With the light falling full upon his dirty, insolent face, Rose knew that her greatest dread was before her. With her knees almost sinking under her, she started toward the stairs, for she felt that she must let the intrepid Cassie know, and find out what she advised.
“Where are you going, my dear?” asked the tramp, suspiciously. “You’ve not got any big cousin or uncle or anything of that kind up-stairs that you are going to call to tea, have you?”
“Oh, no, there is no one up-stairs but my poor sister,” she managed to gasp. She could not have told why she said “poor sister,” unless it was from the sense of calamity which had overtaken them all.
“In that case be spry, for I’m hungry, and I want you to pour out my tea for me. I like to have a pretty face opposite me at table.”
Rose dragged herself up the narrow enclosed stairs and into Cassie’s room.
“Well, Rose, you must be about tuckered out. You come up-stairs as if you were eighty,” said Cassie, looking up from the shoe she was fastening. “Why, what ails you? You look as if you had seen a ghost!”
“Oh, Cassie, there is one of them down-stairs!” came in a whisper.
“What do you mean, Rose Bostwick? A ghost down-stairs!”
“No—no—a tramp.”
“Whew!” and Cassie gave a low whistle. “And I suppose you’re scared?”