Hero gave a delighted whinny which his rider interpreted as the former, which was indeed the case, for Molly Trueheart was at that moment running across the lawn at Ferndale, anxious to make her peace with old Mrs. Barry.
“I shall have to humble myself down to the ground, I know, but I’ll do it for Louise’s sake,” she muttered then. “Oh, dear, how my bones do ache! I know I’m all over black and blue from the tumbles I’ve had! I know very well I shall be as sore as a boil tomorrow, and have to stay in bed all day. Oh, what made Lou so determined on sending me here? She might have known,” dismally, “that I could not behave myself. Oh, Lordy, I do hope she’ll let me off from doing any more penance as soon as she gets my letter!”
A sudden thought of the dignified stranger she had encountered made her laugh aloud in spite of her sorry plight.
“My! what a prig he was! Handsome though, very!” she said. “I wonder who he was, the wretch? He frightened the horse, of course, or I shouldn’t have got that fall. I hope he doesn’t live in this neighborhood, for it wouldn’t do for Aunt Thalia to find out that I ran away. I must hold my peace on that point. And now to face the music!”
The hall-doors stood wide open, the light of the swinging-lamp shining on the tired, pretty face of the girl as she crept in and went softly to the door of her aunt’s sitting-room. At the same moment the tall Dutch clock in the hall loudly boomed out the hour of ten.
“Oh, I did not dream it was so late!” she muttered, and peeped around the door.
There lay her Aunt Thalia on the sofa with Ginny Ann mopping her face with camphor, and old Nancy Jane, the cook, swinging a huge turkey-wing up and down.
Molly forgot her selfish terrors in anxiety for the old lady, and rushed precipitately into the room.
“What’s the matter?” she exclaimed.
Nancy Jane and Ginny Ann squealed simultaneously: