Miss Moore works exceedingly hard. It cannot always be pleasant
for a refined young woman to do the work she is sometimes required to do.
I hope you will be kind to her, Harriet, and help her when it is within
your power."

But Harriet only shrugged her shoulders and looked obstinate. "I should
think Miss Moore would find the society news for her paper inside the
reception rooms, rather than outside in the dark. It looks to me as
though she went out into the grounds either to meet some one, or to find
out what some one else was doing."

None of the "Automobile Girls" or Mr. Hamlin made response to Harriet's
unkind remark and they were all glad when breakfast was over and the
discussion ended.

Barbara at once went upstairs to the room that had been allotted to their
wounded guest the night before. She found Marjorie Moore dressed in a
shabby serge suit, lying on the bed looking pale and weak. A refined,
middle-aged woman, with a sad face, sat by her daughter holding her hand.
She was Marjorie's mother. The two women were waiting for the carriage to
take them home.

"I want to thank you, Miss Thurston," Marjorie Moore spoke weakly. "I
believe it was you who found me. I ought not to have asked you to come
out into the yard, but I did not dream there would be any danger to
either one of us. I want you to believe that I did have a real reason for
persuading you to join me, a reason that I thought important to your
happiness, not to mine. But I cannot tell you what it was, now; perhaps
because I may have made a mistake. I must have been struck by a tramp,
who had managed to hide in the White House grounds. I have no other
explanation of what happened to me. But--" Miss Moore stopped and
hesitated. "I have an explanation of the reason I wanted to talk to you
alone. Yet I cannot tell you what I mean to-day. I want to ask you to
trust me if ever you need a friend in Washington."

Bab thought the only friend she was likely to need was some one who could
lend her fifty dollars. And Marjorie Moore was too poor to do that. She
would have liked to ask the newspaper girl where she could find a pawn
shop, but was ashamed to make her strange request before that gentle,
sad-eyed woman, Marjorie Moore's mother.

So Barbara only pressed the other girl's hand affectionately, and said
she was glad to know she was better, and that she appreciated her
friendship.

CHAPTER XI

IN MR. HAMLIN'S STUDY

All morning Barbara pond