"Oh, I told him to give it to me. I said papa said he took it, and he could have the gold dollars, but I wanted the funny thing. Why, maybe it was a doll or a purse or some other nice thing. Course I wanted it. My, though, Neal was mad!"
"What did you tell him, Janet?" asked Mrs. Franklin, in much astonishment; "that your father said Neal had taken your present? When did he say so, and what do you mean?"
"Goody, mamma, you're asking 'most as many questions as Neal did. Guess you're excited, like he was. I told him papa said he'd taken my present from Aunt Betsey. The postmaster man said so this morning. And Neal looked awful queer when I told him, and he hurted my arm awful bad. And then he went off and left me."
Mrs. Franklin became very white. "I think you will have to excuse me, children. I—I do not feel very well. I will go lie down. Jack, your arm, please."
Jack sprang to help her, and led her from the room. Cynthia only wailed to scold Janet for her idle chatter, and then followed.
"But it's true, Cynthia," her small sister called after her. "It's true, and you're real mean to say it isn't. You just ask Edith."
When Mr. Franklin returned and learned that his hastily uttered words of the morning had been repeated to his wife and to Neal, he was distressed beyond measure. "My dear, I never meant it," he said. "Hester, you must know that I could not really believe that Neal would do such a thing. It was impossible to help remarking upon the singular coincidence. I never thought the child would hear me. What shall I do with her? She ought not to have repeated what I said."
"Do nothing, John. Janet is not to blame; naturally, a child of her age would get it wrong. But oh, I am relieved to find you did not really think it! It gave me such a shock to hear that you thought him capable of such an action."
"Where is the boy? I want to tell him myself."
But Neal could not be found. Cynthia and Jack hunted over the place, looking for him in all his haunts. He was not on the river, for his canoe was in its place. He had not gone to the village, for no horse was out, and whether he had walked or driven, his sister would have met him when she returned from Boston. He could not have gone for a walk, for Bob had been left at home, and Neal never walked without Bob.