Lettice laughed, and, with a wry face, swallowed the draught, and, to her surprise, she found herself ready for a hearty breakfast, which seemed to taste uncommonly good, for Aunt Hagar was a famous cook and nurse, as she was a noted “conjur woman.”
The girl had hardly finished her meal when “rap-rap” came at the door, and the latch was lifted to disclose her brother and her sister Betty, with the carriage, pillows, wraps, and all such paraphernalia. Sister Betty fell on Lettice’s neck, kissing and compassionating her. “Oh, you dear child, I was afraid you would be in a raging fever this morning. Oh, you poor little thing, what a dreadful, dreadful time you have had! Naughty girl, to run away from your home. Come, William, pick her up and carry her out to the carriage. It is not raining so hard, but her poor little tootsie-wootsies are all bound up, and she must be in a sorry plight, in spite of her brave looks.”
“Aunt Hagar has been so good to me,” Lettice told them. “She has made a new girl of me. I am in rags, but they are clean ones, thanks to Aunt Hagar. I feel wonderfully peart this morning, after my woful adventures. And how is Mr. Baldwin? I judge he reached you safely.”
“Yes, but in rather a sorry plight, for it was raining hard when he arrived, and the extra effort was none too good for him; but we have kept him in bed, and we will cosset him, and he will soon be well, I hope. He has come off worse than you, for he has a high fever, and I was loath to leave him; but Mammy is a good nurse, and I thought she could do better for him than I.”
“He is a brave fellow,” William put in. “He made little of his part in your affair, and much of yours, but his condition shows that he fought manfully. Ah, little sister, if you had but stayed at home.”
“Now, William, you shall not scold,” Betty interrupted. “The child has suffered enough, and she did what she thought was right, no doubt.”
“I did hope I could get the papers,” said Lettice, wistfully, “and I thought the matter would be most easily settled so, and I was afraid that it would be too late if I waited till morning, so I went, and it was no use after all.”
“Yet, perhaps it was,” her brother said gravely, “for the papers have come to light.”
Lettice opened her eyes wide. “And how were they found?”
“There is the mystery. Lutie brought them to me with a marvellous tale of their being handed to her to be placed in my hands, and she either pretended or she did not know who brought them. I questioned her, but she stuttered and stammered, and told about some one in a great cloak, and whose face she did not see, and she declared she was so mortal scared that she couldn’t have told who it was, anyhow, and a lot of stuff from which we could make neither head nor tail. But the papers are safe, although no one knows but that they have been copied. I would like to get at the bottom of the matter.”