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Josephine came into the room quickly, and, against the background of dark paneling and the tiers of books, her fair head was a charming shape of light. Her face wore an expression entirely different from that she’d shown to her young friends outdoors; a fully grown-up dignity, not unlike a schoolteacher’s, was displayed and yet she hurried gracefully to sit upon the arm of her grandfather’s chair somewhat as if she’d been a favored page.

“How do you do, Mr. Horne,” she said in a sweetly hushed voice. “How do you do, Mr. Glessit. Grandfather dear, I’m quite ready to perform my part in this affair. Ceremony perhaps we should all more appropriately call it? Yes, ceremony, I think.”

Her grandfather beamed upon her, took her hand; John Constable Horne looked appealingly at Oscar Glessit as if to ask, “Don’t you want to help me kill her?” but the lawyer kept his eyes to the contents of his brief-cases.

“Ceremony if you prefer, certainly, dear,” Mr. Oaklin said. “Is your mother going to keep us waiting?”

“No.” The young girl laughed. “No, just stopped for a last touch before our Cinquecento silver mirror on the stairway landing. I gave her a yell, so she’s practically here.”

Mrs. Thomas Oaklin, Junior, came in slowly, a prettyish blonde woman too-plumply forty-five, not over-dressed or over-hairdressed but almost so, and self-pamperedly though languidly all in the top of the latest moment’s fashion. She didn’t speak to anybody; she nodded discontentedly at the room in general, sat down and looked toward the windows.

“That’s right, Mother,” Josephine said. “Just rest and listen, please. I think we can all begin now. What papers do I sign, Grandfather?”

He patted her hand. “Your signature’s mostly garniture, I’m afraid; you’re still legally a minor, dear. Your mother’s is more important.” He spoke to his daughter-in-law. “Folia, you understand that of course I don’t need your consent or Josephine’s to the building of a museum or anything else I choose to do during my lifetime; but Mr. Glessit thinks it might be useful, in view of any future contingencies, if you and she sign a statement. It’s to the effect that you fully understand the museum project and approve of it, and also that you’re both aware of the provisions in my will for the future maintenance of the museum and of the symphony orchestra, too. You agree that you and your daughter are provided for by separate deeds and bequests; that you fully consent to all provisions in the will, have no wish to alter any of them, and will never attempt to do so. You realize, don’t you, that the will would stand anyhow and this is only an extra precaution of Mr. Glessit’s?”

Mrs. Oaklin didn’t answer, nor did she move; she continued to stare toward the sunlit windows across the room. Josephine, still upon the arm of her grandfather’s chair, spoke warningly.

“Mother!”

Mrs. Oaklin’s expression altered slightly, trending more toward the sulky, and Josephine spoke again.

“Mother!”

Mrs. Oaklin gave her a resentful glance but consented to speak. “To me it all seems rather peculiar. I don’t ask anything for myself, I never have; but when I’m expected to sign away much the greater part of my only daughter’s prospects in life——”

“Mother!” Josephine jumped from the arm of the chair, stood ominously stiff, facing the rebellious lady. “Didn’t I tell you you’re not signing away anything, because it’s going to be done anyhow willy-nilly whatever you say and you’ll only make an exhibition of yourself? Didn’t you give me your consent, only last night when we had that argument, you’d accede to my absolute wishes in this matter, and Grandfather’s? How many times have I got to tell you this museum is the object of my life and I’ll carry it out to the last iota? Have I got to tell you again that——”

“No.” Mrs. Oaklin suddenly looked whipped. “Don’t tell me again. I’ve been very nervous ever since I lost your father, and I can’t possibly go through any more of these scenes with you.”

“Then step straight around that table and sign where Mr. Glessit shows you!”

Mrs. Oaklin, with an emotional heave, got herself up from her chair, went round the table and stood sacrificially beside the lawyer. At the same time the door opposite the fireplace was opened and a stout, horn-spectacled elderly woman, amiably expectant, stepped into the library from the passageway that led to Mr. Oaklin’s art gallery. She was followed hesitantly by an older woman plainly in a state of awe.

“Mr. Glessit, this is my curator, Mrs. Hevlin,” Oaklin said. “She’s kindly brought her sister-in-law and they know the purpose of the statement they’re to witness. So of course do my granddaughter and her mother; but I think you’d best read it aloud and let all four of them examine it for themselves before they affix their signatures.” He was silent, looking tenderly and admiringly at Josephine as this process was followed.

