“But I didn’t know it,” said Mrs. Marmaduke, with superiority. “Not even Mr. Marmaduke knew that they had been there until afterwards.”
“Ah, yes,” returned Mrs. Graham; “but to find out, even afterwards, that the horrid men had been there—ugh!—and had taken all your silver—every bit of it—”
“They left some,” coolly interrupted the heroine. Mrs. Graham pretended not to hear her.
“You should have had a burglar-alarm,” she said, patronizingly. “Mr. Graham is going to have one put in for me.”
“We have a burglar-alarm,” answered Mrs. Marmaduke. “But it was out of order.”
“Oh, how annoying!” chorused all the listeners except Mrs. Graham, who sank back in her seat and signalled for her daughter Clara to come to her.
Just then the train came around the curve below the station, and all the adventurous girls retreated to their carriages. Out from his office ran the old station-master, followed by the important-looking man and by the bored young man. The man who carried the mail-bag to the post-office sauntered up, and for an instant everything was expectation. Then expectation became reality and confusion as the train came to a stop. For a moment there was an outpouring of passengers, then a thinning out of the crowd, and then a sort of stampede of the carriages for the post-office, until, when the train started again, only Mrs. Marmaduke’s and Mrs. Graham’s remained. Mrs. Marmaduke lay back in hers, looking at her husband, as he stood on the platform talking to the bored young man, while Mrs. Graham, after looking carefully around for her husband, sank back without being able to find him. Clara Graham had looked also, and when she could find neither her father nor her brother she began again the conversation interrupted by the arrival of the train.
“There were two burglars, mamma,” she said. “One was rather an old man, they say, while the other was much younger. And of course there must have been a third one to watch—”
“Drive on, George,” interrupted Mrs. Graham; and the coachman had just turned from the platform when the gray-bearded station-master ran out.
“Hi, there! Mrs. Graham!” he shouted, waving a brown envelope, and as the carriage stopped with a jerk, the old man plunged down from the platform and ran to it.