Miss Munroe began to sob. “They asked me this morning if it was true that I was going away.” Her head began to move convulsively backward and forward.
“Who told them you were going away?”
“I don’t know, sir. I only know that I didn’t. I promised Mrs. Briggs that I wouldn’t.”
“But you’ve told some of the servants, haven’t you?”
“Well, I—I did mention it to——”
“That’s enough!” Briggs exclaimed. “You ought to have known better.” He hesitated, with a look of despair in his face. “Well, now that they know it, we’ll have no peace with the children till you go.”
Miss Munroe stopped crying. She seemed to grow an inch taller. “I am ready to leave at once, sir,” she said.
“Well!” Briggs knotted his forehead in perplexity. After all, the poor girl had been good to the children. It would be cruel to send her away like that. But he quailed at the thought of Dorothy’s wailings and questionings and complaints.
“We’re going to have a hard time here during the next few weeks,” he said in a tone that showed the girl his anger had subsided, “and I simply can’t let things be worse than they’ve got to be. So perhaps the best thing you can do is to take a vacation before you go for good. You can tell the children you are coming back, you know. Oh!” he exclaimed, despairingly, “that won’t do at all.”
Miss Munroe, with the air of keeping an advantage, stood in silence.