Part 13 (1/2)

Sammy returned with Kate, Nurse Norrie's niece.

”Sure I saw the slippers, Miss Martin,” said Kate. ”I put them both on the window-sill with the doll baby, and then I saw that the screen had fallen out of the window, and I ran down to tell Mat to put it in, and I never thought of them from that moment to this.”

”It must have fallen out of the window,” said Miss Martin, ”though I don't exactly see how. We'll ask Mat to take a lantern and look for it in the gra.s.s.”

Mat carefully searched in the gra.s.s, and round the roots of the big tree, whose branches brushed against the very window-sill, and which knew the answer to the puzzle if only they could tell. He swung his lantern over the piazza roof and window-ledges, too, but in vain. The bronze slipper was not to be found, and Lydia and Mary Ellen went to bed side by side without even saying good-night.

Miss Martin hesitated whether to try to reconcile the little girls, but Lydia still believed Mary Ellen responsible for her loss, and Mary Ellen was hurt and angry at the undeserved suspicion.

”If I talk to them, no doubt they will say they are sorry, and that they forgive one another,” Miss Martin reflected wisely, ”but they will say it really to please me. They won't feel any different in their hearts. I will wait and see whether the mystery won't clear itself up to-morrow.”

So, trusting in the morrow, Miss Martin put the thought out of her mind for the time being, since no one but Lydia now believed Mary Ellen had anything to do with the disappearance of the ”brown betty,” and Lydia was forbidden to repeat her unwarranted accusation.

”Good news for you, Lydia,” was Miss Martin's morning greeting. ”Your mother is better, and you are to go home this afternoon.”

”Oh, goody!” said Lydia, smiling broadly as she sat up in bed. But the next instant the smile was gone and a cloud had come in its place.

”Did you find my slipper?” she asked eagerly.

”We haven't looked for it again,” answered Miss Martin cheerfully.

”After breakfast every one will turn to and hunt, and I feel sure we shall find it. We will do our best, anyway, won't we, Mary Ellen?” And Miss Martin smiled into the downcast face.

”Yes, Miss Martin,” returned Mary Ellen politely, but she continued to lace her boots without a glance in Lydia's direction. Plainly Mary Ellen still felt herself to be an injured person. There was even an idea in shrewd Miss Martin's mind that Mary Ellen found not a little enjoyment in her martyrdom.

After breakfast every one started in a different direction, but search and hunt as children, maids, and men did in every conceivable nook and corner, there was no trace of the missing slipper, and at last they were forced to give up the search, and admit that apparently it had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

”But it must be somewhere,” Miss Martin repeated. ”It didn't walk away by itself. I won't give up.”

By dinner-time the fruitless search was over, and in the afternoon the children scattered to their play, Polly and Tom escorting Lydia and Roger in a tour of the vegetable garden, hoping thus to raise the drooping spirits of their visitors.

Miss Martin missed Mary Ellen, and going in search of her, found her in her bedroom, leaning on the window-sill from which the bronze slipper had taken its mysterious flight.

The little girl had nursed her sense of injury all day, and now had stolen away from the other children to spend a lonely afternoon. She was deep in thought, but not so absorbed that she did not hear Miss Martin enter the room, although she continued to gaze out of the window.

”I guess if I died, Lydia would feel badly,” she was thinking. ”I would be dressed all in white, with my hair in long curls, and I would hold one white rose in my hand. They would all come and look at me, and oh, how they would all cry! I guess Lydia would cry hardest of all. Perhaps, though, they wouldn't even let her in, she's been so mean to me.” And a tear was all ready to roll down Mary Ellen's cheek, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

”What do you see, sister Anne?” asked Miss Martin, gayly. ”Are there any birds' nests in the tree?” She apparently did not notice the abused look Mary Ellen turned upon her as she sat down in the window beside the child.

”No, but there are two squirrels in the tree, big fellows. Here they come.” And Mary Ellen pointed to the two gray squirrels climbing in swift darts higher and higher up the old trunk. ”Aren't they cute?” she whispered, neglecting her own grievance for interest in the squirrels.

”Their hole is by that big branch. There goes one in now.”

Mary Ellen and Miss Martin held their breath as the remaining squirrel pursued his way up the tree. When he reached the branch opposite their window, to their delight he turned and crept toward them. Motionless, they watched him leap from the tip of the swaying bough to the broad window-sill, where he sat upright, peering sharply about with his bright little eyes.

And then in a flurry, with every appearance of haste, Mr. Squirrel departed, for Mary Ellen had abruptly broken the spell. She had waved her arms wildly, and had called out in a loud voice:

”Miss Martin, I believe they took Lydia's slipper.”

Miss Martin stared at Mary Ellen for a moment.

”I believe they did, Mary Ellen,” said she slowly. ”I never heard of such a thing before, but I do believe they did.”