“Gretchen? no; that is, not since dinner-time. Why?” asked Louis, with his hand on the knob.
“She was absent at supper, without leave or notice, and hasn’t been seen since. I am afraid Tina has had a bad turn, that’s all. Gretchen would not do such a thing unless she had to.”
“Shall I step around and see?”
“No: you’re tired. I’ll go myself. I ain’t had a breath of air to-day, outside the back yard, and it’ll do me good. Polly, there, has the accounts to do. They ought to been ready for the board-meeting; but Gretchen she’s been so put back in her work lately by Tina’s bein’ sick.”
“I’ve nearly done,” said Polly, with a vigorous dip of her pen in the inkstand; “and if you’re not too tired, Louis, you might wait and leave these books at the board-room, as you go to bed. It’s as near as any other way, and I promised to send them.”
The boy threw himself obediently into a chair, and watched—still with Pinkie’s eyes—while Miss Sally adorned herself with a bonnet and shawl of strange and intricate construction. How the brown eyes would have laughed at Miss Sally’s bonnet, thought Louis.
Then Polly closed her books with a bang. “There, that’s done!” she said. “The Bible says we must bear one another’s burdens; and I’ve had my share of it this day. I hate accounts.”
“Let me do them for you next time,” said Louis, looking down at Polly’s flushed face and tumbled hair, and the soiled gingham apron she had been too busy to change.
“I hope there won’t be a next time,” replied Polly. “If there is, we must get another cashier; that’s all. But Gretchen is real reliable generally.”
“I hope nothing has happened to her,” said Louis uneasily, thinking of two figures that had vanished round a corner in North Micklegard, as the Ark of the Covenant drew nigh. The man was, he felt sure, Frank Randolph, and the girl had on a blue dress, just the color of Gretchen’s Sunday one.