“Up to your house,” said Bill. “She lef’ Maud waitin’ up there for you.”
It was the truth. And after a rather hurried walk, during which the boy spoke not once unless spoken to, but trotted contentedly at Lucius’s side, confidingly hand-in-hand with him, when they came in sight of the small brick house in the big yard, where Lucius lived, a tiny white figure was discernible through the dusk, rocking patiently in a wicker rocking-chair on the veranda.
At sight of them she jumped up and came running to the gate to meet them. But there she paused, gravely.
She made a curtsey, formal but charming.
“How do do, Uncka Wucius?” she said. “Mamma would wike her paraso’.”
Saruly, looming dark and large behind her, supplemented this information: “Miz Ricketts done lef’ the little girl here to wait fer you, Mist’ Allen. She tell me ask you please be so kine as to bring the chillun along home with you, an’ her parasol with ’em. She tell me the chillun been a little upset, jest at first, ’count o’ movin’ to a new place, but they all quieted down now, an’ she think it’ll be safe fer you to stay to dinnuh. An’ as ev’ything in my kitchen’s plum done to a crisp ’count o’ you bein’ so late, Mist’ Allen, if you leave it to me I think you bettuh.”
“I’ll leave it to you, Saruly,” said Lucius, gently. “I think I’d better.”
And then, with the parasol under his arm, and the hand of a child resting quietly in each of his, he turned with Bill and Maud, and, under the small, bright stars of the May evening, set forth from his own gate on his way to Lucy’s.