In a twinkling the woman had brushed past the others to seize startled Mabel by both shoulders and to gaze piercingly into Mabel's frightened eyes. The woman tried to speak; but, for a long moment, her voice would not come.
"You—you!" she gasped, clutching Mabel still more tightly, as if she feared that the youngster might escape. "Ees eet you for sure? But w'ere, w'ere——?"
No further words would come. The poor creature's evident emotion was pitiful to see, and the girls were too overwhelmed to do more than stare with all their might.
"Rosa Marie's all right," gulped Mabel, coming to the rescue with exactly the right words. "She's safe and happy."
"Ma babee, ma babee," moaned the woman, her long-lashed eyes beaming with wonderful tenderness, and expressive of intense longing. "Bring me to heem queek—ah, so queek as evaire you can. Ma babee—I want heem queek."
Then, without stopping for outer garments or even to close her door, and still holding fast to the abductor of Rosa Marie, the woman hurriedly led the way from the clearing.
Mrs. Malony would have remained with the party if she had not encountered her frolicsome cow, a section of fence-rail dangling from her neck, strolling off toward town.
On the way up the long hill the woman, who still possessed all the beauty and the "mother-looks" that Mabel had described, talked volubly in French, in Chippewa Indian and in broken English. As Henrietta was able to understand some of the French and part of the English, the girls were able to make out almost two-thirds of what she was saying.
On the day of Mabel's first visit the young mother had departed with her new husband, who, not wanting to be burdened with a step-child, had persuaded her to abandon Rosa Marie, for whom she had subsequently mourned without ceasing. As might have been expected, the man had proved unkind. He had beaten her, half starved her and finally deserted her. She had worked all winter for sufficient money to carry her to Lakeville and had waited impatiently—all that time without news of her baby—for mild weather in order that the shanty, the only home that she knew, might become habitable.