"Then we must all retire early," Dan said. This plan was carried out, but
for hours Jane sobbed softly into her pillow. It was almost more than she
could bear. She had started this journey just on an impulse, and she
_did_ want to help Dan, who had broken down trying to work his way
through college that there might be money enough to keep her at
Highacres. It was their father who had been inconsiderate of them. If he
had let the poor people lose the money they had invested rather than give
up all he had himself, she, Jane, could have remained at the fashionable
seminary and Dan would have been well and strong.
Indeed everything would have been far better.
But the small voice in the girl's soul which now and then succeeded in
making itself heard caused Jane to acknowledge: "Of course Dad is so
conscientious, he would never have been happy if he believed that his
money really belonged to the poor people who had trusted him."
It was midnight before Jane fell asleep, and it seemed almost no time at
all before she heard a tapping on her door. She sat up and looked out of
the window. Although the sky was lightening, the stars were still shining
with a wonderful brilliancy in the bit of sky that she could see. Then a
voice, which she recognized as that of Mr. Packard, spoke.
"Time to get up, young friends. We'll be at Redfords in half an hour."
Gerald leaped to his feet when he heard the summons. Then, when he
grasped the fact that they were nearly at their destination, he gave a
whoop of joy.
"Hurry up, Julie," he shook his still sleeping young sister. "We are
'most to Mystery Mountain, and, Oh, boy, what jolly fun we're going to
have."
Half an hour later, Mr. Packard and the young Abbotts stood on a platform
watching the departing train. Then they turned to gaze about them. It
surely was a desolate scene. The low log depot was the only building in
sight, and, closing in about them on every side were silent, dark,
fir-clad mountains that looked bold and stern in the chill gray light of
early dawn. Jane shuddered. How tragically far away from civilization,
from the gay life she so enjoyed--all this seemed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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