“They seemed to have taken a dislike to you, sir,” he added to Mr. Howbridge. “They said you ‘hadn’t any right to boss.’ That is the way they put it.”
“But I never even saw them,” returned the lawyer. “I didn’t try ‘to boss’ them.”
“Well, you know, sir,” Rodgers explained, “I had to give ’em reasons for things. You have to with children like Master Ralph and Miss Rowena. So I had to tell ’em you said they were to do this and that.”
“Oh! Ah! I see!” muttered the guardian.
He began to believe that perhaps Ruth Kenway was right. He should have taken more of a personal interest in Ralph and Rowena. They had evidently gained from the ex-butler an entirely wrong impression of what a guardian was.
But the disappearance of the Birdsall twins did not make any change in the plans for the mid-winter visit to Red Deer Lodge. Mr. Howbridge had to go there in any case, and he would not disappoint the Kenways and their friends.
As it chanced, full three weeks were given the Milton schools at the Christmas Holiday time. There were repairs to make in the heating arrangements of both high and grammar school buildings. The schools would close the week before Christmas and not open again until the week following New Year’s Day.
If Sammy Pinkney had had his way, the schools would never have opened again!
“I don’t see what they have to learn you things for, anyway,” complained the youngster. “You can find things out for yourself.”
“That’s rather an expensive way to learn, I’ve always heard,” said Ruth, admonishingly.