"Mardy, Mardy," cried Rob, starting up, pushing back her hair with her old, impulsive gesture, and running over to fall on her knees beside her mother's chair, "it makes me nearly crazy to feel I am taking such a responsibility, but I must, for I know, I _know_ I'm right! I wasn't going to tell Aunt Azraella my plans, and have her make a worse fuss than ever, but I've laid them, and you must, you truly must, let me have my way. Write this Marston scamp you must take a few days to consider his offer, that you are not prepared to accept or refuse it for a week. It can't possibly make any difference, unless he is a scamp, and then we want it to. And to-morrow you let me go to New York, and find out what the machine is really worth, and what can be done with it." "To New York! You, Rob, alone? And you find out what can be done with the invention, you, a young, inexperienced girl? My darling, you are crazy!" cried her mother, while Wythie and Prue sat up with gasps of amazed horror. "Mardy, I am not in the least crazy. If we had anyone else to do it, we would let them, of course, but who is there? I will go straight to Mr. John Lester Baldwin, the lawyer, Patergrey's college chum, whom he said he would trust utterly. I took his name and address the day Mr. Marston was here, you know; Patergrey wanted me to remind him to write him, but there was no time--" Rob stopped short, and Wythie made a little moan. "Now, Mardy, this is no wild scheme, you see; it is plain, practical common-sense," Rob continued. "Mr. Baldwin will put me somewhere to board where I shall be safe, and he will do all he can for me when I tell him who I am, and what has happened, if he is the man Patergrey thought him. If he says take the four thousand, I am satisfied, but if he says not to, don't you see how well it will be that I went? And I have my own money, enough still, for my expenses." "Rob, Rob, you glorious girl!" cried Wythie, starting up in a rapture. "Let her go, Mardy; she is inspired, like Joan of Arc." "My Rob, my dear Rob, my brave, reliable daughter," said Mrs. Grey, fondly, "what can I say to you? I am not willing to let you go alone, but if I were, the objections we made to putting off Mr. Marston still hold good. Suppose you fail, and we lose not only the offer, but the expenses of your journey and your stay in the city?"