“But she isn’t half fed,” declared Tavia. “See how thin her little arms and legs are! It’s a shame.”
“I am afraid Celia doesn’t have proper nourishment. She gets no milk nor eggs. Mrs. Hogan sells every pound of butter she makes, too. Now those things are just what a frail little thing like Celia needs. Mrs. Hogan is a female miser.”
“A miserine—eh?” chuckled Tavia, who could not help joking even though so angry with the farm woman who half starved her little slavey.
“I must go down and tell Mrs. Pangborn about her,” sighed Dorothy. “Otherwise there will be trouble.”
“But we’ll keep her till after supper—— Oh, do!” exclaimed Tavia, under her breath.
“I don’t see how we can get her home to-night. Maybe Mrs. Pangborn can telephone to some neighbor who lives near that Hogan woman——”
Dorothy ran down to the school principal. Miss Olaine had retired to bed, it was understood, for the rest of the day, and Dorothy was glad. She wanted all the girls to see Celia at supper time, and “make much” of her.
Mrs. Pangborn called up Central and learned the number of the nearest correspondent of the telephone company to the Hogan farm. There they took a message for the farm woman. Already the news had gone around the neighborhood that Mrs. Hogan’s little girl was lost.
“But she is not likely to get ‘way over here for her before morning,” said the school principal. “I do not like that woman, Dorothy; and what you tell me about this child makes me fear that she is not a proper person to have charge of the little one.”
“I am sure she isn’t!” cried Dorothy. “If we could only find her brother,” and she went on to relate to Mrs. Pangborn how she and Tavia had found out all about Tom Moran and the Rector Street School fire, and how the man had disappeared after rescuing the children and Miss Olaine from the burning building.