Bobs, a Girl Detective

  CHAPTER II. A PROPOSAL

  Soon after daybreak the next morning, down a deserted country road, twothoroughbred horses were galloping neck and neck.

  "Gee along, Star," Bobs was shouting. She had lost her hat a mile backand her short hair, which would ripple, though she tried hard to brushout the natural curls, was tossed about her head, making her look morehoidenish than ever.

  Dick, on his slender brown horse, gradually won a lead and was a lengthahead when they reached the Twin Oaks, which for many years had beentheir trysting place. Roberta and Dick had been playmates and then pals,squabbling and making up, ever since the pinafore days, more, however,like two boys than a boy and a girl. Bobs, in fact, never thought ofherself as a young person who in due time would become a marriageableyoung lady, and so it was with rather a shock of surprise that she heardDick say, when they had drawn their horses to a standstill in the shadeof the wide-spreading trees: "I say, Roberta, couldn't you cut out thisgoing to work stuff and marry me?"

  "Ye gods and little fishes! _Me_ marry you?" Bobs' remark and theaccompanying expression in her round, sunburned face, with its pertlytilting freckled nose, were none too complimentary.

  Dick flushed. "Well, I say! What's the matter with me, anyhow? Anyonemight think, by the way you're staring, that I had said somethingdreadful. I'm not deformed, am I? And I've got money enough so youwouldn't have to work ever and----"

  Roberta became a girl at once, a girl with a sincere nature and a tenderheart. Reaching out a strong brown hand, she placed it kindly on the armof her friend. "Dicky, boy, forgive me, if--if I was a little astonishedand showed it. Truth is, for so many years I've thought of you as theplaymate I could always count on to fight my battles, that I'd sort offorgotten that we were grown up enough to even think of marrying. Ofcourse we aren't grown up enough yet to really marry, for you are onlynineteen, and I'm worse than that, being not yet seventeen. And as formoney, Dick, I'd like you heaps better if you were poor and working yourway, but I know that you meant what you said most kindly. You wanted tosave me from hard knocks, but, Dick, honest Injun, I revel in them. Thatis, I suppose I will. Never having had one as yet, I can't speak frompast experience."

  Then they rode slowly back to find the hat that had blown off into thebushes. Dick rescued it, and when he returned it he handed her a sprayfrom a blossoming wild rose vine.

  The lad did not again refer to his offer, and the girl, he noted with aninward sigh, had evidently forgotten all about it. She was gazing abouther appreciatively. "Dicky boy," she exclaimed, "there's nothing muchprettier than early morning in the country, is there, with the dew stillsparkling--and a meadow lark singing," she added, for at that moment ajoyous song arose from a near-by thicket.

  For a time they were silent as they rode slowly back by the way they hadcome. Then Dick said, "Bobs, since you love the country so dearly, aren'tyou afraid you'll be homesick in that human whirlpool, New York?"

  The girl turned toward him brightly. "Perhaps, sometimes," she replied."But it isn't far to the country when I feel the need of a deep breath offresh air." Then her face saddened as she continued: "Of course we won'tbe coming out here any more." She waved toward the vast estate which formany years had been the home of Vandergrifts. "We couldn't stand it, notone of us could, to see strangers living where Mother and Father were sohappy. They'll probably change things a lot." Then she added almostpassionately: "I hope they will. Then, if ever I _do_ see it again, itwill not look like the same place."

  Dick did not say what was in his heart, but gloomily he realized that ifthe girl at his side did not expect ever to return to that neighborhood,it was quite evident that she would not be his wife, for his homeadjoined that of the Vandergrifts.

  When he spoke, his words in no way betrayed his thoughts. "Have you anyidea, Bobs, what you'd like to do, over there in the big city; I mean tomake a living?"

  The girl laughed; then sent a merry side glance toward her companion."You never could guess in a thousand years," she flung at him, thenchallenged; "Try!"

  The boy flicked his quirt at the drooping branches of a willow they werepassing, then frankly confessed that he couldn't picture Roberta in anyof the occupations for women of which he had ever heard. Mischievouslyshe queried, "Wouldn't I make a nice demure saleswoman for ladies'dresses or----"

  "Great guns, _No_!" was the explosive interruption. "Don't put such astrain on my imagination." Then he laughed gaily, for he was evidentlytrying to picture the hoidenish girl mincing up and down in somefashionable emporium dressed in the latest styles, while women peered ather through lorgnettes. Bobs laughed with him when he told his thoughts,then said:

  "I'll agree, as a model, I won't do." Then with pretended thoughtfulnessshe flicked a fly from her horse's ear. "Would I make a good actress,Dicky, do you think?"

  "You'd make a better circus performer," the boy told her. "I'll neverforget the antics we used to pull, before----"

  "Before I realized that I was a girl and _had_ to be ladylike." Bobslaughed with him, then added merrily, "If it hadn't been for my prunesand prisms, Sister Gwendolyn, I might _never_ have ceased to be atom-boy."

  "I hope you never will become like Gwen," Dick said almost fiercely, "orlike my sister Phyllis, either. They're not _our kind_, though I'm sorryto say it." Then noting a far-away, thoughtful expression which had creptinto the girl's eyes, the lad inquired: "Say, Bobs, have you any idea_how_ Gwyn _can_ earn a living? You're the sort who can hold your ownanywhere. You'd be willing to work, but Gwyn--well, I can't picture heras a daily-bread earner."

  His companion shook her head; then quite unexpectedly she said: "Dick,why _didn't_ you fall in love with Gwen? It would have solved her problemto have had someone nice and rich to take care of her."

  "Well, of all the unheard of preposterous suggestions!" The amazed youthwas so astonished that he unconsciously drew rein and stared at the girl.He knew by her merry laugh that she had said it but to tease, and so herode on again at her side. Bobs feared that she had hurt her friend, forhis face was still flushed and he did not speak. Reining her horse closeto his, she again put a hand on his arm, saying with sincere earnestness:"Forgive me, pal of mine, if I seemed to speak lightly. Honestly, Ididn't mean it--that is, not as it sounded. But I _do_ wish that someoneas nice and--yes, I'll say as rich as you are, _would_ propose to poorGwen. You don't know how sorry Gloria and I feel because Gwen has to bepoor with the rest of us." The boy had placed his hand over the oneresting on his arm, but only for a moment. "You see," Bobs explained,"Glow and I honestly feel that an adventure of a new and interesting kindawaits us, and, as for little Lena May, money means nothing to her. Ifshe can just be with Gloria, that is all she asks of Fate."

  They had reached the Vandergrift gate and Bobs, drawing rein, reached outher hand, saying: "Goodbye, Dick." Then, after a hesitating moment, sheadded sincerely, "I'm sorry, old pal. I wish I could have said yes--thatis, if it means a lot to you."

  The boy held her hand in a firm clasp as he replied earnestly, "I'm notgoing to give up hoping, Bobsie. I'll put that question on the table fora couple of years, but, when I am twenty-one, I'm going to hit the trailfor _wherever_ you are, and ask it all over again. You see if I don't."

  "You won't if Eloise Rochester has anything to say about it," was thegirl's merry rejoinder. Then as Bobs turned her horse toward the stables,she called over her shoulder: "O, I say, Dick, I forgot to tell you theprofession I've chosen. I'm going to a girl detective."