“I thought you girls always did that.—O, if I had only come and tucked you all in!”
“It wasn’t your fault at all, and really we meant to lock the door as usual. Indeed we do lock it, Miss West. You see, we were waiting for ice water and got too sleepy to have any sense, I guess. We rang and the boy didn’t come, and then we waited a while and were just nearly falling over with sleep,—”
“After being out in the air all day,” inserted Betty.
“But your door should have been locked until he came.”
“Yes; we didn’t know it wasn’t. I put a tip on the table to have it ready, and I finally crawled into bed with my Kimono on, after ringing again,—and I woke up with it on this morning! The door was wide open, my purse on the floor and the money gone. Please don’t scold, Miss West; truly we won’t be so careless again.”
“My dear, I never felt less like scolding, and am only too thankful that nothing happened to you and that you were not awakened or frightened. But it is odd, Cathalina, for I thought of going in again to see if you were all right, then I thought ‘Cathalina has traveled so much that she will let me know if they need anything’ and went off to sleep more peacefully than usual! Do you remember how much was in the purse?”
“About twenty dollars, I think. I have some besides, that wasn’t in the pocketbook, and my check-book.”
“I was going to say that I can attend to all your expenses, of course.”
“Shall I write Mother about it?”
“I wouldn’t send a telegram,” Betty suggested with a laugh.