Creeping out of bed, she stole down the wide, velvet-soft stairway, holding her long white nightgown in one hand, while she grasped the banister with the other. The guests were just departing when they looked up and saw the small girl descending. Mrs. Clayburn was horrified.
“Go back to bed this instant, you bad, bold child!” she commanded, and so, too frightened to speak, Carol did turn and go back, to sob softly into her pillow until, at last, just from weariness, she fell asleep.
So ended the first day of Carol’s life in the home of one of the “very best families.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE LITTLE RUNAWAY
The next morning Sylvia was unusually fretful, and little wonder, for she had had two helpings of the rich, creamy dessert the night before, and would not eat the wholesome breakfast which was served to her in bed.
Carol was told to remain in her room that morning as a punishment for the manner in which she had misbehaved the night before. This message was brought with her breakfast by Fanchon. To the surprise of the maid, the small girl was up and had on her own old dress that buttoned down the front.
“Oh, I just wanted to put it on,” the child said, when the kindly maid expressed her surprise.
“Poor little colleen, I guess ye’re homesick, and I wouldn’t wonder at it if you are,” was what Fanchon was thinking, but aloud she made no comment, as the pale-blue eyes of her little mistress were watching her from the bed where she sat propped among downy pillows.
All the time that Carol sat at the low table eating her mush and milk, she, too, was wondering if she could be homesick. Almost unconsciously her eyes roamed over the creamy net curtains and rose-silk draperies, at the bird’s-eye maple furniture, and at the wide window-seat heaped with rosy cushions.
Then her thoughts wandered to the little loft bedroom which she and Dixie always shared together. There was one small window, with a turkey-red curtain, a very old-fashioned chest of drawers, and in one corner sat her doll, Peggotty Ann. Of course she was too old now to play with dolls, for would she not be nine the very next month?