Where, indeed, was good Jane Potter! The least troublesome, the most self-effacing, staidest girl of them all.
“Didn’t she ride home with you?”
“Why no. I supposed she did with you. That is—I never thought.”
“But—somebody should have thought!” cried Dorothy, diverted from her own unhappiness by this strange happening.
“Yes, and that ‘somebody’ should have been myself,” admitted Mr. Seth, after question had followed question and paling faces had turned toward one another.
“Are you sure she isn’t in her room?” asked Helena.
“Sure as sure. I thought it funny she didn’t come to clean herself, I mean put on her afternoon things; but I guessed she was too tired, and, anyway, Jane never gets mussed up as I do,” answered Molly Martin, tears rising in her eyes.
The Master rose from his unfinished meal.
“Then we’ve left her behind and the poor child will be terrified. I’ll have one of the work horses put to the pony cart at once, and go back for her. I’d like one of you lads to go with me. I might need somebody.”
Jim rose and Herbert, and, oddly enough, Mr. Winters nodded to Herbert; adding to Dorothy: