Two hours later, at least half of the inmates of Highland Hall, greatly exercised over Mabel’s mysterious disappearance, beheld a strange sight. A twin baby carriage, containing three infants and propelled by a plump, sturdy and perspiring young person, was rolling up the broad walk toward the school. A small boy trudged along behind.
“It’s Mabel!” gasped Jean.
“It’s Mabel!” shrieked Marjory.
“Mabel, Mabel, Mabel,” cried Bettie, Maude and Jane Pool. Mabel’s friends rushed down to greet her. The girls who were not her friends and who had been saying unkind things about her hung back; but they looked and listened.
“We might have known,” said Bettie, “that she’d bring something home with her—she always does.”
“But this time,” laughed Jean, “she’s outdone herself.”
Doctor Rhodes, stern and disapproving, eyed Mabel, coldly. To say the least it was unusual for a pupil to vanish for twenty-four hours and then turn up unexpectedly with a family of four. It certainly needed explaining.
Mabel, however, was too much out of breath to do any explaining. She beamed at the girls—it was pleasant to see them again after that long, anxious absence—and then glanced at Doctor Rhodes.
Horrors! How was anybody to explain things to a man who glared like that! Mabel stood still, her smile frozen on her plump, perspiring countenance.
“Leave those children right where they are,” said Doctor Rhodes, sternly, “and go into my office. I want to know what this conduct means.”