"Why--why"-- A young girl's face paled, while the gray eyes
flashed, and with one spring she was out and rushing after the
small flying figure who in her fright had turned to flee the
other way.
"Look out, Caryl!" called the others in the carriage after her.
"Oh, she'll be killed," moaned a little girl leaning out as far
as she dared over the wheels.
"And then she can't ever get into the pretty new house," wailed
another. "Oh, what shall we do! Come back, Bessie!" she cried,
tugging at her sister's skirts. "Grandmamma, make her come into
the carriage, I can't hold her!"
But a crowd of people surging up around them at this moment, took
off all attention from Bessie and everybody else but the little
fugitive and her kind pursuer. Caryl made her way through the
crowd with flushed face, her little brown hat hanging by its
strings around her neck, pantingly dragging after her the little
black girl.
"It's our Viny," she said, "and something is the matter with Aunt
Sylvia! Oh, Madam Grant!"
"My poor child," said a sweet-faced woman, reaching out a kind
arm, while the children seized hold of Caryl at every available
point, between them dragging her and her charge into shelter,
"don't be troubled. Drive just as fast as you can, Thomas, to
No. 27, you know," she commanded hurriedly.
Then the first thing Caryl did was to turn upon Viny and unhook
the precious brooch as a low sob came from her white lips. "If
it had been lost!"
A soft hand stole under the little brown cloak to clasp her own;
but Madam Grant said never a word.
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