Mrs. Van Rensselaer seated herself upon a box and gazed long and earnestly at her reflection in a small hand mirror which hung over the dressing table.
"You haven't the features of a fool," she remarked to herself, "but you've added two new wrinkles by this tom-foolery to-day, and you ought to be satisfied by this time that you're not fit to take care of yourself! But I suppose it's satisfying to know you're doing missionary work. Missionary work, indeed, for a girl who hasn't as much sense for staying in this place as you have for coming! By the time you get home you'll have two more wrinkles, and it'll take a month to get back your good looks again! Well, you always were foolish!"
So saying she turned away from the mirror and looked longingly at the bed. Just then her eyes became fastened, wide and terrified, upon the head of a small gray animal protruding from the corner of the floor behind the bed. She watched it, spell-bound by fear, as it drew its fat body through a hole in the floor and ran across the room. Suddenly with a terrible shriek she threw herself upon the bed. The pack-rat ran back to its hole and made its exit without loss of time, but Clarice sobbed aloud in hysterical fear. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and a weather-browned, dark-haired girl knelt beside the bed and took the frightened woman in her arms.
CHAPTER XXIV
"Clarice, dear," said Hope, "what is the matter?"
"Oh," sobbed Mrs. Van Rensselaer, "did you see it—did you see it? A terrible thing! A terrible thing!"
"But what?" asked the girl wonderingly, "what could have frightened you so, here?"
Clarice, still hysterical, only sobbed and was quite incoherent in her explanation. Hope looked stern, as though facing an unpleasant problem which baffled her for the time. Louisa had entered the room and stood quietly to one side, looking in much surprise from one to the other. For a moment Mrs. Van Rensselaer's sobs ceased.