t of the oppressive attentions of her cousins. Great baskets of
flowers were sent in by some of the young people who remembered and loved
Mary Boyle, and Helen helped to arrange them in the little old lady's
rooms.

Tea things for a score of people came in, too. And cookies and cakes from
the caterer's. At three o'clock, or a little after, the callers began to
arrive. Belle, and Hortense, and Flossie received them in the reception
hall, had them remove their cloaks below stairs, and otherwise tried to
make it appear that the function was really of their own planning.

But nobody invited either of the Starkweather girls upstairs to Mary
Boyle's rooms. Perhaps it was an oversight. But it certainly _did_ look as
though they had been forgotten.

But the party on the attic floor was certainly a success. How pretty the
little old lady looked, sitting in state with all the young and blooming
faces about her! Here were growing up into womanhood and manhood (for some
of the boys had not been ashamed to come) the children whom she had tended
and played with and sung to.

And she sung to them again--verses of forgotten songs, lullabies she had
crooned over some of their cradles when they were ill, little broken
chants that had sent many of them, many times, to sleep.

Altogether it was a most enjoyable afternoon, and Nurse Boyle was promised
that it should not be the last tea-party she would have. "If you are 'way
up here in the top of the house, you shall no more be forgotten," they
told her.

Helen was the object next in interest to Nurse Boyle. May Van Ramsden had
told about the Starkweathers' little "Cinderella Cousin"; and although
none of these girls and boys who had gathered knew the truth about Helen's
wealth and her position in life, they all treated her cordially.

When they trooped away and left the little old lady to lie down to
recuperate after the excitement, Helen went to her own room, and remained
closely shut up for the rest of the day.

At half-past six she came downstairs, bag in hand. She descended the
servants' staircase, told Mr. Lawdor that her trunk, packed and locked,
was ready for the expressman when he came, and so stole out of the area
door. She escaped any interview with her uncle, or with the girls. She
could not bid them good-by, yet she was determined not to go back to
Sunset Ranch on the morrow, nor would she remain another night under her
uncle's roof.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A STATEMEN