“Well, this may not be as nice as in my own room but it’s a deal better than out of doors. That poor little thing isn’t shivering so much and—she’s asleep! She’s tired out, whoever she is and wherever she came from, and I’m tired, also. I can’t do any better till daylight comes and I’ll curl up in this big chair and go to sleep, too,” said Dorothy to herself.
She wakened to find the sunlight streaming through the glass and to hear a chorus of voices demanding, each in a various key:
“Why, Dorothy C!” “How could you?” “Yo’ done gib we-all de wussenes’ sca’, you’ ca’less chile! What yo’ s’posin’ my Miss Betty gwine ter say when she heahs ob dis yeah cuttin’s up? Hey, honey? Tell me dat!”
But Dinah’s reproofs were cut short as her eye fell upon the rug-heaped lounge and saw the pile of them begin to move. As yet no person was visible and she stared at the suddenly agitated covers as if they were bewitched. Presently, they were flung aside; and revealed upon a crimson pillow lay a face almost as crimson.
“Fo’ de lan’ ob lub! How come dat yeah—dis—What’s hit mean, li’l gal Do’thy?”
Dolly had not long been missed nor, when she was, had anybody felt serious alarm, though the girl guests had both been aggrieved that she should not have wakened them in time to be prompt for breakfast. They dressed hurriedly when Norah came a second time to summon them, explaining:
“Miss Dorothy’s room is empty and her clothes on the chairs. I must go seek her for she shouldn’t do this way if she wants to keep cook good natured for the Party. Delaying breakfast is a bad beginning.”
Then Norah departed and went about her business of dusting; and it was she who had found the missing girl in the sun-parlor, and it had been her cry of relief that brought the household to that place.
Demanded old Ephraim sternly: