“I wonder what it means?” she thought, watching and listening. “It sounds and looks very mysterious. The Courier!”
267The recently acquired news instinct recognized in this mystery of voices and moving lights at the dead of night a possible “scoop” for her paper. To be sure, her paper was the only one in Winsted, but that did not matter. She got up, and taking a long light cloak from the closet threw it over her shoulders, drawing the silk hood over her head. Then she stole out into the corridor and down the stairs, her party skirts rustling, and the boards now and then creaking under her stockinged feet. Down stairs she stopped, put on her pumps, and then let herself out, closing the door softly behind her.
Outside everything was very still. Catherine felt a little frightened and foolish. But having started, she would not turn back. Resolutely she went down the walk in the direction in which she had seen the lights.
“I might take Hotspur, though,” she thought, and turned back toward his house under the porch. The big dog sprang up to meet her, and leaped upon her, then drew her toward his kennel. Puzzled, Catherine followed him, and once there, knelt down and looked inside. Curled on the straw inside the roomy doghouse were two little figures. She pulled at them and called. Suddenly one sat up and said: “Mamma! Peter!”
“Perdita Osgood! what are you doing here?” and Catherine drew a sleepy dishevelled-looking 268 little girl out and into her arms. Perdita blinked and woke entirely.
“Elsmere and me went journeying,” she said, “and we stayed all night in Hotspur’s house, so bears wouldn’t get us.”
Then Catherine remembered the other slumberer, and dragged Elsmere out with more force than gentleness.
“I see now what the lights and the calling were,” she said. “They discovered that the children were not at home, and were out looking for them. Poor Polly and poor Algernon! Elsmere, wake up here, and come along home this minute. There, Perdita, I’ll carry you, you sleepy, naughty little girl. Elsmere, come along. Give me your hand.”
Down the hill they went, and through the short cut to the Osgood house, Elsmere running beside Catherine, who walked as rapidly as though Perdita had no weight, Hotspur leaping and bounding alongside.
In the path, through a little grove, they saw a twinkling lantern and Catherine called: