"Go back, Marianne; we don't want you." Then, when Marianne would not go back, they all ran away, and left her crying.
The shut-up house looked dull and ghostly enough. The front was in deep shadow from the tall row of elms that bordered the road, but at the back the sun shone hotly. It glowed through the low, dusty window of a cellar, and danced and gleamed on something bright which lay on the floor within.
"What do you suppose it is?" said Emmy, as they all stooped to look. "It looks like real gold. Perhaps some pirates hid it there, and no one has come since but us."
"Or perhaps it's a mine," cried Lois,—"a mine of jewels. See, it's all purple, like the stones in mother's breastpin. Wouldn't it be fun if it was? We wouldn't tell anybody, and we could buy such splendid things."
"We must get in and find out," added Kitty.
Just then a wail sounded close at hand, and a very woful, tear-stained little figure appeared. It was Marianne. The poor baby had trotted all the long distance in the sun after her unkind playfellows.
"Oh, dear! You little nuisance! What made you come?" demanded Emmy.
"I 'ant to," was all Marianne's explanation.
"Well, don't cry. Now you've come, you can play," remarked Lois; and Marianne was consoled.
They began to try the windows in turn, and at last found one in a wood-shed which was unfastened. Kitty scrambled in, and admitted the others, first into the wood-shed and then into a very dusty kitchen. The cellar stairs opened from this. They all ran down, but—oh, disappointment!—the jewel-mine proved to be only the half of a broken teacup with a pattern on it in gold and lilac. This was a terrible come-down from a pirate treasure.