She took full charge when the time came for Mrs. Oaklin to sign. “Sit right down here, Mother,” Josephine said. “Write your name in full where I put my finger. You’re supposed to sign even before I do, myself.” Mrs. Oaklin, still reluctant, stood motionless. Josephine gave her a pat on the shoulder that was more a push than a caress. “Mother! I’m the person most concerned, not you, am I not, if I voluntarily and of my own act gladly make this sacrifice for the sake of art and Grandfather? You’re only his daughter-in-law, not a blood-relation at all; so what are you hanging back for?”

Mrs. Oaklin sat and wrote. “Very well,” she said badgeredly. “I only hope a day won’t come when you’ll bitterly reproach me for what you’re making me do.”

“Never!” The enthusiastic child’s uplifted face was radiant. “Never! This is for the ideal that Grandfather and I both live for. It’s for art. I’ll never regret what I’m doing to-day if I live a thousand years!”

“Nobly spoken!” Her grandfather’s aged face was almost as inspiredly brightened as was her youthful one. “Isn’t that nobly spoken, John Horne?”

“Very, very,” Mr. Horne replied, trying not to imply that he was aware of any grandfatherly infatuation. “I suppose the signatures of the witnesses complete this—this safeguard?”

Josephine smiled at him. “Aren’t you forgetting something rather important, Mr. Horne? The witnesses are only supposed to guarantee my and my mother’s signatures, aren’t they? So naturally both of ours would come first, wouldn’t they? I haven’t affixed mine. Such matters ought to follow in their proper order, oughtn’t they, Mr. Horne?”

“Certainly,” he said, and for a moment seemed to look into the long future wherein he was to be associated with Josephine in the management of the Thomas Oaklin Museum of the Fine Arts. “Certainly you sign before they do, my—my child.”

Josephine took the pen from Oscar Glessit. “I do this, glorying in it!” she announced, sat, wrote her name; then sprang up, ran to her grandfather and threw her arms about him. “There! Are you happy? I am! Are you going to put it in the newspapers, Grandfather?”

“I suppose so—some sort of formal announcement within the next day or two.”

“So it won’t hurt if I mention it to people?”

“No, not at all, dear.”

“Then——” She looked thoughtful. “I’ve got a few luncheon guests, you know, and as they’re still probably around somewhere perhaps I better go back and try to keep them amused—unless there are some more documents I ought to sign? Of course if there are any other documents that ought to have my signature——”

“No, no; that’s all,” the old man said. “Run along, but come back to me here in the library later, after your young friends have gone.”

“I will.” She reached the door at a hop-skip-and-jump; then checked herself, turned and spoke, not only to her grandfather but to her mother, Mr. John Constable Horne, Mr. Oscar Glessit, Mrs. Hevlin and Mrs. Hevlin’s sister-in-law. “This is a day long to be remembered by each and every one of us,” she said; and went forth, walking solemnly.

Outdoors, near her practise “basket,” she found two of her guests in a state of complaint while the other enjoyed himself. “He’s just as big a pig as you are, yourself, Josephine!” Ella cried. “He hasn’t given Sophie or me one single chance at the ball ever since you went in the house.”

“Why should I?” the Elliston boy inquired. “You’re neither of you any good. Look, Josephine, here’s that shot you were braggin’ about, how you used your wrist and everything. It’s nothing. Watch me. Yippee!”

He threw; but Josephine didn’t watch him. “To me,” she said, “compared to the ceremony I’ve just performed my part in, shooting baskets is rather less than infantine. I’ve just been through a pretty emotional ceremony, so I feel pretty emotionally exhausted. I might tell you about it some time; but not now.” She placed the tips of the fingers of her right hand against her forehead and tried to look wan. “No, not now, not now.”

“Why not?” Sophie asked.

“Well—it seems almost years ago since I went in the house.” Josephine let her forehead alone and became brisker. “It’s been pretty exhausting but if I decide to tell you I give you my permission to let your fathers and mothers know about it and everybody you like, because now it’s an open secret and’s going to be in the newspapers practically right away. It changes my whole life, so——”

Sophie Tremoille interrupted. “You’re going away to boarding school?”

“No!” Josephine was annoyed. “Boarding school! Diable! Quelle bêtise! Jamie Elliston, put down that ball!” She ran at him, knocked the ball from his hands. “Listen, can’t you?”

“To what? To you tryin’ to squeak first-year French?”

