“Ye—yes, Sir,” faltered Mabel, toiling up the steps. Marjory skipped along beside her, to impart a bit of news.
“We missed you at supper time,” breathed Marjory, in an undertone; “but Doctor Rhodes didn’t know until about an hour ago that you were lost. We knew you so we were sure you’d do some queer thing like this and would get home all right if we just gave you a chance, so we kept still. If you’d only come just a little sooner we could have kept the secret. Miss Woodruff got after us and found out. I must skip, now—he’s coming.”
“Now,” demanded Doctor Rhodes, “where have you been?”
“I went for a walk,” said Mabel, dropping into the chair that was reserved for culprits. “I—I’ve always had the habit of bringing things home with me—cats, dogs and once an Indian baby. But—but this is the worst I’ve done yet.”
Doctor Rhodes turned suddenly to look out the window. The disappearance of a pupil from the school was a serious matter; but there was something about Mabel’s rueful countenance, her dejected attitude and her apologetic tone that was provocative of laughter.
“There was a woman,” pursued Mabel, earnestly, “and she said there was a Lizzie. I believed her at first but now I don’t. She asked me to stay with her children until Lizzie came and Lizzie didn’t come. I had to stay. It wasn’t safe to leave them with a fire in the stove. Today there wasn’t any fresh milk for the baby and I couldn’t split the wood. But there was a twin baby carriage and it’s taken us more than two hours to get here.”
“Where was that house? In the village?”
“Oh, no,” returned Mabel, wearily, waving her hand toward the south. “Way over that way across the prairie.”
“What! that small house that we can just see from the upper veranda? What were you doing away over there?”
“Just taking a walk—I thought I’d be back by six. I knew I was going pretty far; but my feet just kept going.”