"Sure I will," declared Sadie. "Nex' time you come down here, Helen, I'll know all about it. And if you can get one of them rich ladies up there to pay for 'em--Well! it would beat goin' to a swell restaurant for a feed--eh?" and she laughed, hugged the Western girl, and then darted across the sidewalk to intercept a possible customer who was loitering past the row of garments displayed in front of the Finkelstein shop. But Helen did not get downtown again as soon as she expected. When she awoke the next morning there had set in a steady drizzle--cold and raw--and the panes of her windows were so murky that she could not see even the chimneys and roofs, or down into the barren little yards. This--nor a much heavier--rain would not have ordinarily balked Helen. She was used to being out in all winds and weathers. But she actually had nothing fit to wear in the rain. If she had worn the new cheap dress out of doors she knew what would happen. It would shrink all out of shape. And she had no raincoat, nor would she ask her cousins--so she told herself--for the loan of an umbrella. So, as long as it rained steadily, it looked as though the girl from Sunset Ranch was a sure-enough "shut-in." Nor did she contemplate this possibility with any pleasure. There was nothing for her to do but read. And one cannot read all the time. She had no "fancy-work" with which to keep her hands and mind busy. She wondered what her cousins did on such days. She found out by keeping her ears and eyes open. After breakfast Belle went shopping in the limousine. There was an early luncheon and all three of the Starkweather girls went to a matinee. In neither case was Helen invited to go--no, indeed! She was treated as though she were not even in the house. Seldom did either of the older girls speak to her. "I might as well be a ghost," thought Helen. And this reminded her of the little old lady who paced the ghost-walk every night--the ex-nurse, Mary Boyle. She had thought of going to see her on the top floor before; but she had not been able to pluck up the courage. Now that her cousins were gone from the house, however, and Mrs. Olstrom was taking a nap in her room, and Mr. Lawdor was out of the way, and all the under-servants mildly celebrating the free afternoon below stairs, Helen determined to venture out of her own room, along the main passage of the top floor, to the door which she believed must give upon the front suite of rooms which the little old lady occupied. She knocked, but there was no response. Nor could she hear any sound from within. It struck Helen that the principal cruelty of the Starkweathers' treatment of this old soul was her being shut away alone up here at the top of the house--too far away from the rest of its occupants for a cry to be heard if the old lady should be in trouble. "If they shut up a dog like this, he would howl and thus attract attention to his state," muttered Helen. "But here is a human being----"