"How do you happen to be at Roselawn, Papa?" Dot asked.
"Miss Bombien telegraphed me you were lost, so I came by the first train and have been searching everywhere for you. Thompson and I had both nearly despaired, for we feared our little ones had been drowned."
"Oh, no," said Dot, "we've only been on a trip to Merryland. But I'll tell you the whole story when we get home."
Mr. Freeland noticed his daughter's round, plump cheeks, slightly sunburned, but with a fresh, rosy tint showing through the skin, and saw how her eyes sparkled and danced with health. Very gratefully he pressed her again to his heart and whispered:
"Wherever you may have been, my darling, the change has restored your health, and that repays me for all my anxiety."
* * *
As they walked up the white-graveled paths of Roselawn, Dot skipped happily along by her father's side, while Tot held fast to the gardener's big finger with one hand and carried Jane in the other.
Soon they came to the place where the path branched off to the gap in the hedge beyond which Tot lived, and he called out, "Good-bye, Dot."
"Good-bye," answered the girl; "I'll see you tomorrow."
But before she had gone far Tot came running up, calling for her to stop.