Free Rainbow Cottage by Grace Livingston Hill

swiftly sped up the back stairs on feet that were as silent as they were swift.
    “Where you going?” called Mrs. Higgins. “It’s almost time for the train.” But Sheila was out of hearing.
    She was mounting the second-story stairs to the little back cupboard of a bedroom, the only place in the world now that she could call her own. She had glanced at the clock as she left the kitchen. Could she make it? Ten minutes to the train, her only hope now!
    For days she had been getting ready to go away sometime, but she had not intended to go until she had earned a little more money. She wanted to be able to stop somewhere and buy decent clothes. Not since her father went away over three years before had she had any new ones. She knew by the people who stopped to eat at the restaurant that she was very shabby and out of date, and people who stopped off at such an unpromising junction were not themselves likely to be over-stylish.
    But now there was no time to think about clothes.
    As she sped up the stairs, her thoughts flew lightning fast. Her suitcase, an old valise of ancient days that her father had discarded, was ready as far as necessities were concerned. She had always put away everything including her comb and brush when she went downstairs to work because there was no lock on her door and she dared not trust Mrs. Higgins’s ten-year-old daughter. She did not like to have her hairbrush used, nor any of her things handled over; therefore, she had carefully put them away and been thankful that her mother had saved the rusty key to the valise.
    A box of books in the corner, for the last few days nailed shut, was all the rest of the worldly goods that she possessed. There would not be time for her to open it and get out even the ones she prized most. Her father’s name was on the box. Perhaps someday she could send for it, if she ever dared. Not if Buck were in those parts, she was sure.
    She was thankful that she had taken out the little sandalwood box containing the few things her mother had said she must never part with—papers and letters of her father’s—and put them in the satchel before she closed the box of books. She would not have dared to leave them behind.
    All this went through her mind as she mounted to her room, tearing off as she went the big calico apron she wore over her neat gingham dress. Mrs. Higgins’s voice was ringing petulantly behind her, but she must not listen to it, or her sense of duty to Mrs. Higgins would perhaps make her hesitate until it was too late.
    She slipped inside her room and shut the door softly. There was no key. There was no one to come up for her except Mrs. Higgins, and she could not leave the meat she was frying. Unless—horrible thought! What if she should ask Buck to come up and get her? The thought filled her with terror and sent her to working frantically.
    It was dark in the room except for the light that came into her little attic window from the luminousness of the sky after sunset, for the window faced west. But she did not need light. It was all the better in the dark, for then anyone seeking her would see no light from the crack under the door and would think she was not there. She would not even light the candle. She knew exactly where everything was. She groped to the nail on the back of the closet door where her hat and an old blue serge coat and skirt of her mother’s hung, the only decent thing she owned to travel in. She flung on the skirt over her gingham dress, put her arms into the sleeves of the coat, pulled down the old hat over her head, and was ready to leave.
    Behind the box of books in the corner was a clothesline, saved from the wreckage of home, intended to strengthen the weakness of the box that held the books when she came to the point of moving somewhere. But now there was no time to think of books.
    She felt behind the box and unrolled the rope, thankful that it was a new strong one. Would it be long enough to reach? But there was no