“Happy as clams!” cried Cis. “Now if I get my position, with a pal in town, and a place like that--how about it?” “Nifty!” cried Rodney. “Will you go to a show with me to-night? I know of private theatricals for a charity, and they won’t be half-bad. Will you go, dear young pal of mine?” He sang the refrain of the song, one word appropriately altered. “Yes, but Dutch treat!” cried Cis, and as he was about to expostulate, she added: “Or not at all. If I’m to be a real pal, then I stand on my own, just as real pals do and should. Dutch treat? Say yes, and I’ll say yes, with pleasure.” “Yes, then, but you’re a girl all right; girls insist on their own way,” grumbled Rodney. Cis laughed, and threw her hat into the air, catching it deftly. “Best of both parts, the girl’s and the boy’s, that’s what this Cis Adair is out for, and independence comes both ways,” she triumphed. CHAPTER VI BEGINNING Coming back into the lobby of the Beacon Head, Cis darted ahead of Rodney Moore and up to the clerk’s desk. Here in her particular pigeonhole, held down by the key of her room with its broad, portable mooring displaying the same number as the pigeonhole, lay a letter, fallen almost flat. Cis saw at once that the upper left corner bore the name she sought: “Lucas and Henderson,” in exceedingly clear-cut small Roman letters, the firm address engraved below them. “My key and mail, please,” said Cis, trying to appear casual, in reality stirred by hope and fear. Somehow she did not want to leave Beaconhite; suddenly she found it desirable to stay on here, and this letter might compel her to travel on, unless she were able to stumble upon employment by strangers, to whom she had no introduction. Cis walked back to where Rodney Moore awaited her beside a small leather-covered sofa, turning the letter in her hands. “My verdict has come in; my lawyers have notified me,” she said, dropping on the brown seat, tipping her head back against the sofa-back, unconscious that the dark brown leather made a perfect background for her copper-red hair. “Wonder if it is that I’m to go farther?” “No, sir! Too certain that you’d fare worse!” declared Rodney promptly. “You’re not going an inch out of Beaconhite, that’s flat! I can put you into something; poor enough, but enough to hold on by till you find what you want. Open up, Cicely; read your offer of $10,000 a year!” Cis “opened up,” slitting the end of the envelope with the point of her bar pin, prolonging the operation in a way unlike herself. The communication which she unfolded was brief, compactly typed in the middle of a large page. It read: Miss Cicely Adair, The Beacon Head, Beaconhite. Dear Miss Adair:--