"Starch!" she shrilled, stamping a foot, "Villa sites! Borax! Shirts!"
Miss Royle gave Thomas a worried stare. He, in turn, fixed her with a look of alarm. So much Gwendolyn saw before she flung herself down again, sobbing aloud, but tearlessly, her cheek upon the rug.
She heard Miss Royle rustle toward the school-room; heard Thomas close the door leading into the hall. There were times—the nursery had seen a few—when the trio found it well to let her severely alone.
Now only a hoarse lamenting broke the quiet.
It was an hour later when some one tapped on the school-room door—Miss French, doubtless, since it was her allotted time. The lamentations swelled then—and grew fainter only when the last foot-fall died away on the stairs. Then Gwendolyn slept.
Awakening, she lay and watched out through the upper panes of the front window. Across the square of serene blue framed by curtains and casing, small clouds were drifting—clouds dazzlingly white. She pretended the clouds were fat, snowy sheep that were passing one by one.
Thus had snowy flocks crossed above the trout-stream. Oh? where was that stream? the glade through which it flowed? the shingled cottage among the trees?
With all her heart Gwendolyn wished she were a butterfly.
Suddenly she sat up. She had found her way alone to the library. Why not put on hat and coat and go to Johnnie Blake's?
She was at the door of the wardrobe before she remembered the kidnapers, and realized that she dared not walk out alone. But Potter liked the country. Besides, he knew the way. She decided to ask him to go with her—old and stooped though he was. Perhaps she would also take the pretty nurse-maid at the corner. And those who were left behind—Miss Royle and Thomas and Jane—would all be sorry when she was gone.