“I don’t know,” chuckled Ralph Birdsall. “’Member how you and I ran away that time, Rowdy?”
“Oh—well,” said his sister. “We had reason for doing so. But you know Sammy Pinkney’s got a father and a mother—And for pity’s sake, Rafe, stop calling me Rowdy.”
“And he’s got a real nice bulldog, too,” added Dot, reflectively considering any possibility why Sammy should run away. “I can’t understand why he does it. He only has to come back home again. I did it once, and I never mean to run away from home again.”
Meanwhile Tess left Ralph to hitch Scalawag while she marched up the stone steps of the Howbridge house to deliver Ruth’s note into Hedden’s hand, who took it at once to Mr. Howbridge.
Dot interested the twins almost immediately in another topic. Rowena naturally was first to spy the silver girdle around the Alice-doll’s waist.
“What a splendid belt!” cried Rowena Birdsall. “Is it real silver, Dot?”
“It—it’s fretful silver,” replied the littlest Corner House girl. “Isn’t it pretty?”
“Why,” declared Ralph after an examination, “it’s an old, old bracelet.”
“Well, it is old, I s’pose,” admitted Dot. “But my Alice-doll doesn’t know that. She thinks it is a brand new belt. But of course she can’t wear it every day, for half the time the bracelet belongs to Tess.”
This statement naturally aroused the twins’ curiosity, and when Tess ran back to join them in the front yard the story of the Gypsy basket and the finding of the bracelet lost nothing of detail by being narrated by both of the Corner House girls.