"Let the wild winds of disaster blow! Whew! If the family hears of this I don't know but they will want to have me arrested--or worse! But what can I do? And then--Mary Boyle deserves better treatment at their hands." CHAPTER XXII IN THE SADDLE The little old lady "tidied" her own room. She hopped about like a bird with the aid of the ebony crutch, and Helen and Miss Van Ramsden heard the "step--put" of her movements when they entered the first room. "Come in, deary!" cried the dear old soul. "I was expecting you. Ah, whom have we here? Good-day to you, ma'am!" "Nurse Boyle! don't you remember me?" cried the visitor, going immediately to the old lady and kissing her on both cheeks. "Bless us, now! How would I know ye?" cried the old woman. "Is it me old eyes I have set on ye for many a long year now?" "And I blame myself for it, Nurse," cried May Van Ramsden. "Don't you remember little May--the Van Ramsdens' May--who used to come to see you so often when she was about so-o high?" cried the girl, measuring the height of a five or six-year-old. "A neighbor's baby _did_ come to see Old Mary now and then," cried the nurse. "But you're never May?" "I am, Nurse." "And growed so tall and handsome? Well, well, well! It does bate all, so it does. Everybody grows up but Mary Boyle; don't they?" and the old woman cackled out a sweet, high laugh, and sat down to "visit" with her callers. The two girls had a very charming time with Mary Boyle. And May Van Ramsden promised to come again. When they left the old lady she said, earnestly, to Helen: "And there are others that will be glad to come and see Nurse Boyle. When she was well and strong--before she had to use that crutch--she often appeared at our houses when there was trouble--serious trouble--especially with the babies or little children. And what Mary Boyle did not know about pulling young ones out of the mires of illness, wasn't worth knowing. Why, I know a dozen boys and girls whose lives were probably saved by her. They shall be reminded of her existence. And--it shall be due to you, Little Cinderella!" Helen smiled deprecatingly. "It will be due to your own kind heart, Miss Van Ramsden," she returned. "I see that everybody in the city is not so busy with their own affairs that they cannot think of other people." The young lady kissed her again and said goodbye. But that did not end the matter--no, indeed! The news that Miss Van Ramsden had been taken to the topmost story of the Starkweather mansion--supposedly to Helen's own room only--by the Western girl, dribbled through the servants to Belle Starkweather herself when she came home.