"Oh, no, I'm sure he's hurt. Where do you live, little boy?"
Still no reply. The other girls went back into school, while Nora walked irresolutely toward the door, holding the child's hand. As she stood at the foot of the steps wondering what to do, Miss Crawdon appeared at the door with Brenda and Edith who had hurried to tell her about the child.
"Is the little fellow hurt?" she asked with interest.
"Not really hurt, perhaps, but awfully frightened, and I'm sure he doesn't live anywhere around here. I don't want to leave him when I go into school, what shall I do?"
"Don't look so distressed, Nora," said Miss Crawdon smiling. "I'm not sure myself what is best." Then, after a moment's reflection, "You may send him down to the basement with the janitor, and later I will see what can be done."
So Nora, saying all the reassuring things that she could to the child, left him with the janitor, Mr. Brown, although this separation was accompanied with loud cries and shrieks on the part of the little boy.
It was very hard for Nora and the others to remain perfectly quiet during the hour and a half that remained of school. They were anxious to exchange questions about the child, to speculate about his home, and I am sure that the little boy was more in the thoughts of Brenda, Edith, and Nora than their lessons.
Belle had missed the excitement of the morning, for at the moment of the accident she and the two older girls whom she had joined, were out of sight of the school walking in another street.
She had returned to the schoolroom hardly half a minute before the end of recess, when there was really no time to ask a question. She did not dare to ask a question of Brenda, who still wore an unamiable expression.
When half-past one came, however, Brenda and Belle forgot their little disagreement, and hastened after Nora to learn what she was going to do with her protégé.