Part 22 (1/2)
She was out of the room and half way down the hall when Miss North called her.
Blue Bonnet came back and took the chair to which Miss North pointed, wonderingly.
”Why did you not go to your French cla.s.s, Miss Ashe?”
”Because I was so worried about Carita. I knew I couldn't make any kind of a recitation.”
”That does not excuse you from going. You may report now to Madam de Cartier. In regard to Miss Judson--” Miss North paused, as trying to think of the best way to impress her authority upon the very determined young girl before her.
”You will leave Miss Judson to the care of Mrs. Goodwin and Doctor Giles for the present. As soon as there is the slightest cause for alarm your aunt will be notified. You may go now.”
In the hall Blue Bonnet met Mary Boyd.
”How's Carita?” Mary asked. ”Have they found out what's the matter with her?”
”No. The doctor can't tell yet.”
”What doctor?”
”I think his name is Giles.”
”Doctor Giles! Oh, mercy, they always get him, and he's slower than mola.s.ses at Christmas. That's just the way he did when I was sick. First he said it was cold--then it was grippe; then it looked like something else. By the time they got my mother here I was so sick I didn't know her.”
”Mary,” Blue Bonnet said, actually frightened, ”is that really true?
Aren't you exaggerating?”
”No. You ask Peggy Austin. She'll tell you!”
But Blue Bonnet's mind was made up. She would take no chances. If she had been a little older, a little more experienced, she would have taken Mary's opinion of Doctor Giles for exactly what it was worth--the prejudice of a spoiled child. But Blue Bonnet was very young herself, and very much excited.
She went directly to Professor Howe's room, but Professor Howe was teaching. So was Madam de Cartier. Blue Bonnet's next period was vacant, so she went to the study hall and slipped into her seat quietly.
Fraulein Herrmann was in charge of the room. She looked at Blue Bonnet suspiciously, and watched her as she got out her books.
Blue Bonnet opened her Latin, but the words danced before her eyes.
Study was out of the question. Her mind and heart centred upon Carita.
Poor little Carita, white and forlorn, miles and miles away from her father, her mother, shut up in a room with a woman she scarcely knew, the thought was intolerable.
For a few minutes she sat thinking. How could she get word to Aunt Lucinda? There was the long distance telephone, but she hardly knew how to manage that; there might be complications, and then any one could hear, the telephone was so publicly placed.
Suddenly it flashed over her that she could get a letter--a special delivery--to Woodford that afternoon. One of the day pupils would mail it.
Unmindful of Fraulein's watchful eye, she leaned over and spoke to her seat-mate, Ethel Merrill.
”Would you do me a favor, Ethel?” she asked.
”Surely,” Ethel replied.