The Manor School

by L. T. Meade

"Highty-tighty!" cried Mrs. Carter, jumping to her feet and putting her arms akimbo; "and who may you be?"

"You know who I am, at any rate," said Judith. "And, let me tell you, this is my room, for I paid for it with money of the realm. So out of it you go. Where have you put those young lydies? These two lydies have come along for 'em, and they're going to pay me well—and better than well—so you must bring 'em out from where you have hidden 'em. Where are they?"

"Sakes!" cried Mrs. Carter, who had not recognized Judith at first, and now thought it best to humor her, "there's no need to get into a fluster. The young uns have gone. Notwithstanding the rare kindness with which they was treated, they walked out nearly an hour and a half ago; and where they are now dear only knows, for I don't."

Judith asked a few more pertinent questions; then she turned to Miss Thompson. Her face looked decidedly frightened.

"We've got to follow 'em," she said. "Of course, we'll soon overtake 'em. Let's go back to the cab, and be quick."

They went downstairs. Miss Thompson described her feelings afterwards as those of a person who was stunned.

"I could not have felt worse if I had heard that Christian was dead," she said; "and the awful thing was that her father and mother were away. If they had been at home I might have borne it."

Now, while these good people were searching high and low for the missing children, the children themselves were having a very bad time. How it happened they did not know, but when they had finished their meal—their warm and delicious meal of fried fish and fried potatoes and hot, strong, sweet cocoa—they became wonderfully sleepy—so sleepy that they could not keep their eyes open. And the man who had looked after them and ordered them food, and had really seemed quite attentive and kind, and, as Rosy expressed it, most respectable, suggested that they should stay just where they were and have "their little snooze out."

"You are fair done," he said. "I don't know what kind of a night you had, but hungrier children I never saw; and now, I may add, I never saw sleepier. You have your sleep out, and I'll come back in an hour or so. I'll go and have a smoke. It's early yet in the day, and we'll get to Bloomsbury and that big square you spoke of in less than no time; so have your sleep out now."

Christian said afterwards that of course she ought not to have yielded, but she really scarcely knew what she was doing; her head would fall forward and her eyes would close. Presently she found herself leaning against Rosy, and Rosy found herself leaning against Christian, and unconsciousness stole over them.