Priscilla nodded; the next minute she was alone. She watched Polly scudding across the lawn, her soft blue eyes grown hard and gray as flint. The thoughts in her busy brain swarmed as stinging midges. She was very, very angry. Never before in all her young life had rough hands been laid upon her. Polly had shaken her! Her face was white as snow, but her heart was hot with fury. She was shocked, frightened and terribly resentful. Polly had said she was naughty and ought to be punished! No one had ever before spoken so harshly to her. It was Polly who was naughty and ought to be punished. Polly had said she was sorry, but there was time enough to think of that. The thing to do now was to pay Polly back for what she had done. The stinging thought-midges in the back of her brain buzzed so loud they made her dizzy. In a minute Polly would come back with her doll and then she would want to make up and be friends again. Priscilla’s lips pressed tight, one upon the other. She did not want to be friends with any one just yet. All she wanted was to pay Polly back.
Meanwhile Polly was making what haste she could in search of the miserable doll that, as she said to herself, had been the beginning of all the trouble, but it was not in its accustomed place in the nursery, nor yet in the little girls’ bedroom. Hannah was busy helping settle the place down-stairs and could not stop to tell her where it was likely to be found. Up-stairs and down she hurried, but to no purpose; here, there and everywhere she hunted, but all in vain. She dared not go back to Priscilla without the doll and still, she had been told over and over again never to leave her alone in that dangerous Lodge. What should she do? As a last resort she burrowed among the cushions upon the veranda where Priscilla had lain a little while before and there, sure enough, lay the wretched rag-baby, peacefully and uncomplainingly buried beneath a mountain of down. Polly snatched her up fiercely and started across the lawn.
“Helloa there, Polly!”
It was James who called.
Polly paused and turned. “Oh, James, I’m in an awful hurry,” she gasped anxiously.
The butler smiled. “Another of your busy days, I s’pose,” he remarked teasingly. “You seem to have a good many of ’em, first and last. Take my advice, go slower and you’ll go surer. It pays in the long run—and the short one too, for that matter. The more haste the worse speed, you know.”
“Oh, James,” protested Polly again.
“Well, if you’re catching a train I guess I’d better not detain you. I just had something to say, I thought you’d like to know, that’s all. About the little chamois-bag you dropped last night. I’m going down the ravine to hunt for it.”
But Polly had sped out of hearing before he had finished his sentence and he strolled slowly after her saying to himself: “She must want something to do, sprinting around like that, this hot day! But children don’t seem to mind the heat. My! But her face is red! All the blood’s in her head! Hannah ought to tell her she hadn’t ought to exert herself like that when it’s ninety-four in the shade.”
It seemed no time at all to Priscilla before Polly reappeared across the lawn. She was holding the doll and running as fast as her feet would carry her.