“Bless the child!” exclaimed the master, “what a little angel of goodness she is. You shall have all the sunshine of the broad earth, after this, for all my shutting out one ray from your sweet face. That’s right—bring her along, doctor, under your cloak, and don’t let the frost bite her nose—I’ll carry the lantern.”
Wondering that the father had not sought for his lost child, Arthur carried her home, while the master carefully lighted their slippery path.
Great was the astonishment of Mr. Gleason, on seeing his little daughter brought home in such a state, for he imagined her at the fireside of one of her companions, in company with her sister. Her absence had consequently created no alarm.
Not all the regret and compunction expressed by Master Hightower could quell the rising surge of anger in the father’s breast. His brow grew dark, and Miss Thusa’s darker still.
“To lock up a poor, little motherless thing, such a night as this!” muttered she, putting her spectacles, the thermometer of her anger, on the top of her head. “To leave her there to perish. Why, the wild beasts themselves would be ashamed of such behaviour, let alone a man.”
“Don’t, Miss Thusa,” whispered Helen, “he is sorry as he can be. I was bad, too, for I didn’t mind him.”
“I do not wonder at your displeasure, sir,” said the master, turning to Mr. Gleason, with dignity; “I deserve to feel it, for my unpardonable forgetfulness. But I must say in my defence, I never should have thought of such a punishment, had it not been suggested by yourself.”
“Suggested by me!” repeated Mr. Gleason, angrily; “I don’t know what you mean, sir!”
“Your eldest daughter brought me a message, to this effect—that you desired me to try solitary confinement in the dark, as the most effectual means to bring her to obedience; having no other dark place, I shut her in my desk, and never having deposited a living bundle there before, I really think I ought to be pardoned for forgetting her.”
“Is it possible my daughter carried such a message to you from me,” cried Mr. Gleason, “I never sent it.”