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Page 55
"They must be somewhere about the house," said Mrs. Sherman, with such
decision that Mrs. Cassidy was comforted, and began wiping her eyes.
"Come in, and help me search. Maybe they slipped up-stairs when the
other children were playing, and went to sleep in some dark corner. Come
on, boys. Light up the house from attic to cellar, and see who will be
first to find them. It will be a game of hunt the twins, instead of hunt
the slipper."
Then up-stairs, and down-stairs, and in my lady's chamber, went a
strange procession, for nearly every one was still draped in sheet and
pillow-case. Into closets, behind screens, in all the corners, and under
all the beds they looked. Keith, remembering the sad story of Ginevra,
even lifted the lid of every chest and trunk in the linen room. Poor
little Mrs. Cassidy followed, wringing her hands, and sobbing that she
knew that they had been shut outside in the storm and the night.
Suddenly, when they had been all over the house for the third time, she
caught up a lamp, and ran out in the dark, like some poor mad creature,
calling, "Oh, Bethel! Oh, my little Ethel! Don't you hear your mother?"
By this time, the servants' quarters were aroused, and Mrs. Sherman, now
really alarmed, called for Walker and Alec to bring lanterns. The lawn
was a wreck, strewn with leaves and fallen limbs and pieces of broken
flower urns that had been overturned by the wind. The searchers stumbled
over them as they waded through the wet grass, looking in every nook and
corner where it was possible for a child to have strayed, but their
search was in vain. Never a trace did they find of the lost twins.
"Stay in the house, girls," said Mrs. Sherman, as she caught up the
trail of her wrapper, and ran out to follow the flickering lanterns and
Mrs. Cassidy's frantic cries. "It might give you your death of cold to
expose yourselves so soon after the measles."
As they stood in the door watching the wavering lights, Lloyd exclaimed,
"The puppies are gone, too. I wonder where they can be. Maybe they were
left outside in the storm when we all ran indoors in such a hurry. Maybe
the twins were playing with them."
She leaned out of the door, peering into the night. "Heah, Bob!" she
called, snapping her fingers, and whistling the shrill signal she always
gave when she fed them. There was no response from the darkness outside,
and she turned indoors repeating the whistle, and calling, "Heah, Bob!
Heah, puppy! Come to yo' miss!"
In answer there was a stir under the low Persian couch in the library,
then a whine, and an inquiring little nose was thrust through the heavy
knotted fringe that draped the lower part of the couch. The next instant
Lloyd's Bob came sprawling joyously toward her, his pink bow cocked
rakishly over one ear. Lloyd dropped on her knees, and, lifting the
fringe, looked under. Then she gave an excited scream.
"Heah they are!" she called. "I've found them! Heah's the twins, and all
the Bobs!"
"They're found!" called Joyce, running out on the porch and shouting the
news until the searchers farthest from the house heard, and ran joyfully
back. "They're found! Lloyd's found them!"
"Who ever would have thought of squeezing into such a place as that?"
said Miss Allison, as she came running in, out of breath. "I started to
look under that couch twice, but it was so low I thought they couldn't
possibly have crawled under. Besides, some one was sitting on it all
evening, and they surely would have been seen if they had attempted it."
Rob and Malcolm lifted the couch and set it aside, and there, curled up
on two fat sofa cushions, with the puppies beside them, lay the twins
fast asleep. Great beads of perspiration stood on their foreheads and
trickled down their dimpled faces. Their hair curled in little wet
rings all over their heads, and their chubby arms and necks were red
with prickly heat.
"It is a wonder that they weren't smothered," cried Mrs. Cassidy, taking
them up in her arms and waking them with her tearful kisses. "Oh, _why_
did you hide away from mother, precious?" she asked, reproachfully, as
Bethel's eyes opened with a dazed stare at the crowd of faces around
her. She leaned her head heavily on her mother's shoulder, for she was
not fully awake, and clung around her neck with both arms. Finally, in
answer to the chorus of questions that came from all sides, she roused
enough to answer.
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