“Wait a moment, Aunt Betty, please. It’s just as bad as you say, he’s just as bad; but—he’s terrible tired and old. He looks sick, almost, and I’ve been thinking while he talked: You let me stay at home, take Portia and the pony cart and carry Luna—Leah—and him back to Heartsease right away. May I, please?”
“But to miss the Fair? He should have the unpleasant task of confessing himself, and nobody else to shield him.”
“Please, Aunt Betty, please! I found her. Oh! let me be the one to give her back!”
Mrs. Calvert looked keenly into her darling’s eyes, and after a moment, answered:
“I might be willing; but should you desert your guests? And if you do, what shall I say to them for you?”
“Just this: that a messenger has come who knows where Luna belongs and that I’m going with him to take her home. That’ll make it all right. You might tell Dinah to keep Luna—Leah—I came pretty near her name, didn’t I?—to keep her contented somewhere till I come for her and to put on her own old clothes. I have a feeling that that proud old miller would like it better that way.”
There was a mist in Aunt Betty’s eyes as she stooped and kissed the eager face of her unselfish child; but she went quietly away and did as she was asked. Left in the summer-house alone with Dorothy Eli Wroth relapsed into silence. He had had hard work to make himself unburden his guilt and having done so he felt exhausted; remarking once only:
“Thee may be sure that the worm hurts itself too when it turns. Thee must never turn but kiss the cheek which smites thee.”
After which rather mixed advice he said no more; not even when all the other carriages having rolled out of the great gateway, Dorothy disappeared in search of Portia and the cart; nor did he cast more than one inquiring glance upon Leah, sitting on the front seat beside the girlish driver. As for the other, she paid him no more heed than she did to anything else. She might have been seeing him every day, for all surprise she evinced; and as for resentment against him she was too innocent to feel that.
The ride was not a long one, but it seemed such to Dorothy. At times her thoughts would stray after her departed friends and a wish that she were with them, enjoying the novelties of the County Fair, disturb her. But she had only to glance at the little creature beside her to forget regret and be glad.