“Don’t turn away from me, Miss!” pleaded the unfortunate Gypsy girl. “Please help me!”
She stretched out to Dorothy a dirty, trembling hand. The gate to the Rockdale train had been thrown open, and Dorothy felt that the time was almost up.
“You should go home,” she said, dropping a coin into the outstretched palm.
“Yes, yes, I want to go home,” cried the girl, and Dorothy was afraid her voice would attract attention in the crowd. But the passengers were too busy rushing for their trains to heed anything else. “I want to go home,” pleaded Urania. “You should take me home,—it was your fine cousin—the boy with the taffy-colored hair—that brought me here!”
“What!” cried Dorothy. “How dare you say such a thing?”
“Ask him, then, if it isn’t so. And ask him if he wasn’t in this very station an hour ago, looking for some one—that red-headed girl, likely.”
“Do you mean to say you saw my cousin here to-day?” gasped Dorothy. “Come; tell me the truth and you shall go home—I’ll take you home myself—only tell me the truth.”
“Yes, I’ll do it,” answered the girl. “Well, him and his brother came in here an hour ago. They asked the man at the window if he had seen a young girl with a brown hand bag. I stood near to listen, but kept out of sight. Then they dashed off again before I could ask them for a penny, or throw it up to that dandy that it was the ride he gave me in the auto that brought me to this.”
“Don’t talk so!” exclaimed Dorothy, much shocked. “Do you want to go back to the camp where your people are?” She was too dumfounded at the news to argue with the wild creature.
“Yes, oh, yes, back to the camp!” and Urania’s eyes flashed. “They’ll take me back. Even Melea would not turn me out now for I am sick and sorrowful.”