But the dire, unspoken threats of the children, and the silent resolution of the Gray Gentleman, were useless. For when upon the next morning the sun rose over the pleasant Place, and the monument and the lion began to cast their shadows earthward, there was no Max to gambol at their feet, and over the heart of Bonny-Gay had fallen her first real grief.
She was out early, to see if the dreadful thing were true; and the Gray Gentleman met her and scarcely knew her—without the smiles.
When he did recognize her he said, hopefully:
“We’ll trust it’s all for the best, my dear. Besides, you will now have more time for the thirteen dolls, and the parrot, and the two canaries, and—”
“But they—they aren’t Max! He was the only! We loved him so and now he’ll just be wasted on strangers! Oh! it’s too bad, too bad!”
The Gray Gentleman clasped the little hand in sympathy.
“I am very sorry for your sorrow, Bonny-Gay, and yet I can’t believe that Max is ‘wasted.’ No good thing ever is. Besides that, I have a plan in my head. With your parents’ permission, I am going to take you this day to visit your twin sister.”
“My—twin—sister! Why there isn’t any. Don’t you remember? I told you. I’m the only, only one. There never was any other.”
“Nevertheless, I am obliged to contradict you. Very rude, I know, and I shouldn’t do so, if I were not so positive of what I claim. I hope you’ll love her and I think you will. After breakfast I’ll see you again. Good morning.”
With that he walked briskly away and Bonny-Gay saw him enter the big gray house in the middle of the Place. The house where the wooden shutters had always been up, ever since she could remember, until just this spring, when a few of the windows had been uncovered to let the sunlight in.