It was at this instant that the woman, who had disappeared inside the caravan for a moment after uttering the exclamation, appeared in view again, panting, and made her way down the steps carrying a small child in her arms.
“Dad! Well, I never, Dad!” she called excitedly, addressing her surprised husband, but keeping her eyes on the still more surprised Betty. “Sure this is the little young lady wot I’s always told you of wot came running into doctor’s waiting-room and kisses the baby. Brought him luck, too, she did, as I’ve always said; seeing as he got through the fever so easy, and—” The angry lines of her face were all smoothed away. She wore a comfortable smile as she approached the girls.
“Sure, this is the little young lady wot I’s always told you of.”
The “fever!” At that word Betty remembered everything. The woman, Mrs. Grimes, whose home her husband had said was at Weyhurst, was the very woman who had brought the screaming baby into Dad’s waiting-room, and to whose aid she had hurried unasked in a fit of zeal, only to earn for herself and the twins a legacy of the said fever for which, as Dad had discovered, the child had been sickening at the time. The action had seemed to be fraught with unmitigated disaster at the time, but now——!
The whole caravan atmosphere had changed; smiles took the place of frowns. “It’s a mistake, Dad, that’s what it is, Dad,” said the woman. “You’ve been too ’asty-like. Sure, the doctor’s young lady wot kissed the baby she wouldn’t go for to——”
“Then what for do the rest of ’em—?” began Mr. Grimes, but in a very different tone of voice.
“Explain, Betty. He’ll listen to you,” urged Mona.
Thus adjured, the Mascot, feeling at the moment how very little she really knew about Guiding, did try to explain. “Yes, I’m Betty Carlyle, and I do remember the baby, and I’m very glad he got well,” she said shyly; “and I wouldn’t, and not one of us would, ever think you’d taken our Cup. We’re Guides, and we’re friends of all the world, you see—at least we’d like to be—and if we’ve done anything un-Guidy, we’re very sorry,” she finished up.