Part 58 (1/2)

”What is it, my dear?” he said.

”I am dying, I think,” said Dorothy. ”Tell mother I did _try_.”

He lifted her into his trap and got in beside her, telling the groom to drive on, and wondering very much. Dorothy gave a great sigh and began to feel better.

”I think it is because I had no breakfast,” she said. ”Perhaps I am dying of _hunger_.”

The gentleman smiled, and searched his pockets. After a time he found some milk chocolate. Dorothy would rather have had water, but he made her eat a little. Then he took off her hat and gloves, and with a cool, soft handkerchief pushed back the hair that was clinging about her damp forehead and carefully wiped her face.

”You'll feel better now,” he said, fanning her with her hat, and putting it on again, as if he had never done anything but dress little girls in his life.

Dorothy smiled with a great sigh of relief, and the gentleman smiled too. ”Now tell us all about it,” he said in a friendly way. ”Where do you live, and where are you going?”

When Dorothy told him he looked very much surprised, and at the same time interested, and before she knew what she was about, he had drawn from her the whole story, and the more she told him the more surprised and interested he became.

”What was the name of the friend who failed your father?” he said at last, but Dorothy could not remember.

”Was it Pemberton?” he suggested.

”Oh, yes, Mr. Pemberton,” said Dorothy. ”At least, d.i.c.k said so.”

”You don't happen to be _Addis...o...b.._ Graham's little daughter,” he said with a queer look, ”do you?”

”Father's name is Richard Addis...o...b..,” said Dorothy doubtfully.

”Well, the best thing you can do now is to come home with me and get some breakfast,” he said. ”It is no use going to the Park, for I have just been to the station, and Miss Addis...o...b.. was there, with all her luggage, going off to the Continent.”

Poor Dorothy's heart sank like lead.

”Oh, dear!” she said, ”then it's been no use. Poor father!” and her eyes filled with tears.

The gentleman did not speak, and in a few minutes they drove in at the gates of a beautiful country house, and he lifted her down and took her in with him, calling out ”Elizabeth!”

A tall girl, about eighteen, came running to him, and after whispering to her for a minute, he left Dorothy in her charge, and went into the room where his wife was sitting.

”I thought you had gone to town?” she said.

[Sidenote: Mr. Lawrence's Mistake]

”Providentially, no,” he said, so gravely that she looked surprised. ”Do you remember Addis...o...b.. Graham, dear?”

”Has anything happened to him?” said Mrs. Lawrence. ”I have just been reading about him in the paper; all his life-saving appliances have had gold medals at the exhibition. What is it, Edward? Of course, I know you are a friend of his.”

”A Judas sort of friend,” said Mr. Lawrence. ”Do you know what I've done? I've nearly landed him in the Bankruptcy Court. Pemberton told me a few weeks ago he had promised to give him some spare cash that would be loose at the end of the year, and I persuaded him to put it in something else. I said, 'Graham doesn't want it, he's simply _coining_ over his inventions,' and I thought it too. Now it appears he was _counting_ on that money to pull him through the expenses.”

The tall girl took Dorothy upstairs to a beautiful bathroom, got her warm water, and asked if she would like a maid to do her hair.

After a little while she came for her again and took her into a very pretty room, where there was a dainty little table laid for breakfast.

”When you have finished,” she said, ”just lie on the sofa and rest. I am sorry I can't stay with you, but I must go and feed the peac.o.c.ks.”