Gretel’s hold on the precious ticket tightened imperceptibly, and she grew suddenly very pale.
“She might make me take it back to the opera house,” she finished, with a gasp.
Then, all at once came another thought—a thought so dreadful that she actually began to tremble.
“Perhaps I ought to take it back,” she whispered. “It may belong to some one; some one may have dropped it. Oh, but I can’t—I can’t! Nobody in the whole world can possibly want it as much as I do.”
Just then she heard Mrs. Marsh’s voice in the hall, and hastily opening her bureau drawer, she thrust the envelope and its contents deep down among her handkerchiefs.
Both Mrs. Marsh and her daughter regarded Gretel curiously when she appeared at the dinner-table that evening. The child’s cheeks were flushed, and there was such a feverish brightness in her eyes that Mrs. Marsh began to fear she was going to be ill. But when she questioned Gretel on the subject, the little girl assured her eagerly that she was quite well.
“You aren’t eating much dinner, at any rate,” remarked Ada, with a wondering glance at Gretel’s almost untouched plate. “You ought to have a good appetite after your walk in the wind. What an awful afternoon it was. I was almost blown off my feet coming round the corner by the opera house. Madame has promised to have my dress ready for me to wear to the wedding to-morrow, Mamma. Are you very tired, Gretel?”
“I’m not tired at all,” replied Gretel, in a rather dreamy, faraway voice.
“Little girls who cannot eat their dinners properly should not be allowed any dessert,” said Mrs. Marsh, severely. But Gretel only smiled, and when the dessert appeared she ate so little of it that Mrs. Marsh felt more uneasy than before.
“You had better go to bed early, Gretel,” she advised, “and I will give you a dose of medicine, for I am sure your stomach must be upset.” And when Gretel had retired obediently directly after dinner, Mrs. Marsh spoke with more severity than usual to her daughter, on the folly of sending the child on such a long walk in the wind.