Gertrude jumped up and the doctor followed her into the hall. Ethel Brown ran into the dining room and then upstairs, with Miss Merriam in pursuit.
It was a moment of relief for everybody when Ethel gave a shout of discovery.
"Here she is!" she called, "and O, what will Dorothy say when she comes back and sees her room!"
"What's the modern way of dealing with that situation?" Edward asked when Miss Merriam re-appeared with Elisabeth under one arm.
"Do you mean ought she to be punished? Why should she? She was only following out her instinct to learn. How could she know that that was a time and place where it would inconvenience somebody else if she did? I'm the one to be punished for letting her have the opportunity."
"I suppose that's true. She'd never learn much if she didn't investigate, would she? And, as you say, she isn't yet conscious that she has any especial duty toward any one else's comfort."
"The Misses Clark are always saying 'No, no,' to her. I should think she'd think of their house as 'No, no Castle'."
"They love her, though," defended Ethel Brown.
"That's why I let her go there. A baby knows when she's loved and those two old ladies make her feel it even above the 'No, Nos'."
"I went in there yesterday when I saw Elisabeth's carriage outside their door," said Ethel, "and I found the older Miss Clark sitting on the floor clapping her hands and the baby trying to dance and sitting down, bang, every four or five steps."