Here poor Dot received an awful shock. The Alice-doll was gone!
Dot went in crying to Ruth and would not be comforted. She loved the missing doll as though it was a real, live baby—there could be no doubt of that. And why should a thief take that lovely doll only, and leave all the others?
Mysteries were piling upon mysteries! It was a gloomy night out of doors and a gloomy night inside the old Corner House as well. Mrs. Treble’s air and conversation were sufficient alone to make the Kenway girls down-hearted. Dot cried herself to sleep that night, and not even Agnes could comfort her.
The wind howled around the house, and tried every latch and shutter fastening. Ruth lay abed and wondered if the thing she had seen at the window in the garret on that other windy day was now appearing and vanishing in its spectral way?
And what should she do about Mrs. Treble and her little girl? What would Mr. Howbridge say when he came home again?
Had she any right to spend more of the estate’s money in caring for these two strangers who were (according to the lady herself) without any means at all? Ruth Kenway put in two very bad hours that night, before she finally fell asleep.
The sun shone brightly in the morning, however. How much better the world and all that is in it seems on a clean, sunshiny morning! Even Dot was able to control her tears, as she went out upon the back porch with Tess, before breakfast.
The rain had saturated everything. The brown dirt path had been scoured and then gullied by the hard downpour. Right at the corner of the woodshed, where the water ran off in a cataract, when it did rain, was a funny looking mound.
“Why—why! what’s that?” gasped Dot.
“It looks just as though a poor little baby had been buried there,” whispered Tess. “But of course, it isn’t! Maybe there’s some animal trying to crawl out of the ground.”