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The adventure in the field had flung them together, and much to the astonishment of the others, who did not know their secret they had walked the whole way from Pursborough to Ribstang in each other's company. "I can't make out Ingred!" declared Verity. "Here she's been abusing Bess, and calling her a bounder, and now she's hanging on her arm!
Hess went out and helped Frank bring in the animals and wood for the cooking fire. But here was a surprise. Almost as soon as the horses clattered in on the hard floor of the cavern one of them whinnied. Seemingly in response, the reechoing sound that had previously so startled the girls rang faintly through the cavern. But from much farther away, it seemed, than before. "The haunt!" gasped Bess.
"Laurel gone!" exclaimed more than one of the astonished girls. "She may have gone out," suggested Hazel. "I thought I heard someone about very early." Following this thought the girls looked around called, and again returned to the empty room. "What is this?" asked Bess, seeing a piece of ribbon-tied paper floating from the night lamp. Hazel was first to handle it.
She waits on me all day; but when I wake at night, I always see her sewing busily, and know it is for me, my good kind Bess! "Then I have my work, sir, to amuse me; and it helps a little too, for kind children always buy my toys, when Bess tells them of the little boy who carved them lying here at home while they play out among the grass and flowers where he can never be."
Bess is my only she-helpmate now, besides the old creature who shows the ruins: so much the better. What an eccentric creature that Johnstone was! I hate eccentric people." The letter fell from Percy's hands. And this, then, was the issue of his single interview with the poor old man! He afterwards dealt con amore with fatalities and influences.
"Yes'm," Inez said, eating and drinking eagerly. "But a nice feller in a drug store a night clerk, I guess youse call him took me in after one o'clock, an' give me something to eat, and fixed up me head." "What a kind man!" exclaimed Bess. "So you see, Inez, there are some kind folks in the world," said Nan, smiling at the waif. "Some kind ones beside us." "Yep," the child admitted.
The little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly she came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of conciliation and explanation to the little girl's mother. But to this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been.
"Do you young ladies realize that we have the cares of housekeeping on our shoulders?" asked Cora, from a mass of boxes and bags, not to mention trunks, in the alleged living room of the Mote. "Oh, let us forget it do," begged Bess. "I always hate the summertime when it brings dishes and things." "It's good for you," affirmed Marita.
"Yes," answered Cora as she snatched off her cap and fluttered a response to the folks on the steamer. "Bess, keep clear out. The landing is just over there! The steamer makes quite a swell." Bess turned, but she did it too suddenly. A wave from the steamer caught them broadside, and drenched the girls before they knew what had happened.
"I knew she couldn't resist us," chuckled Sara Emerson, as the girls filed down the walk. "A combination like ours is safe to make its way anywhere. Come on, Marian and Elizabeth, you are the hostesses now. Shall we head for Livingstone Hall?" "No, indeed," smiled Marian. "Bess and I are not so lucky. It is Vinton's for ours. But we can assure you that you won't be disappointed in the layout."
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