Thus thinking, she took the street that led to The Trowbridge, and was presently admiring Patricia’s pretty frocks. Time passed quickly, and it was nearly ten o’clock when she finally started for home.
As she rounded the corner below Lady Gay Cottage, she saw her father’s automobile in front, and then the Doctor himself coming down the walk on a run.
“Oh, maybe I can go with him!” she thought, and sprang ahead. “Father! father!” she called.
Dr. Dudley turned, and came swiftly towards her. He caught her in his arms,—“Polly!” his voice breaking as she had never heard it before. “You aren’t hurt at all?” Incredulity was in his tone.
“Hurt? Why, no! How should I be?”
He left her, leaping up the steps, and throwing wide the door. She heard him call:—
“Lucy! she is here!—safe!”
Polly hurried after, to be clasped tightly in her mother’s arms with excited expressions of thankfulness.
“What is it?” she pleaded. “I don’t see what it all means!”
“We heard that the ponies ran away,” the Doctor explained, “and that one of you was hurt—badly. Somebody thought it was not Leonora, and, of course—”