And suppose, instead of all these things Father Tom should bring home a new mother to reign over them? The thought was ever in Bobby’s mind these days. Not that she had any reason to fear the coming of a step-mother. The only girl at Central High whom she knew that had a step-mother loved her very dearly and made as much of her as though she had been two real mothers. Sue Blakesley had been without a mother long enough to appreciate even a substitute.
But Bobby and Mr. Hargrew had been such close friends and comrades that the girl was jealous of such a possibility as anybody coming into her father’s life who could take her place in any degree. She worried over the Gypsy’s prophecy continually; she wet her pillow at night with bitter tears because of it, and it sobered and changed her to her schoolmates, as we have seen.
It was a very serious and imminent trouble indeed to the warm-hearted, impulsive girl.
On her way to school that morning she chanced to turn the corner into Whiffle Street just as a dark-browed, shuffling fellow crossed from the other side and trailed along ahead of her toward the schoolhouse. Bobby knew that black face, and the huge gold hoops in his ears, at once. It was the husband of the Gypsy queen.
“Oh, I wonder if the whole encampment is in town hunting for that poor girl, Margit?” thought Bobby. “They are such strange, wicked folk. And look at him—why, that’s Gee Gee!”
The lady ahead on the walk, behind whom the Gypsy was walking so stealthily, was none other than Miss Carrington herself. Instantly Bobby’s thought flashed to the mysterious inquiries of the girl, Margit Salgo, about the teacher at Central High.
Bobby involuntarily quickened her steps. She was afraid of these Gypsies; but she was curious, too. The whole block was deserted, it seemed, save for herself, Gee Gee, and the man.
Suddenly he hastened his long stride and overtook the teacher. Bobby knew that the fellow accosted Miss Carrington. The lady halted, and shrank a little. But she did not scream, or otherwise betray fear.
“No, lady. Ah’m no beggar. Ma nyme’s Jim Varey an’ ah’m honest man, so I be. Ah come out o’ Leeds, in Yorkshire, an’ we be travelin’, me an’ mine. Wait, lady! Ah’ve summat tae show ye.”
He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a card. He held this card so that Miss Carrington could read what was printed, or written, on it. And she did so, as was evident to Bobby, for she started back a little and uttered a murmured exclamation.