When Milly turned on the electric light in the little apartment, it was forebodingly still. She glanced at once into the room where Virginia slept and found it empty, with the bedclothes tumbled in a heap. She rushed to the maid's room. That too was empty and the rear door was locked on the outside. For a moment Milly's heart ceased beating, then with a shriek,—"Virgie, Virgie—where are you!" she ran into the front hall and plunged, still shrieking, down the stairs.
A door opened on the floor below, and the figure of a large woman in a rose-pink negligee confronted Milly.
"Lookin' for yer little girl?" the stranger asked in a loud, friendly voice. "Well, she's all right—just come in here!"
She held open the door and pointed to the front room, where under a crocheted shawl little Virginia was curled up asleep on the divan. Milly fell beside her with an hysterical sob. The child, partly awakened, put out her thin arms and murmured sleepily, "The strange lady's very nice, but she's queer. Take me home, mama, please."
The "strange lady," who was looking on interestedly, explained,—
"I heard the kid runnin' round up above and cryin'—oh, that was hours ago when I first com' home—and as she kep it up cryin' as if she were scared and callin', I went up there and brought her down to stay with me till you got back.... Guess she woke up and was lonesome all by herself."
"That brute Hilda," Milly gasped, "must have gone off and left her."
"They're all like that,—them Swedes," the woman of the rose-pink negligee agreed. "Got no more heart than a brick."
She spoke as from a vast experience with the race.
"The little girl has been as nice as pie," the woman replied to Milly's stammered thanks. "We've been real friendly. Good-by, girlie, I'll be up to-morrer some time and tell you the last of that story.... Good-night!"