By noon, finding his three companions nearly exhausted, the young man persuaded them to go up to the big, comfortable farmhouse, see his mother, have their luncheon and rest. And straightway on meeting her, Mrs. Webster took a liking to Mollie that was to last all the rest of her life.
During this time Betty, Esther and Sylvia were going slowly along the main path that led through the fields and finally on to the high road into the village. Miss McMurtry and her assistants were climbing Sunrise Hill.
But Sylvia Wharton was so tediously slow. About every five minutes she would stop and kneel down in the dirt, attempting to fit an old shoe of Polly's into any fresh track she happened to observe. The other two girls wandered off into bits of woods or meadows near by, calling and hunting, but Sylvia never went with them.
"There is no use," she explained, "Polly has gone straight into Woodford and because it was night had to take the regular path instead of going through the fields as she usually does."
Claiming to have exactly traced her footsteps Esther and Betty were still not convinced. "It is such a stupid idea, Sylvia," Betty argued, "for there isn't anybody in town now to whom Polly would go in the middle of the night, and besides she would be ashamed to let people know she had run away from camp."
Nevertheless Sylvia kept stolidly on and because her companions had nothing better to suggest they followed after her.
On the high road Sylvia, who would still creep like a tortoise, suddenly stooped down. The August dust was very thick along the way and wagons had already been traveling into town, and yet she picked up a string of red, white and blue beads, which surely were Polly's, since patriotism had been one of her chief studies during the summer.
It was also Sylvia's suggestion that led the little party of friends straight to Mrs. O'Neill's closed cottage. The doors and windows in front of the house were sealed, but Betty found the door of the old kitchen halfway open. And there inside on her mother's lounge lay Polly! She seemed to be almost asleep when the girls entered, but awakened immediately and in a wholly different frame of mind.
Realizing in the last few hours, when it was too late, how great an anxiety her disappearance must have caused, she wanted to go back to camp, to confess her fault and at least to persuade Betty to forgive her. Yet she dared not trust herself to go alone, for Polly's head was aching furiously, her face was hot and flushed and any attempt to walk made her sick and dizzy.
While Betty and Esther were discussing what had best be done, Polly having trusted herself wholly to their hands, neither of them noticed Sylvia Wharton's withdrawal.