There seemed nothing to do but agree, so after many admonitions from Nancy and promises from Rosa, the latter started off. She had arranged things with Margot so as to allay her suspicions, and when Rosa waved to Nancy from the green launch, called the Cucumber, Nancy sighed in spite of the beautiful morning and all other favorable circumstances.
Hours dragged by slowly. First Nancy wrote letters—it would soon be time for homecomings—then she drew a pen and ink sketch for Ted. She even finished the little handkerchief she was hemstitching for Manny, but yet there remained a full half hour before lunch time. And no sign of Rosa!
It might have been that Nancy had not yet gotten over that anxious search for Rosa, when she and the Durands finally found her on Mushroom Island, at any rate, all that morning Nancy worried.
Lunch time came but Rosa did not. One, two, three o’clock! Nancy could stand it no longer. She made some excuse to Margot and hurried over to Durand’s.
It happened that Paul was there, and, of course, Gar was with him; but Dell had gone out.
“Look for Rosa!” shouted Gar, just as she knew he would when she told why she had come. “Say, Nance, what is this, anyway? A bureau of missing persons?”
She explained without fully explaining, and the boys gladly enough set sail in the Whitecap, once more to search for the illusive Rosa.
“But no wood carving, wood chopping, nor wood lugging,” declared Gar, gayly. Then he told Paul about his previous experience in that line, embellishing the story with extravagant little touches peculiar to the style of Garfield Durand.
Paul and Nancy, as usual, found many things to talk about, to discuss and even to disagree over, for Paul proclaimed the beauties of New Hampshire while Nancy held with unswerving loyalty to the glories of Massachusetts.
But her anxiety over the delay of Rosa’s return was not even thinly covered by these assumed interests, and only Gar’s continual threats to do something dreadful to the runaway “this time sure” and his repeated avowals that he positively, absolutely and unquestionably would not “dig up the woods nor chop down trees in this search,” kept Nancy’s real worry from being mentioned.