CHAPTER XXV FALSELY ACCUSED
The Motor Girls caught the gypsy girl as she was about to fall and seatedher in a chair.
"You poor, poor thing!" exclaimed Cora.
"Out in this pouring rain!" ejaculated Belle.
"And drenched to the skin!" added Bess.
The newcomer presented a pitiable appearance. Her gaudy apparel was tornand bedraggled, her wet hair clung about her face, and she was gaspingwith exhaustion.
"I had to come!" she panted. "I was afraid!"
Cora had formed her plans with quick decision.
"We must keep this to ourselves for to-night, girls," she said in a lowvoice. "She'd be miserable and embarrassed if the boys should come down.We'll tell them all about it to-morrow. The first thing to do is to gether up in our rooms and give her some dry clothes. Then we'll get hersomething to eat and drink and put her to bed. She can tell us her storylater."
"Oh, you are so good!" exclaimed the gypsy girl, covering her face withher hands.
As quietly as they could, they helped her up the stairs and rummaged intheir closets for towels and clothes. Then they all set to work, and in alittle while the newcomer was dry and warmly dressed in civilizedgarments.
She was of about the same size as Cora and Belle, and they had no troublein fitting her out. Bess would have been equally willing to contributesome of her belongings, but her "plumpness" forbade.
It was astonishing to see the difference wrought in Nina by theassumption of the garments of ordinary life. She looked in them, as Belleremarked, "to the manner born," and when they had dressed her hair in theway they wore their own, there was little trace of the gypsy left, excepther bronzed complexion.
She gave a little cry of feminine delight as they made her look atherself in the mirror.
"Oh, it's so long since I wore clothes like these!" she murmured.
"And now," said Cora, as she gazed with pleasure on the transformationthat had been wrought, "we'll all go down to the kitchen and see what wecan get in the way of something to eat."
They stole downstairs and the girls ransacked the larder. They foundplenty of cold meat and bread and preserves. Belle got out a chafing dishand scrambled some eggs, and Cora brewed a pot of fragrant coffee. Bessset the table and they all gathered about it and ate heartily.
The girls thrilled with the romance of it all. The drenching storm, themidnight hour, the gypsy visitor, the feeling that they were involved ina mystery made them tingle. Then, too, the knowledge that all this wastaking place while the other occupants of the house were unconscious ofit gave a touch of the surreptitious and the clandestine that was notwithout its charm.
The gypsy girl of course was somewhat self-conscious, as she could nothelp being under the peculiar circumstances, but the girls noticed thather table manners were good, and they were more and more confirmed intheir conviction that she was not what her dress and surroundings hadmade her appear.
She spoke mostly in monosyllables and only when addressed, and every oncein a while they could see the look of anxiety and fear come into her eyesthat they had noted the day before.
"Well," said Cora at last, when they had finished sipping their coffee,"I guess we'd better get up to bed. You need a good night's rest," shecontinued, addressing their guest, "and we'll fix you up a bed in ourrooms. In the morning you will be in better shape to tell us all you careto."
"But you ought to know all about me before you do that," replied Nina."It isn't fair to you. Perhaps after you have heard why I came you mayregret taking me in."
"We'll never be sorry for that," declared Cora emphatically; "and I feelsure you've never done anything you ought to be ashamed of."
Nina's face glowed with gratitude at the generous speech.
"Oh, I never have!" she cried. "But I've been accused of doing it, andthat sometimes in the eyes of the world amounts to nearly the samething."
She had dropped all pretence to gypsy speech now, and spoke like anyother American girl of good breeding and education.
"I think I'll tell you now," she cried impulsively. "That is, if you'renot too tired to hear it?"
"Not a bit," answered Cora, who was inwardly delighted.
"I'm just dying to hear it, to tell the truth," said Bess frankly.
"So am I," echoed her sister.
"You are right," began Nina, "in thinking that I am not a gypsy. I am anAmerican girl and I was born in this State. And my name isn't Ninaeither. But it will have to do for the present, because until this matteris cleared up, I don't want to tell my real name.
"My mother and father died when I was quite young, and I went to livewith an uncle. He was an unusual man, and though no doubt he was fond ofme in a way, our natures were too different for us to get along welltogether. I was hot tempered and hasty and we often quarreled. It wasafter an exceedingly bitter quarrel that I made up my mind that I wouldrun away from home and earn my own living.
"I got a position in a department store, with just enough pay to keepbody and soul together. Again and again I was tempted to go back and makethings up with my uncle. But that silly pride of mine kept me from doingit. Oh, how I wish I had!
"There had been a number of thefts in the store, and the manager wasfurious. He told all the employees that the next one who was caught wouldbe sent to jail. Up to that time he had usually been content withdischarging them.
"One day I was called to his office and accused of having picked up alady's purse that had been laid on a counter. A man who was employed inthe store said that he had seen me take it.
"I was frightened nearly to death, for I had never even seen the purse.But it was found lying under my counter, as though I had hidden it there.I cried and begged and protested, but it did no good."
"You poor child!" exclaimed Cora, deeply affected.
"The manager must have been a brute!" cried Bess indignantly.
"I suppose he thought I was really guilty," said Nina, "and he wasexasperated by the many other thefts. I thought I should go mad. He tookup the telephone to call for a policeman, and in that minute when hisback was turned I slipped out of the door down the stairs and into thestreet.
"Some way I got into the outskirts of the town, where I found a camp ofgypsies. I don't remember much after that. I suppose I must havecollapsed. But they took me in and nursed me, and when I came toconsciousness again some days afterward, I found that the caravan hadmoved on and was in a strange town a good way off from Roxbury."
"Roxbury!" exclaimed Cora.
"That's where I had been employed," went on Nina. "When I found myselflying in a gypsy van, with an old woman taking care of me, I did a lot ofhard thinking. With the gypsies I was safe. Nobody would think of lookingfor me there. But anywhere else I was likely to be arrested at anyminute. And I would rather have died than gone to jail.
"So I stayed on with them and learned to tell fortunes. I didn't knowwhat else to do, and gradually I got used to it. But I've never beenreally happy there. And I've watched everybody who came to the camp, forfear he might be an officer."
Cora reached over and took the girl's hand comfortingly in her own.
Quick tears evoked by the sympathetic action sprang to Nina's eyes, butshe brushed them away and went on:
"I never met anybody I really knew until yesterday. Then I saw a man whomI had known in Roxbury. That's the reason you found me hiding in thewoods. I was relieved when I went back to find that he had gone.
"But to-day he came upon me unawares, and he knew me through all my gypsydisguise. He threatened to expose me, to hand me over to the police. Iwas wild with fright. You had been kind to me and I thought of you. Iwaited to-night till the camp was asleep, and then I slipped out. Andhere I am."