It was fortunate, considering the magnitude of the shock which she wasto receive, that circumstances had given Steve's Mamie unusual powersof resistance in the matter of shocks. For years before herintroduction into the home of the Winfield family her life had been onelong series of crises. She had never known what the morrow might bringforth, though experience had convinced her that it was pretty certainto bring forth something agitating which would call for all herwell-known ability to handle disaster.

　　The sole care of three small brothers and a weak-minded father gives agirl exceptional opportunities of cultivating poise under difficultconditions. It had become second nature with Mamie to keep her headthough the heavens fell.

　　Consequently, when she entered the nursery next morning and found itempty, she did not go into hysterics. She did not even scream. She readSteve's note twice very carefully, then sat down to think what was herbest plan of action.

　　Her ingrained habit of looking on the bright side of things, the resultof a life which, had pessimism been allowed to rule it, might haveended prematurely with what the papers are fond of calling a "rashact," led her to consider first those points in the situation which shelabelled in her meditations as "bits of luck."It was a bit of luck that Mrs. Porter happened to be away for themoment. It gave her time for reflection. It was another bit of luckthat, as she had learned from Keggs, whom she met on the stairs on herway to the nursery, a mysterious telephone-call had caused Ruth to risefrom her bed some three hours before her usual time and departhurriedly in a cab. This also helped.

　　Keggs had no information to give as to Ruth's destination or theprobable hour of her return. She had vanished without a word, excepta request to Keggs to tell the driver of her taxi to go to theThirty-Third Street subway.

　　"Must 'a' 'ad bad noos," Keggs thought, "because she were look'n' whiteas a sheet."Mamie was sorry that Ruth had had bad news, but her departure certainlyhelped to relieve the pressure of an appalling situation.

　　With the absence of Ruth and Mrs. Porter the bits of luck came to anend. Try as she would, Mamie could discover no other silver linings inthe cloud-bank. And even these ameliorations of the disaster were onlytemporary.

　　Ruth would return. Worse, Mrs. Porter would return. Like two MotherHubbards, they would go to the cupboard, and the cupboard would bebare. And to her, Mamie, would fall the task of explanation.

　　The only explanation that occurred to her was that Steve had gonesuddenly mad. He had given no hint of his altruistic motives in thehurried scrawl which she had found on the empty cot. He had merely saidthat he had taken away William Bannister, but that "it was all right."Why Steve should imagine that it was all right baffled Mamie. Anythingless all right she had never come across in a lifetime of disconcertingexperiences.