“Oh, save me! Save me!” said Fanny. “Those little horrors have done it! I don’t know where it is! Oh, it is such an odious, dangerous, awful kind of reptile! It’s the biggest spider I ever saw in all my life, and those horrible twins came and put it into my bed! Oh, girls, what I am suffering! Do have pity on me! Do help me to find it! Do help me to kill it!”
“To kill Dickie!” said Susie. “Why, the poor little twins were heartbroken for two or three days because they thought he was lost. I for one certainly won’t kill Dickie.”
“Nor I,” said Olive.
“Oh, dear! what shall I do?” said poor Fanny. “I really never was in such miserable confusion and wretchedness in my life.”
“Do, Fanny, cease to be such a coward!” said Susie. “I must say I am surprised at you. The poor little twins are almost beside themselves—that is, on account of darling Betty. Betty is so ill; and they think—the twins do——I mean, they have got it into their heads that you—you don’t like Betty, although she is your cousin and the very sweetest girl in all the world. But as to your being afraid of a spider! We’ll have a good hunt for him, and find him. Fanny, I never thought you could scream out as you did. What a mercy that Miss Symes’s room is a good way off from poor darling Betty’s!”
“Do try to think of some one besides Betty for a minute!” said Fanny; “and you find that horror and put him into his box, or put him into anything, only don’t have him loose in the room.”
“Well, we’ll have a good search,” said both the girls, “and we may find him.”
But this was a thing easier said than done; for if there was a knowing spider anywhere in the world, that spider was Dickie of Scotland. Dickie was not going to be easily caught. Perhaps Dickie had a secret sense of humor and enjoyed the situation—the terror of the one girl, the efforts of the others to put him back into captivity. In vain Susie laid baits for Dickie all over the room—bits of raw meat, even one or two dead flies which she found in a corner. But Dickie had secured a hiding-place for himself, and would not come out at present.
“I can’t sleep in the room—that’s all!” said Fanny. “I really can’t—that’s flat.”
“Oh, stop talking for a minute!” said Olive suddenly. “There! didn’t you hear it? Yes, that is the sound of the carriage coming back from the station. Dr. Jephson has come. Oh, I wonder what he will say about her!”