“Gone back into the grove, probably,” said Addie, quietly, who felt calmer than the others because less responsible.
“She must be with Madame Belotti’s sister,” said Lily, not yet feeling very much worried. “Where is she, madame?”
The sphinx was thrusting the money into her pocket-book and bowing as if to say farewell. Her face wore an anxious look, but she replied very civilly, pointing in the opposite direction from the road that led to the station:
“De little one is all safe. My sister gets her to draw for us some lucky numbers out of a bag, so we may get a great fortune from dem. De drawing must be made unter a red oak-tree and in de sound of running water. Dat is very important. And hark! I hears running water off dere, and as we walks up I say to my sister, ‘Some water-fall is down dat way, and you must take de little girl dere to draw de numbers from de bag.’ Shall I go look for her, young ladies, or vill you go yourselves and find her unter some big red oak-tree near de falling water?”
The girls were running down the hill toward the little mill before madame quite finished speaking, but that oracular person did not seem disturbed at being left. She gave one glance at Edna, who, after a moment of hesitation, rather sulkily followed the others, and fleetly disappeared in the other direction.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ELFIE GONE!
“How does it happen,” said Mrs. Abbott, as she carved the roast beef at dinner, “that there are so many vacant places at the table?”
“I don’t understand it at all,” said Miss Blake. “No one has asked to be excused, and irregularity at meals has never been a fault of any of our household.”
“Elfie is missing too,” said Mrs. Abbott, “but she is undoubtedly up-stairs in the room with Candace.”