The Enchanted Barn

THE ENCHANTED BARN

CHAPTER I

Shirley Hollister pushed back the hair from her hot forehead, pressedher hands wearily over tired eyes, then dropped her fingers again tothe typewriter keys, and flew on with the letter she was writing.

There was no one else in the inner office where she sat. Mr. Barnard,the senior member of the firm, whose stenographer she was, had steppedinto the outer office for a moment with a telegram which he had justreceived. His absence gave Shirley a moment's respite from thatfeeling that she must keep strained up to meet his gaze and not lettrouble show in her eyes, though a great lump was choking in her throatand the tears stung her hot eyelids and insisted on blurring her visionnow and then. But it was only for an instant that she gave way. Herfingers flew on with their work, for this was an important letter, andMr. Barnard wanted it to go in the next mail.

As she wrote, a vision of her mother's white face appeared to herbetween the lines, the mother weak and white, with tears on her cheeksand that despairing look in her eyes. Mother hadn't been able to getup for a week. It seemed as if the cares of life were getting almosttoo much for her, and the warm spring days made the little brick housein the narrow street a stifling place to stay. There was only onesmall window in mother's room, opening against a brick wall, for theyhad had to rent the front room with its two windows.

But, poor as it was, the little brick house had been home; and now theywere not to have that long. Notice had been served that they mustvacate in four weeks; for the house, in fact, the whole row of housesin which it was situated, had been sold, and was to be pulled down tomake way for a big apartment-house that was to be put up.

Where they were going and what they were going to do now was the greatproblem that throbbed on Shirley's weary brain night and day, that kepther from sleeping and eating, that choked in her throat when she triedto speak to Mr. Barnard, that stared from her feverish eyes as shelooked at the sunshine on the street or tried to work in the busymonotony of the office.

They had been in the little house nearly a year, ever since the fatherdied. It had taken all they could scrape together to pay the funeralexpenses, and now with her salary, and the roomer's rent, and whatGeorge got as cash-boy in a department store they were just barely ableto get along. There was not a cent over for sickness or trouble, andnothing to move with, even if they had anywhere to move, or any time tohunt for a place. Shirley knew from her experience in hunting for thepre

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