Meantime greetings had been exchanged among the others, and the four little girls had got into a corner by themselves.
"O Lu, do tell us all about it!" cried Rosie. "I never did hear of such a brave girl as you! Why I'd have been scared to death, and never have thought of such a thing as going down where the burglars were."
"Oh I think you would if you'd been in my place," returned Lulu modestly. "You see I was afraid if I waited to tell papa about them, they might come out and see him ready to fight them, and kill him; but I thought if I could get the door shut and fastened on them before they knew anybody was there, nobody would be hurt."
"And that's the way it was," said Evelyn. "But you were a brave girl and there's no use in your denying it."
"Yes, indeed, you were," said Rosie. "But come now do tell us the whole story; we want to hear it fresh from your lips."
"And what went on in the magistrate's office too," added Eva. "Oh didn't you dislike having to go there and testify?"
"Yes; I begged papa not to make me, but he said it was the law, and not he, that insisted."
"Yes I know, and of course those things have to be done in such cases; but I hope my turn will never come. Now, Lu, please begin. You'll have at least two very attentive listeners."
"More than that, I think," said Rosie, as other voices were heard in the hall, quickly followed by the entrance of the relatives from the Oaks, the Pines and Roselands.
And greetings were scarcely exchanged with these when the families from Ashlands and the Laurels joined the circle; so that quite a large surprise party had gathered there unexpectedly to themselves as well as to their hosts. The same desire—to learn the full particulars of what had reached them as little more than a vague report—had brought them all.