"There are a lot of flowers," thought Murray, as he watched Jane take her seat by his sister and begin to entertain her, "that they grow in Gay Street which we don't know the smell of over here. If we could just transplant the one I brought over to-night, what a beginning of a garden we should have!"
CHAPTER VII
JANE PUTS A QUESTION
On her way home from a trip to a not far-distant fruit-shop, Nancy Bell caught sight of her friend, Shirley Townsend, waving an eagerly summoning hand from the gateway in the hedge.
It was a hot morning in early July, and Nancy, after running into the house to report her return to her mother, joined Shirley in a shady corner under the shrubbery, which had become a favourite trysting-place of the two children.
Half an hour afterward Nancy, her eyes wide with excitement, sought out her mother and Jane upon the small back porch, where each was busy with the morning's work--at this moment the looking-over of raspberries and the shelling of peas.
"O mother--O Jane!" the child began, "the dreadfullest thing has happened over at the big house! Forrest Townsend 's run away, and they don't know where he is!"
"Why, Nan!" Jane's busy fingers, red with raspberry stains, stopped their work, as she stared at her sister in dismay. "That can't be so!"
"Yes, it can--it is! Shirley told me. He's been gone three days, but they thought he must be off on a visit till they got a letter this morning. And they don't even know where the letter was mailed from. Mrs. Townsend 's sick in bed about it, and Shirley says her father won't say a word--just looks white and angry and queer."
"The poor father and mother!" murmured Mrs. Bell, her eyes full of sympathy.