“If you let him go home with me, I’ll tell Father all about it, and he will fix it for us somehow. I know he will.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Mr. Jolly, after a pause. “Mr. Blake’s a good man. You tell him if there’s any trouble with Farmer Yetter that I’ll take the blame. And I’ll step round to-night and see what he says.”
Lydia and Roger started off together, and it was not until they were nearly home that Lydia thought of her shoes. She had completely forgotten them, and so had Mr. Jolly.
But once in sight of home, Lydia spied Father on the little front porch, watching up the road for her. So, taking a fresh hold on the little boy’s hand, she hurried forward, forgetting everything in her eagerness to tell Roger’s story.
[CHAPTER X—Robin Hill]
Mr. Blake came down the road to meet them, and in his hand he carried Lydia’s little traveling-bag.
“I’m going away,” thought Lydia. “Where am I going? And what will become of Roger?”
As Mr. Blake drew nearer he smiled and waved the bag in the air.
“You are going visiting, Lydia,” he called cheerfully. “But who is your new little friend?”
“Oh, Father, it’s Roger,” answered Lydia, forgetting her own affairs in her interest in the little boy who stood peeping shyly over her shoulder. “He wanted so to come with me, and Mr. Jolly didn’t know what to do, so I said you would fix it. And Mr. Jolly will come and see you to-night, and I was to tell you all about it.”