CHAPTER XXIII

MAID MARY AWAKE

"We had better tell her," said Mrs. Dunbar to Cleo, an hour later,
after Cleo had talked things over with G-race, while she left Madaline
to entertain Mary. "As you say, my dear, it does look as if your
vacation story is going to have a very happy ending."

Cleo flitted back to her companions. They divined from her manner that
the hoped-for good news was to be "thrown on the screen."

"Mary," began Cleo, who had dropped in a safe coil on the rug at Mary's
feet, "are you prepared for the very biggest thing in all the world to
happen? Can you stand the most astonishing kind of news?" and she
managed to secure Mary's hand to give her confidence.

"Oh, yes, Cleo dear, but don't tell me if you are not sure? I have
been dreaming such glorious things since--you talked of--daddy!"

"It is just about him, Mary, I want to speak. He may be alive----"

"Oh, how do you know? Who has found him----"

"Don't become too excited now," pleaded Cleo, while Grace and Madaline
both closed in affectionately about Mary's chair. "Of course we cannot
be too positive, but Uncle Guy has wired he is bringing back--your
daddy!"

"Oh!" the sound was a sigh, a gasp, then Mary began to slip down deep
into the chair.

"Now, don't you dare faint!" called Madaline, with the magic way she
always exercised of averting evil through sheer innocent challenge.
"Here, Grace, hold her head while I fetch water," and while Grace
attempted to support the head Madaline had been fondling, Mary raised
it with a look of unspeakable joy.

"Oh, girls!" she murmured, "how did you do it?"

"Oh, we didn't," disclaimed Cleo. "No girls really could; we just
lived up to our laws and rules and inspirations, and all those powers
united to bring our happy result. It would be perfectly silly to say
girls could do such things."

"But we did all the same," came from Grace, "and it would be sillier to
say the rules and the laws and the inspirations did them. Wouldn't it?
You wrote the whole story and even sent Mary's picture to your uncle."

"But daddy!" Mary begged. "Tell me, where is he now? How did your
uncle find him?"

"Our uncle," corrected Cleo. "I am almost afraid to tell you this
part. The girls will say I was in the secret all the time, and I
wasn't, truly. Mary--you are my cousin!"

"She is not--no fair!" cried Grace, actually slamming a pillow on
Cleo's head. "I warned you long ago not to dare to clai