“There!” exclaimed Mrs. Pierce, when Anne ran into the kitchen and asked the question, “if I wasn’t wishing for that very thing. I count it as a real blessing that some one went off with your horse! I do indeed. And if Rose’s father don’t find Lady he can borrow our colt for the rest of the journey.”
It was late in the afternoon before Mr. Freeman returned, but he did not bring Lady, nor had he any news of her.
Mr. Pierce and his sons returned home at nightfall, and made the travelers feel that they were as pleased as “Aunt Anne Rose” to have their guests remain for the night.
CHAPTER XI
IN BOSTON
Mr. Freeman looked a little puzzled when he heard the girls calling Mrs. Pierce “Aunt Anne Rose,” and when Mrs. Pierce told him that was really her name he thought, as the girls had, that it was almost like discovering a relative. Mr. Pierce had insisted that they should borrow the black colt for the remainder of their journey, and they were ready to start at an early hour the next morning.
Rose was tying the ribbons to her pretty hat, while Anne watched her a little wistfully, wishing that she had a hat—almost any kind of a hat, she thought—so that she might not look like “a little wild girl,” as she had overheard some one call her at the Sandwich tavern. Just then she felt something placed gently on her head and saw two broad brown ribbons falling each side of her face.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, looking up in wonder.