She went with a light step into the pantry; but when she returned there was a cloud on her face.
“I don’t know what to think,” said she, setting a plate of bread and the butter-dish on the table. “I baked a loaf of cake this morning, intending it for tea; but it is gone! Vendla!” she called, going to the back staircase.
Vendla came down, looking rather serious.
“I went into the pantry half an hour ago, ma’am,” said she, “and there was the empty platter sitting on the shelf. And, thinks I, ‘Where’s that cake? Mrs. Dunlee must have put it in the cake-chest,’ But I looked in the chest, and it wasn’t there. And that’s all I know about it.”
“Why didn’t you come at once and tell me, Vendla?”
The girl hesitated.
“I thought you might feel troubled about it, ma’am. I was afraid you’d think”—
Mrs. Dunlee knew she would have said, “I was afraid you’d think Master Jimmy took it.”
But Vendla could not speak the words, and Mrs. Dunlee liked her all the better for it.
“My good girl,” said she, “did you go down-stairs and lock the back door this afternoon when I asked you to do so.”