Josephine pointed to the stone steps leading up to a side entrance in the wall of the art gallery. “Sit down there, all three of you.” Then, when they’d gloomily obeyed her, she stood before them, clasped her hands upon her breast and looked at the sky. Jamie didn’t care for the pose.

“Whatch doin’?” he asked. “Tryin’ to look like Joan of Arc at the Battle of Bunker Hill?”

“Be quiet,” she said dreamily. “I’ve given my life to a cause. That’s what the ceremony was. Sophie, you and Ella can have love in your lives and bright homes and children and firesides. I used to think those things might be for me, too; but not any more.”

The effect failed upon Ella. “No love? You mean you’re giving Jamie the brush-off; he isn’t to be the boy-friend any more?”

“I didn’t say that exactly,” Josephine admitted. “I don’t mean I couldn’t like any boy I want to or’d haf to stop Jamie from preferring me; but I’ve undertaken a terrific responsibility. Grandfather’s going to build a tremendous Museum of the Fine Arts. It’s going to fill almost the whole of our yard, from here clear across to North Walnut Street, and’s going to be the intellectual center of our whole city and state.”

“What?” Jamie asked listlessly. “Is that all? If your grandfather wants to go building buildings nobody’s going to stop him.”

Josephine became more natural. “I admit I get a kick out of you at dancing-class, old kid; but I’ve always known your brains are in your feet.”

“Oh, are they?” he retorted. “So you say!”

“Can’t you listen, Jamie? I haven’t told the important thing yet. It’s I’ve just officially done the biggest thing in my life so far. I voluntarily and of my own act and free will surrendered practically my whole fortune, and you being my three best friends I’ll tell you the reason. It’s because of how I love art and it ought to be brought to the public—and I’d rather run an art museum than be anything else in the world!”

Here she spoke with a sincerity that seemed to uplift her; but her friends didn’t respond as she expected. The one she liked best was forthrightly disagreeable.

“Run a what?” Jamie said. “Look, you couldn’t even run a little old gals’ school basketball team; they threw you out.”

That hurt. Josephine’s voice shook; but she faced the issue stoutly. “This is my reply: my grandfather has created me practically the head of the whole immense institution to be carried on from now through all the rest of my life. I’m practically almost in charge of it right now.”

At that, the three guests, seated somewhat squirmingly in a row, showed more interest; but it was of the noisily incredulous kind. They didn’t believe her; they frankly said they didn’t.

Josephine looked down upon them angrily. “Did I claim I was officially the President of it yet? Grandfather’s appointed Mr. John Constable Horne to be Chairman or whatever the title is; but that’s a mere legal form because who’s the one that’s made the sacrifice of a whole birthright and fortune? Old Mr. Horne’s only going to be practically a figurehead.”

This brought but another demonstration of unbelief. “Josephine, you’re only fourteen years old.” Jamie, now upon his feet and gesticulative, tried to speak judicially. “Look, your grandfather’s a respected old man all over the city. Why try to put it over that a man in his position would ever appoint a child of fourteen in charge of——”

“Not if you were the child!” Josephine said. “Nor Ella nor Sophie. No, I don’t expect any of you children of fourteen to comprehend there’s a pretty striking difference between fourteen and fourteen. Look at Lord Macaulay at fourteen, look at Mozart at fourteen, look at Schubert and Giotto and Milton and Leonardo and Juliet and——”

“Look at who?” Jamie had already lost his judicial poise. “Look at Old Dog Tray at fourteen! Look at a cage of fourteen chimpanzees all fourteen years old!” Abruptly he was morose, lowered his voice. “This is the sourest luncheon party I ever got sucked into. Thank you for the pleasure, I’m going home.” He began to walk away.

“Wait!” Ella called. “So’m I. Excuse me, Josephine; but I scarcely believe a word you say, and kindly stop looking at me as if I was some low form of zoology.”

“Ella,” Josephine said thoughtfully, “you’re quite the belle at parties and our dancing-class. The way you do it is you make the boys think all you think about’s themselves, they’re marvelous; so they admire you the most. Instead of being yourself, which’d irritate them, you please them to get them excited about you. It’s cunning; but it’s ignoble. That’s my reply, Ella. Since you’re going, good-bye.”

“Thanks for your divine permission!” Ella produced this helpless retort and trotted after Jamie.

Sophie Tremoille lingered a moment. “Thank you for the nice lunch and everything, Josephine. I think they’re rude; but I guess I better catch up with ’em. G’bye.”