Moppet, sitting up in bed, welcomed her sister with open arms, and drank the milk thirstily, as Betty told her that all was safe, and that Captain Yorke was now well on his way.
"I'm as glad as can be," said Moppet, who was troubled with no conscientious scruples whatsoever, and was now beginning to enjoy herself intensely at sharing a mystery with Betty; "I told him you were gone, after the big clock struck three, and oh, Betty, he kissed my hand through the hole in the chimney."
"Did he?" said Betty, flushing brightly under Moppet's keen glance.
"And I sat there and shivered," went on Moppet, discreetly dropping that branch of the subject, "for I could hear his feet as he climbed, and once he slipped and I was so frightened lest he should come tumbling down and our fine plot be discovered. Betty, Betty, what a fine flutter Oliver and Josiah will be in at breakfast!"
"Don't talk of it," said Betty, shivering in her turn; "go to sleep, Moppet, and I will fly to my chamber, for it is not well that I should be discovered here, dressed. Oliver is not one to notice; now lie still until you are called for rising;" and Betty tripped back to her own room, where, tearing off her dress, she threw her tired little self on the bed to rest, if not to sleep, for the short hours that remained before breakfast.
The Wolcott household was one that was early astir, however, and Chloe, the old colored cook, was out in the barn searching for eggs, and Miss Bidwell had laid the breakfast cloth and polished the silver by half past six, when Miss Euphemia knocked briskly at the door where Pamela and Dolly Trumbull were slumbering sweetly, and resolved that she would request Oliver to permit Captain Yorke to come down and breakfast with the family. "For," mused Miss Euphemia, "our obligations to that young man should make some difference, I think, in his treatment; I must try to persuade Oliver to detain him here until my brother's return, for although I did not think it prudent to say so, I confess I am no more anxious to keep him prisoner than Betty was."
But Miss Euphemia had not more than descended at half past seven precisely (her usual hour) when Oliver came hastily into the room, demanding a hammer and chisel, and with such evident dismay upon his countenance that Miss Euphemia asked if anything was the matter.
"I do not know," said Oliver, searching the drawer for the desired implements; "I called and knocked smartly at Captain Yorke's door to ask him if he desired hot water, and to offer him a change of clean linen (as we are much the same size and build); but although I made sufficient noise to wake the hardest sleeper, no response did I receive. Then I unbolted the door, intending to enter, but he has fastened it on the inside, and"—
"He is ill," cried Miss Euphemia, in alarm. "I noted he looked pale last night."
"Much more likely 'tis some device to alarm us," said Oliver, seizing the chisel, and Miss Euphemia followed him as he went hurriedly up the front staircase. At its top stood Huntington.