"She's all right," he said to himself, and then went back to his post, thinking no more about the little stray lamb whom he had only helped into farther trouble.
Bessie found her way without difficulty to the colonel's room, and seeing the door open, she peeped in. There was no one there but a servant-woman, who was dusting.
"Where is my soldier?" asked Bessie.
"Your soldier?" said the woman. "If you mean the lame gentleman, he and the lady have gone out to ride. I don't want you here bothering round with your dogs. Go back to your own rooms;" for the woman supposed Bessie to be some child who belonged in the hotel.
"My soldier lets me come in his yoom when I choose, and it isn't yours to talk about," said Bessie, very much offended, and she walked away with her head very straight.
What should she do now? She would go back to the corner, she thought, and ask her friend, the policeman, to take her home. But she was becoming a little confused and frightened with all her troubles, and when she left the hotel, turned the wrong way. On she went, farther and farther from home, though she did not know it, and expected every moment to see the well-known crossing. Some few people turned and looked at her, as she passed with her dog clasped in her arms; but she did not act at all like a lost child, and it was easy enough to think that she was some little girl playing about her home and perhaps watched by loving eyes.
At last she came near a broad avenue, where the cars were passing up and down, and then she knew she was not on her way home. But just then she heard music, and her eye was caught by a new sight. Quite a crowd was gathered upon the sidewalk, where were two men, one with a hand-organ, the other with a table on which little figures of gayly-dressed men and women were spinning around. Bessie stopped to look, standing back from the crowd; but three or four rough boys who were hanging about took notice of her and her dog. Presently they came up to her.
"Whose dog is that?" asked one.
"Mine and Maggie's," said Bessie.
"You give him to me, and I'll give you this," said the boy taking a large red apple from his pocket.