"No, I ain't! They live next door and Mrs. Hoyt left the kids with me till she got back."
"Where is your house?"
"On top of the hill," she muttered sullenly.
"Then how does it come they are so far from home?"
"They ran away."
"She shut us out of hern house," said Loie, "and we went to fin' mamma."
Just at this moment the parsonage door opened, and Elizabeth's visitor stepped out on the piazza, almost stumbling over the crouching twins; and at sight of them she exclaimed in surprise, "Why, Lewis and Lois Hoyt, what are you doing down here? Does your mother know where you are?"
"Ah, Mrs. Lane, how do you do?" said the minister, extending his hand in greeting. "Are these tots neighbors of yours?"
"They live just across the street from us. I often take care of them when the mother is away." Then her eye chanced to fall upon the shrinking figure of Mittie, and she demanded wrathfully, "Have you been up to your tricks again, Mittie Cole? I shall certainly report you to your father this time sure. I will take the twins home, Mr. Strong. It is too bad your little guest has been hurt, but you can mark my words, she was not to blame. There is trouble wherever Mittie goes. I don't see why Mrs. Hoyt ever left the children with her in the first place. She might have known what would happen."
Shooing the little brood ahead of her, she marched out of sight up the hill, and Peace followed the minister into the house, wailing disconsolately, "I thought they were orphans and I could adopt them like grandpa did."