"Maybe. I can't promise, for I shall hate to leave them all. You come over."
"But I shan't want to leave them all either. I reckon we'd better wait till to-morrow."
"All right. Good-bye till then." And Dorothy started off at a run while Edna and Ben turned in at the gate.
[181] How quiet it seemed! No one was on the porch, and the sound of their voices did not bring anyone down from upstairs. "I wonder where they all are. I'll go up very softly and s'prise them," whispered Edna to Ben, "and in a little while you come up and have another s'prise." Ben nodded understandingly and Edna crept softly up the stairs. There was no sound of voices anywhere. "They must all be asleep," the child murmured, but as it was just about lunch time, that seemed to be rather an unusual state of things. She went from room to room. Not a soul was to be seen.
"That is the funniest thing," said Edna disappointedly. "I wonder where in the world everybody can be. Surely they could not be hiding," but to make sure she looked in closets and even under the beds, then she went slowly downstairs to Ben.
"There isn't a soul anywhere," she told him. "Oh, Ben, I am so dreadfully disappointed. What do you suppose has become of everybody?"
"Can't say, my dear. Have you interviewed the cook? I thought I heard sounds of life in the kitchen."
"Why, of course I can ask her. I never thought of that." She flew to the kitchen. "Oh, Lizzie," she cried, "where is everybody?"
"Saints above!" cried Lizzie, "and where did ye come from all of a suddint like this?"
"Why, we came out on the train!"