“I don’t want you to; you always nag at Pa and if you start in in a crowd, I know just what he’ll do. It is better for me to go with Mr. Fabian,—but I don’t believe he’s there!” declared Dodo.
“Perhaps Dodo is right, Mrs. Alexander. Let us go while you remain quietly here with the others,” said Mr. Fabian.
So they hurried away, while the girls and the ladies walked about, or sat down to watch the lovely scene in the Park. The two had been gone about ten minutes, when Mr. Alexander was seen coming towards the group on the bench, but he was not alone. A very pretty girl of about sixteen years was with him. Dodo and Mr. Fabian were nowhere in sight.
“Hello there, Maggie,” called out Mr. Alexander, genially, as he came within speaking distance of his wife. “I brought a ’Merican girl to you-all, to take care of her as far as Nice. She thought she was lost, but I soon showed her she was safe with us, until we landed her with her folks.”
Everyone gazed at the well-dressed pretty girl in surprise. It was evident from her red eyes that she had been crying a short time before. But Mr. Alexander said no more about the incident at the moment, merely introducing his companion as Genevieve Van Buren, of New York City.
“Where’s Dodo?” asked Mr. Alexander, suddenly missing his daughter when he wished to introduce her to the newcomer.
“She went with my husband,” hastily replied Mrs. Fabian. “They’ll be back in a few minutes. We are waiting for them, now.”
“Ebeneezer, where did you meet Miss Van Buren?” questioned his wife, suspiciously.
“Oh, just outside that door, where we all went, last,” returned the little man, indefinitely.
Mr. Fabian and Dodo were now seen coming out of the large building, and Mr. Alexander glanced from them to his wife, with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. Before anyone could say a word to Dodo, he spoke: “Well, so you’ve been wastin’ all your savings, too, eh?”