“Caroline, dear,” she began immediately, “are you in a great hurry to go home?”
“No, ma’am, not particularly, especially if I can do anything for you here,” answered the girl readily, somewhat surprised.
“It happens that you can,” said Mrs. Varney; “if you can stay here a few minutes while I go upstairs to Howard it will be a great help to me.”
“You want me just to wait here, is that it?” asked the girl, somewhat mystified.
Why on earth anybody should be required to wait in a vacant room was something which Caroline could not understand, but Mrs. Varney’s next words sought to explain it.
“I don’t want you merely to wait here but—well, in fact, I don’t want anybody to go out on the veranda, or into the garden, from the front of the house, under any circumstances.”
Caroline’s eyes opened in great amazement. She did not in the least understand what it was all about until Mrs. Varney explained further.
“You see Edith’s there with——”
“Oh, yes,” laughed the girl, at last, as she thought, comprehending, “you want them to be left alone. I know how that is, whenever I am—when some—that is of course I will see to it,” she ended rather lamely and in great confusion.
“Just a few minutes, dear,” said Mrs. Varney, smiling faintly at the girl’s blushing cheeks and not thinking it worth while to correct the misapprehension, “I won’t be long.” She stepped across the room, but turned in the doorway for her final injunction, “Do be careful, won’t you?”