Coming Through the Rye (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

answer my questions straight, you can go where you like, but if you try to put something over on me I’ll have you taken to headquarters. Now, what’s your full name?"

      "Sybil Mary Johnston," answered the girl sullenly.

      "Where do you live?"

      "Thirty-two Maple Street."

      "Is that your parents’ home?"

      "No. I live with my grandmother."

      "I see. And where do you go to school?"

      "Oh, I quit school ages ago. I work in the silk fac’try." There was a swagger to Sybil Mary’s voice now. She felt that she was going to "get by" after all.

      "I see. And do you go out every evening in the week? Does your grandmother approve?"

      "Oh, sure! Nobody can’t keep me in. Let ’em try. I never ast her could I go. I just go."

      "I see. And how early do you leave home?"

      "It seems to me you’re mighty nosey. I’m sure I don’t know. I go when I like!"

      "And where you like, I suppose. Well, do you happen to remember just what time you started out last Thursday night and where you went?"

      "I don’t recall," said the girl insolently.

      "Well, recall!" said the officer in a compelling tone. "You left your home somewhere about seven-thirty and went to the drugstore at the corner of Third and Pine Streets. You had several sodas and a sundae, and then walked down the street toward Fourth in company with the two girls who stand behind you, where you met this other girl"—he looked toward the shrinking Frances—"and all of you stood on the corner until four boys came along. Now, from there, Miss Johnston, will you continue?"

      Sybil Mary’s eyes had been getting less and less bold as he told crisply the tale of her doings, and the other three girls were plainly shaking with fright and looking at one another aghast. Frances put her face down on her arm and began to cry. She did not dare look at her mother. Sybil looked from one to the other of her partners in crime, helplessly, like a wild thing suddenly cornered. Then her eyes glinted hardly, and she tossed up her chin.

      "Why, one of the fellas said his uncle left his car round the corner a little piece and said he might use it for the evening, and he ast us if we didn’t all wantta go fer a ride. Ain’t that so, girls?"

      The girls hurriedly chorused, "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed! That was so."

      "Which of the boys was it said that?" asked the officer, his keen eyes taking in each girl with surprising understanding.

      "Oh, I couldn’t say," said Sybil Mary airily. "I really don’t remember. Do you, Fran? Was it Bob or Timmy? I didn’t pay attention. I just heard the word ride, and that was all I cared." She laughed jauntily.

      "It wasn’t Lawrence Ransom, was it?" quizzed the officer.

      "Lawrence Ransom?" repeated Sybil thoughtfully. "I don’t think I know him. Mebbe he was one of the strange fellas that was along with Bob and Timmy. I really didn’t pay attention to their names. I never do when I’m introduced. It’s too much trouble. We always give them nicknames anyway."

      "I see," said the officer, writing something down. "And now, could you just tell me where you went after you got into the car?"

      "Why—" Sybil Mary paused thoughtfully and bit her vivid lips as if she were trying to recall. "Why, I don’t really just remember. We go on so many rides. It mightta ben to the park, and it mightta ben out Fielding Road. It was real dark that night, and I don’t recall."

      "Could it by any possibility have been toward Pine Woods Inn?"

      "I—don’t—think—so." She drew her brows thoughtfully. "I’ve never been there much."

      Suddenly the interrogator turned to Frances.

      "Which one of the men waited on you at your table that night, Miss Frances? Did they call him Jim or Joe?"

      Sybil was raising her eyebrows at Frances and signaling all sorts of warnings, but the miserable Frances was beyond using subterfuges.

      "Joe, I think," she answered with quivering lips, and then she saw what she had done and, putting her head down, sobbed bitterly to hide the angry glances of her friends.

      "That will be about all, thank you," he said to Mrs. Judson as he closed his little notebook and put it in his pocket. "I’ll leave your daughter in your hands, Mrs. Judson. I’m sure you know what is best to be done for the present, and if all goes well, I hope we sha’n’t have to trouble you again. I shall have to ask these other three girls to take a little ride with me. There is an automobile waiting outside, and it isn’t a dark night tonight."

      The three girls looked at each other with frightened glances, and Frances stopped sobbing and held her breath.

      "Oh—I—gotta date—" began Sybil Mary.

      "That’s all right," said the officer. "This date comes first. Just step right outside."

      "But my grandmother will worry," persisted Sybil Mary.

      "You should have thought of that sooner," said the officer, taking firm hold of the shrinking girl’s arm. "If it becomes necessary, we’ll see that your grandmother is informed where you are."

      "I’ll tell you where Lawrence Ransom is if you leggo of my arm!" she ventured at last as the man opened the door.

      The officer led her on grimly silent.

      "He’s arrested," affirmed Sybil Mary anxiously. "You don’t need me. They got him half an hour ago."

      But the officer herded the girls out and closed the door behind them.

      It was not until the sound of the automobile outside had died away among the city noises that Mrs. Judson turned to her cringing daughter.

      "So it seems we have two fools in the family," she said dryly. "It ain’t just the time I should ha chose to find it out, but I s’pose it don’t matter. It’s well to know just what one is up against."

      There followed a pause, during which Frances’s slender young shoulders shook pitifully under their flimsy silk covering.

      "So that’s what you ben doin’ all these evenin’s when I thought you was staying overnight with Mary Johnston studying stenography so’s you could help pay for Wilanna’s operation!"

      The shoulders shook still harder.

      "I never thought my girl would disgrace me!"

      The mother’s voice was dry and empty.

      "One woulda thought you’d had enough of drinkin’ with your Pa takin’ them spells. But I s’pose it’s in the blood somehow and just came natural. I tried to do my duty by you, but it seems I ain’t. Well—it ain’t too late to begin. Frances May Judson, I ain’t never spanked you enough. I know that. You was such a kinda pretty little thing. I never thought you’d grow up to be bad! I done wrong. I can see it now. But I’m gonna give you one good spankin’ yet that you’ll remember all your days. After that ef you wantta leave home as that bold-eyed huzzy told you, I s’pose you can go, but you’ll have that spankin’ to remember wherever you go, and mebbe p’raps it’ll remind you what you oughtta ben. But anyhow you ain’t gonta have no more such carryin’s on while you stay in your home! You can just make up your mind to that. Now you can go upstairs to my room and take off that silly rag you’ve got on and get ready, and when I come up, I’ll tend to you."

      "But, Mamma"—Frances lifted a woebegone face—"I ain’t never done anything dreadful. I didn’t steal any car, nor have anything to do with any folks that did—Larry was tryin’ a car to buy——"

      "Ain’t it bad enough to go with a young man that drinks and carries whiskey round in his car? I ask you, Frances May Judson, was you brought up to do things like that? You, a baby, that oughtta be goin’ to school yet, runnin’ round in the night to hotels in the woods, dancin’ with