"She's gone off skating with Sandy Andy and forgot the time," whispered Judy, who had crept into Molly's room to confer. "It's a good joke on proper old Nance. I think she was never known to break a rule before."
"You don't suppose anything could have happened to them, do you?"
"Of course not. But you know how absorbed they do get in conversation. They wouldn't hear a cannon go off a yard away."
"They are awfully strict here about being out with boys," observed Molly uneasily. "I do wish she would come home."
The girls lingered over the register talking in whispers until the clock struck half-past ten.
"Molly, suppose they have eloped!" Judy observed.
"Eloped!" repeated Molly, amazed. Then she began to laugh. "Judy, is there anybody in the world so romantic as you? Why, they are mere infants. Andy isn't nineteen yet and Nance was only eighteen last month. I think we'd better slip out and find them. Come on."
Very quietly the two girls got into their things. They wore their rubbers this time, and Molly very thankfully carried the imitation ermine muff. The entire household was sound asleep when out into the sparkling, glittering world they crept like two conspirators.
"Suppose we try the links first," suggested Judy, "since both of us saw them disappearing last in that direction."
"If we were really ladylike persons we'd be afraid to go scurrying off here in the dark," observed Molly.