“No. But a man with an automobile will meet you there. He is a man who will take you right to the Gypsy camp and bring you back again. Don’t be afraid, kids. It’s all right.”
He went away then, and the little girls could not call him back. They wanted to ask further questions; but it was evident that the boy had delivered his message and was not to be cross-examined.
“What shall we do?” Tess exclaimed.
“Oh, let’s wait. Let’s wait till Ruth comes home,” cried Dot, saying something very sensible indeed.
But responsibility weighed heavily on Tess’s mind. She considered that if the Gypsy women wished their bracelet returned, it was her duty to take it to them without delay. Besides, there was the man in the automobile waiting for them.
Why the man had not come to the house with the car, or why he had not brought the two Gypsy women to the Corner House, were queries that did not occur to the little girls. If Tess Kenway was nothing else, she was strictly honest.
“No,” she sighed, “we cannot wait. We must go and see the women now. I will go in and get the bracelet, Dot. Do you want your hat? Mrs. McCall and Agnes are both away. We will have to go right over and tend to this ourselves.”
CHAPTER XXII—EXCITEMENT GALORE
When Agnes Kenway reached the tenement where Maria Maroni resided and found that brisk young person helping in the delicatessen store as she did almost every day during the busy hours and when there was no school, the Corner House girl was surprised; but she was not suspicious.
That is, she was not suspicious of any plot really aimed at the happiness of the Corner House family. She merely believed that the strange boy had deliberately fooled her for an idle purpose.