“I’m so sorry about it, Miss Davis,” Barbara murmured, “but I’m perfectly sure it will be all right. There’s something we can’t even guess, some reason why we can’t find it. But I’m sure it’s safe or Nicky would never have written the note the way he did.”
“What did he say?” asked Miss Davis in a very tiny voice.
Babs told her. She dwelled upon the especial significance of every meager word.
“And you see, Miss Davis,” she pointed out, “Nicky is really very wise. He has had to learn such a lot in those few years of his, that he’s as wise as a boy much older.”
“Yes; I can understand that,” assented the other. “But—he may be wayward.”
“Oh, he isn’t really.” Barbara was thinking of the girls and their hateful gossip about a reform school. “He just does everything for his mother,” she said jerkily. “And he’s the best boy——”
“I was speaking to Mr. Thornton confidentially this morning,” Miss Davis said. “You know he has charge of wayward children——”
“But Nicky isn’t wayward, not a bit,” defended Babs, nervously.
“Well, I hope not. But Mr. Thornton said it was best for such children to be where they would have to learn right from wrong——”
“Oh, Miss Davis! But Nicky knows!” Babs gasped a little too loud, for folks around her turned sharply to see why any one would be so excited.