“He’ll think twice before inviting himself to supper another time,” quietly remarked Cassie with a satisfied smile.
“Oh, Cassie, darling, you have saved our lives,” cried Florence, flinging her arms around her sister.
“I don’t know about that; but I’ve saved the spoons, anyway.”
“There, there, baby,” going to the still afflicted boy; “don’t cry any more. Sister Cassie was just making a dirty old tramp hop; she didn’t really shoot him, she was just playing shoot.”
“Oh, Cassie, you splendid, brave girl! How did you ever happen to think to go crazy?” asked Rose, as she looked over her shoulder from the door which she was barricading.
“Well, I knew something had to be done, and that just popped into my mind. I was doing ‘Ophelia’ the other day up in my room, so I was in practice; and didn’t I make a sweetly pensive maniac? Now I hope you girls will never again make disrespectful comments upon any little private theatricals of mine. If I had never cultivated my dramatic talents, what would have become of you, I’d like to know?”
It was some time before the tidal wave of excitement subsided sufficiently for the girls to settle down for the evening, or for the baby to go to sleep. Again and again they thought they heard footsteps, and, although the door was locked and double-locked, they drew up into battle line whenever the autumn wind shook down a shower of leaves upon the roof.
Just as the clock was on the stroke of eight, a pleasant sound came fitfully to them. It was a softly whistled tune, and the cheery cadence told of a mind free from unpleasant doubts of welcome.
“Surely that can’t be Ned back already; he wasn’t to start home until nine,” said Rose, going to the window and cautiously peeping from under the curtain.
“Right you are there, sister Rose,” assented Cassie. “It surely can’t be, especially as Ned could no more whistle ‘Marching through Georgia’ than you could have done the marching. It sounds uncommonly like young Farmer Dunscomb’s whistle to me.”