CHAPTER IV.
“Oh!” cried Alice, springing up from the piano-stool. “But, Mary, I have not told you that he was the identical man who lifted me up the other day when I fell in the street.”
“You don’t tell me so!”
“Yes, indeed, the very man; and, strangest of all, he seemed to know something about us, or at least about Lucy and Mr. Whacker.” And she related the strange doings and sayings of the Unknown just previous to the close of his interview with Laura.
“How very provoking,” cried Mary, impatiently, “that I should have been prevented from dining with you girls by the arrival of that stupid old cousin William, as mother will persist in calling him, though, in my opinion, he is about as nearly related to us as the man in the moon! Pshaw!” And she stamped her foot.
“Yes, indeed, I am too sorry. Why, Mary, it would have done”—and her irrepressible eyes began to twinkle—“for a scene in that novel which—”
“Now, Alice—” began Mary, reddening.
“Which I am thinking of writing,” continued Alice, innocently. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“Oh!”
“Is Mary writing a novel?” asked Lucy, with eager interest; for she remembered that she had been always regarded as the genius of the school.
“I spoke of the novel which I was writing,” persisted Alice.
“Yes, but—”
“It is a maxim of the common law, Miss Lucy,” remarked the learned counsel, with ponderous gravity, “that all shall be held innocent till proven guilty. But should novel-writing ever be made (as seems inevitable) a statutory offence, I hold it as probable that this ruling will be reversed, and the presumption of the law adjudged, in the present state of literature, to lie the other way,—in plain English, that the onus probandi innocentiam would be held to rest upon the prisoner at the bar.”
The two other girls laughed, but Mary rewarded my diversion in her support with a grateful smile.
“To think I should have missed it!”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Come over and dine with us to-morrow, and you will have a chance of seeing him.”
“How is that?” asked Mary, with dancing eyes.
“Why, he has promised to bring Laura some candy to-morrow evening, and we can all have another look at him.”
“Oh, I wonder if he will come?” cried Mary, despondingly.
“I have no doubt of it, for he seems in some strange way as much interested in us as we in him. At any rate, you will dine with us. Mr. Whacker will of course do likewise.”
The reader will please imagine the dinner in question over, the three young ladies eagerly watching, up and down the street, through the slats of the closed Venetian blinds, while Mrs. Carter and myself, too dignified to manifest our curiosity so clearly, held ourselves in the rear as a sort of reserve. Laura, our little decoy, was trotting, meanwhile, from room to room, singing and babbling; having, in fact, entirely forgotten the Stranger and his promise. It had been decided in a council of war not to remind her of it till our man was seen approaching, when she was to be sent out in a casual way to intercept him.
“Gracious, here he is!” exclaimed all three of the girls at once. “Where is Laura?”
“Laura! Laura! Laura!” cried Alice, in a suppressed voice. “Mother! Mr. Whacker! somebody bring Laura, please.”
It appears that the Unknown, instead of making his approach by way of Leigh Street, as we somehow expected, had suddenly turned into that thoroughfare from the cross-street. The girls from their position commanded a view of this cross-street for some distance, looking towards the south, as the Carters’ residence was but one remove from the corner. Strange to say, however, the gentleman emerged into Leigh Street from the north, as though returning from a walk in the country, and thus came upon the girls without warning. The reserves, forgetting their dignity, scampered off in their search for Laura. She, meanwhile, ignorant of her importance, was sitting in the back yard, building mounds upon a pile of sand that lay there, and before she could be found the stranger had passed. He turned and looked back several times, and when he reached the end of the block he stopped, and, turning, looked for some time in our direction. Meanwhile, I, having secured the little truant, was hurrying to the front, while Mrs. Carter, plump and jovial soul, was not far behind me.
“Make haste! make haste!” cried Alice, who, with Mary, had in her impatience found her way into the hall. “Make haste, or he will be gone. Come, Laura, the gentleman with the candy is out there. There, quick!” she added, with a little push; and Laura trotted out with pleased alacrity.
“Too late!” sighed Lucy from behind the shutters, where she had been placed for purposes of safe observation. “Too late! he has moved on.”