“Have a bottle of milk and some food, besides a heavy wrap sent out to the cart. She will have missed her supper.”
“But you and Herbert are missing yours, too. I shall send something extra for you two and mind you eat it. I—I’m sure you’ll find Jane all right only maybe frightened,” said Dorothy, doing her utmost to banish anxiety from her friends, though she felt troubled enough in her own mind. If it had been any other girl but Jane, the steady!
However, there was the long evening to get through, even though the rescuing party made their best speed. Many miles stretched between the old mansion and this with the distance to cover twice; and all the time there lay on the hostess’s heart the burden of her own personal grief. But she mustn’t think of that. She must not. She was a Calvert, no matter what Aunt Betty said. A gentlewoman.
Only yesterday Helena had explained that a gentlewoman, “in society,” had no thought save for the comfort of others. Well, she was in “society” now, and—She almost wished she wasn’t! She’d rather have been a poor little girl, unknowing her own name, who’d never dreamed of being an heiress and who’d have been free to run away and hide and cry her eyes out—if she wished!
So she put her best efforts to her task of entertaining and a jolly evening followed; though now and then one or another would pause in the midst of a game and ask:
“Ought we to be carrying on like this, while we don’t know what’s happened to Janie?” Then the spirit of fun would sway them all again; for, as Alfaretta practically put it: “Whether we laugh or cry don’t make any difference to her. Time enough to solemn down when we find out she’s hurt.”
They were rather noisily singing the old round of “Three Blind Mice,” with each particular “mouse” putting itself into its neighbors’ way, so that the refrain never would come out in the proper order, when it was caught up by lusty voices in the outer hall and Mr. Seth’s deep tones leading.
“They’ve come! They’ve come—and it must be all right, else they wouldn’t sing like that!” cried Molly Martin, infinitely relieved on her friend’s and room-mate’s account; she and the sedate Jane being as close chums as Dolly and the other Molly were.
“The Campbells Are Coming,” whistled Herbert merrily, and with the air of a courtier led the embarrassed Jane into the midst of the circle. She jerked her hand away with the reproof: