"Too young!" was the general verdict, but Dr. Weston declared that Mary Louise was not too young to give her property to the home, and then he hinted wisely of other things she might give. The astute old man was a good judge of human nature, especially human nature as exemplified by a board of women managers. He had held back the fact that Mary Louise also intended to endow the home. He was determined to have her put on the board first, and also her clever little friend, who had such a quiet way of hitting the nail on the head. With the air of conferring on Mary Louise and Josie a tremendous favor they were finally elected to the board. "But who is this Josie O'Gorman?" asked a smartly dressed woman, "and why? Isn't she a kind of a washerwoman?" "Hush!" admonished another. "Don't you know she is in the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop with Elizabeth Wright?" The secretary was requested to inform the two young women of the honor conferred upon them. "They are in my office," said Dr. Weston, "and I might just step in and tell them myself." "Oh, horrors!" cried one of the women. "Do you suppose they heard what we said?" "I never said anything but that they were too young. Nobody could object to that." "And I said board work might prove too arduous for them." "And I said our board was too big as it was." "I was for them all the time." "And I!" "And I!" CHAPTER III MARY LOUISE TELLS A STORY The members of the board need not have concerned themselves in regard to the waiting girls. Josie and Mary Louise had been fully occupied. At the moment that the hubbub had arisen, marking the time when Dr. Weston had made his announcement, there had been a sharp tap on the office door. Josie had opened the door and there had entered a woman and two children, a girl of eight and a boy of about six. The girl carried a badly wrapped bundle of clothes. Mary Louise and Josie felt a keen interest in all three. The woman was young--under thirty. She was handsome, with raven black hair and well-cut features. Her face was pale and her eyes gloomy. She carried herself with a slow, lazy grace. The good lines of her tall figure asserted themselves in spite of the cheap, ill-fitting serge suit. Josie always noticed hands and feet, because she declared they were more difficult to disguise than any other portion of one's anatomy. One glance at the woman's ungloved hands made Josie wonder at the well-kept nails and dimpled knuckles. "No horny-handed daughter of toil, at least," was her mental note. She then instinctively glanced at the woman's feet. "Too well shod for the serge suit," was her verdict, "high arched triple A with French heels, about a five, which is small for a person of her height. She must be at least five feet, ten inches." This inventory took Josie the fraction of a second, so quick was she to see and pigeon-hole her observations in her well-ordered brain.