In a few minutes Jean came running in. "She's in the elevator," she said, "and it's stuck between the fourth and fifth floors, so she can't go up or down."
Then Nan came along followed by Mary Lee. "We've found out where she is, but we can't get at her. What shall we do?" they asked.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Corner. "Go find your Aunt Helen, Nan, and tell her what is the matter. We shall have to wait till another train, I am afraid, though it will upset all our arrangements."
There was no help for it; wait they must, for it required some tinkering to free the elevator and its occupants. "Well, I hope you have had enough of elevators," said Mary Lee, as she, with her sisters, greeted the liberated Jack. "You've made Aunt Helen, and all of us, a lot of trouble, for it is too late for our train and we shall have to wait till afternoon."
To which Jack replied smoothly: "Good! then I can go up and down ever so many times more."
"Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind," returned Nan. "You will not get out of our sight again, for who knows but the next time you may have to stay all night between floors. I wouldn't trust to that elevator again."
This suggestion rather dampened Jack's ardor, and she submitted with rather a good grace to her mother's command to take no more elevator rides that day, and she welcomed Nan's suggestion that they go forth to find some pralines for Aunt Helen. "She is so fond of them," said Nan to her mother, "and it will keep Jack out of mischief if I take her to walk."
"I wasn't in any mischief," objected Jack. "I'm sure it wasn't my fault that the elevator stuck. You all talk as if I were always making accidents happen. Could I help it, mother?"
"No, but you could have helped being in the elevator at a time when you should have been on hand with your sisters; that is where the trouble came in. Do look in my bag, Nan, and get her a clean handkerchief; that one is a sight."
"May I have some smell-sweet on it—the clean one I mean?" said Jack, stuffing into her pocket the soiled little ball she held.