"It's no use, we might as well go back to the hotel and wait. Maybe she's there by this time," suggested Judge Breckenridge.
Still Joy had not returned when the party reached their quarters.
"There may have been an accident!" Bet shivered at the thought. Their laughing Joy! That would be too terrible to think of.
The Judge was about to notify the authorities when Sam Wilkins the colored steward on their train, walked in leading Joy, a woe-begone little creature, tear-stained and tired.
"Why Joy Evans! You——" Then catching sight of the girl's white face, Bet ran and threw her arms about her. "You darling! We thought you were lost and you were at the train all the time. Oh, Joy dear!" Tears came to Bet's eyes.
Joy did not break down and cry again until she had reached her own room. Then the tears came in a flood.
"Oh, I was so frightened," she sobbed.
When she had quieted down, half an hour later, she told her story. "I woke up hours and hours before the rest of you and I couldn't sleep. And when I'm at home I always go walking early in the morning. So I walked up the street leading to the Capitol."
"Yes, we know. We went up there, thinking we'd meet you coming back.
How did you get lost? The hotel is at the end of the street."
"Just you go up there and look!" Joy's eyes snapped, but in a minute her sense of humor returned. "I wouldn't have believed it possible to get lost, for, as you say, the hotel is at the end of the street leading up there."