"Oh to be sure! I beg pardon, Lu," said Sydney.
"You are quite excusable," returned Lulu pleasantly. "Papa had something to say to me, that was all," and she glanced up at him with such a loving look, as at that instant he entered the room, that no one could suspect the talk between them had been other than most pleasant.
"Well, you have come back just in time; we are going to play the game of
Authors," said Herbert, beginning to distribute the cards.
The words had hardly left his lips when a sharp tap at the window made them all jump. Then a woman's voice spoke in piteous accents.
"Oh let me in, good people! my baby and I are starving to death, and freezing in this bitter winter wind."
"Oh who is it? who is it?" cried several of the girls, sending frightened glances in the direction from which the voice had come.
"I'll soon see," said Harold, hurrying toward the window.
But a gruff voice spoke from the hall. "Don't mind her, sir; she's a gypsy liar and thief; she stole the baby from its mother."
Harold paused, stood uncertainly in the middle of the floor for an instant, then turning quickly, retraced his steps, went to the hall door and glanced this way and that.
"There is no one here," he said, then burst into a laugh as, turning round once more, he perceived Mr. Lilburn quietly seated near the open door into the adjoining parlor where the older people were. "Cousin Ronald, may I ask what you know of that gypsy and the stolen child?"