She hustled Henrietta into the house, but kindly. She even knelt down beside her and began to unfasten the child’s dress after lighting the fire that she had herself suggested. “Spooks” were evidently wiped from Amy’s memory; but she flinched 70 every time it lightened, as it did occasionally for some time.
“Say!” said the wondering Henrietta hoarsely. “I’m just as dirty as I was the other day. You don’t haf to touch me.”
“Oh, dear me!” cried Amy. “This child is never going to forgive me for that. Won’t you like me a little, Henrietta?”
“Not as much as that other one,” said the freckle-faced girl frankly.
Jessie, who was taking off her own outer garments to hang before the now roaring fire, only laughed at that.
“Tell us,” she said, “why you think your cousin was carried off?”
“That lady she lived with was awful mad when she came to Foleys looking for Bertha. She said she’d put Bertha where she wouldn’t run away again for one while. That’s what she said.”
“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Amy suddenly. “Do you suppose—Child! did the woman come to your house––”
“Foley’s house. I ain’t got a house,” declared Henrietta.
“Well, to Mrs. Foley’s house in a big maroon automobile?” finished Amy.