, "go quick and pay the bill and get the coal!"

      The other girl looked down at her hand, saw the large denomination of the bills she was holding, and looked up in wonder. Then her face changed and an alert look came, pride stole slowly up, and the faint color that had come into her cheeks faded, leaving her ghastly white again.

      "We couldn't take it!" she said fiercely. "We couldn't ever pay it back. There is no use!" and she held it out to Marjorie.

      "Nonsense!" said Marjorie. "You are my family, aren't you? It's my mother who is cold, isn't it?"

      "After all these years? You staying away and never sending us any word? No! You're adopted and belong to that other woman, and it's her money, not ours. We can't take it!"

      "Look here!" said Marjorie her own eyes flashing now till they resembled her sister's even more strongly than at first, "I didn't ask to be adopted, did I? I didn't have any choice in the matter, did I? I was adopted before I knew what was going on, and I didn't know anything about you. You have no right to blame me that way! I couldn't help what was done to me when I was a baby! If she had happened to adopt you, you probably would have been just what I've been. But I came to you just as soon as I found out, didn't I? And I want you to know that I'm here, and I'm going to stay, and I'm going to help just as much as if I'd been here all the time. And as for the money, it's mine, not hers. She left it to me, and she said in the letter I was to use it in any way I pleased. She even seemed to feel that she would like me to come and find you. But anyway I'm here, and I'm going to stay, and please don't let's waste any more time. It is awfully cold here!"

      Then suddenly the other girl jumped up and flung Marjorie's coat back to her.

      "All right!" she said. "Put on your own coat. Maybe it's all true. I don't know. I've hated you and the Wetherills so long that I don't know whether I can ever get over it or not, but I've got to try and save my mother's life, even if it is with that other woman's money!"

      "But it isn't her money now! It is mine! And I am going to look after my family. We are going to do it together! Quick! Tell me where to begin. Do I get to see my mother first or had we better have a fire? I guess the fire comes first, doesn't it? Or you will be sick too. Tell me where to go, and I'll have the fixings here in short order."

      "It's two blocks down, and a block to the right. Brown's Coal Yard. But there's a bill for twenty-three dollars. They won't send any coal till it's paid. Here! Take back the money!"

      She held out the roll of bills half reluctantly, looking at it with a sort of fierce wistfulness.

      "No," said Marjorie. "You keep that. I've more in my purse. You might have some need for it while I'm gone. But can't you put something more around you? Your lips are blue with cold!"

      "I'll be all right! I'm used to it. I really ought to go myself, I suppose. Maybe you won't be able to find your way. But I hate to leave Mother, if anything should happen."

      "Of course!" said Marjorie. "And it might startle her too much if I went to her before she knew I had come. Don't you worry, I'll find my way. But say, what shall I call you? I can't exactly go around calling my own sister 'Miss Gay,' can I? And you know I never knew your name."

      The other girl stared.

      "You don't mean they never told you your own sister's name? Well, that certainly is funny! I'm Elizabeth. They call me Betty."

      Her voice was a trifle warmer.

      "That's a pretty name. Betty Gay! I like it. And—I'm Dorothy—isn't that it? The letter told me that."

      "Yes, but they called you Marjorie!" Betty's voice was suddenly hard again.

      "Well, I couldn't help that either," grinned Marjorie. "Say, suppose you stop having grudges awhile and tell me if there is anything else I need to get before I come back. When we get the house warm and everything going all right we'll get out the grudges and settle them up, but we haven't time for them now, have we?"

      Betty suddenly softened again and almost smiled, and Marjorie saw that her eyes were really lovely when she smiled.

      "I'm sorry!" said Betty. "I guess I've been pretty poisonous to you. But maybe if you'd been here and seen your people you loved suffer, you'd be poisonous too."

      "I'm sure I should!" said Marjorie with a sudden quick setting of her lips. "I'm quite sure I would feel just as you feel. And now let's forget it till we get this place comfortable for you all. What else shall I get besides coal? You said there wasn't much in the house to eat, didn't you? Are there other stores down there by the coal yard?"

      "Yes, there's a couple of grocery stores, and a drugstore," said the girl reluctantly, "but don't you worry. I'll get things. You've given me all this money."

      "You'll have plenty of use for the money, I imagine. I'll just get whatever I see that I think would be nice and you can get later what I've forgotten. Now, go up to Mother and see that she's all right, and I'll get back as soon as possible."

      Marjorie turned and put her hand out to open the door, but before she quite touched it someone fumbled at the knob from the outside, the door was suddenly flung open with a bang letting in a rush of cold air, and someone stumbled into the hall bearing a heavy burden.

      III

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      Marjorie stepped back startled, staring at the tall man carrying a heavy sack of coal upon his back and another of small pieces of wood in his arms.

      But Betty rushed forward and put up her arms to take one bag from him.

      "Oh, Father!" she cried, "where have you been? How did you get it?" And then, giving him a quick searching look, "Where is your overcoat, Father? Oh, you didn't sell your overcoat, did you? Your nice overcoat? Oh, Father, and you are sick!"

      "It couldn't be helped, Betty," said the man in a hoarse voice. "I had to get this house warm somehow for your mother. I couldn't let her freeze to death!" There was something warm and tender in his voice that brought the tears to Marjorie's eyes and a great rush of love for her unknown father to her heart.

      Then the man suddenly dropped the bag from his back to the floor, put his hands up to his head with a bewildered look, and staggered over to the stairs, dropping down upon the second step, his face in his hands, and Marjorie saw that his bare hands were red and rough with cold, and that he seemed to be shivering.

      "Father!