Meanwhile the canalboat was being drawn farther and farther away from Milton. Sammy did not wish to go with it, any more than Dot did. The situation was "up to him" indeed—the boy felt it keenly; but he had no idea as to what he should do to escape from this unfortunate imprisonment.
CHAPTER XII
MISSING
Agnes and Cecile had gone down town on a brief shopping trip, and Ruth, with Luke Shepard, was on the wide veranda of the old Corner House.
The great front yard that had been weed grown and neglected when the Kenway sisters and Aunt Sarah had come here to live, was now a well kept lawn, the grass and paths the joint care of Uncle Rufus and Neale O'Neil. For nowadays Neale had time to do little other work than that of running the Kenways' car and working about the old Corner House when he was not at school.
Ruth was busy, of course, with some sewing, for she, like Aunt Sarah, did not believe in being entirely idle while one gossiped. Whenever Ruth looked up from her work there was somebody passing along Main Street or Willow Street whom she knew, and who bowed or spoke to the Corner House girl.
"You have such hosts of friends, Miss Ruth," Luke Shepard said. "I believe you Corner House girls must be of that strange breed of folk who are 'universally popular.' I have rather doubted their existence until now."
"You are a flatterer," Ruth accused him, smiling. "I am sure you and Cecile make friends quite as easily as we do."
"But Grantham is not Milton. There are only a handful of people there."