“Dear me!” sighed the latter, at last, “I know now what mamma means by saying she sleeps with her ears open. I have one ear up-stairs, and the other on my book, and I’ve read this page six times, and I have forgotten to turn over.”
“It shows your distracted condition, if you are trying to read with your ears,” Marjorie stopped her studying to observe. “Don’t bother about that infant, girls. She’s all right. I’m only thinking about her poor mother. Jane said there had been no inquiries at the police station.”
“Everybody’s been firing that police station at our heads all day,” said Eunice, “but I couldn’t bear to have the poor little thing put in a cell.”
“But they don’t put lost children in cells, goosie,” said Marjorie. “I suppose they have a woman to take care of them. They send to the Central Office and tell them they have a lost child there. Then anybody who has lost a child goes to the nearest station and tells about it. Then they send to the Central and ask if a lost child has been reported there, and then they telegraph back if it has, and the parents go and find it, wherever it is. You know I sent to the station to say it is here.”
“How very simple,” said Eunice, thoughtfully. “I wish we had known that this morning. I didn’t think about the mother’s part of it, as I do now. How we would feel if Kenneth was lost for even an hour.”
“Come, Eunice,” said Cricket, shutting her book with a slam. “Let’s go to bed. I’ve had such an exciting day that I’m just reeking with sleep. Good night, Meg.”
“Good night, and take care of your infant.”
The children tiptoed into their room, and turned up the gas a very little.
“Do look at that child,” said Eunice, stopping short.
Certainly if Mosina was quiet by day she plainly made up for it at night. She had twisted, and wiggled, and kicked, till the clothes were lying in every direction, and she herself was curled into a little ball at the foot of the bed, with her beloved thumb tucked into her mouth as far as it would go.