Rosanna stiffened and sat up. "Suppose she comes in?" she said.
"No danger!" said Minnie. "I turned the key." She laughed. "If she wants to see you again she will have to wait until to-morrow, no matter what. I don't intend to see that look on your pretty dear face much longer. Now tell your Minnie just what happened."
"I don't seem to be able to remember much about it," said the tired and frightened child; "only when I came home,—and oh, Minnie, we did have such a good time!—there was grandmother at the door instead of you. And she seems to think that I have done something that has disgraced her, and she won't tell me anything at all until to-morrow, only she told me to come to my room and go to bed if I could get to bed without you and she said you were untrustworthy—and—and that she had sent you to your room to stay until to-morrow, and then she is going to make you go, and oh, Minnie, Minnie, what shall I ever do without you?"
"There, there! Minnie will find some way of staying near you if she has to wear a wig and make believe she is somebody else entirely."
"What have I done?" asked Rosanna. "Was it all because we went to Fontaine Ferry? Mrs. Hargrave said I might go."
"A little of it is that," said Minnie, "but the worst of her madness is because you have been playing with a little girl clean out of your own class, as she puts it, and she blames everybody. Everybody that she can discharge has got to go—and I guess that will be about everybody but you."
"Then I might as well die," said Rosanna. "I can't go back and live the way I used to live. You know I can't do it, Minnie. I can't; I just can't! Oh, Minnie, it seems as though I had only been happy for three weeks in all my life, and what shall I do? I do love Helen, and she is just as nice as I am, and so are her mother and father. Oh, don't you suppose Uncle Robert can fix it?"
"He didn't come home with her," said Minnie. "When he does the mischief will be done. It is just her sinful pride, if I do say it about your grandmother, and sure as sure there will come a day and that soon, when her pride will have a fall. I only wish I could run away with you, dearie. But you will have to be brave, and I will see you as soon as ever I can. You know my telephone number, and if she ever goes out you just call me up."
"I don't feel brave," whispered Rosanna, hiding her face on Minnie's shoulder. "I don't see how I will ever bear to stay alone all night."
"That you needn't if you would like your Minnie," said she. "Just you get into your bed and be quiet, and I will be back in a minute." She tucked Rosanna between the sheets, and hurried away as silent as a shadow.