Janet | Page 6

wonder where Harry can be. It's dark, and he ought to see you home."
"Oh, don't bother Harry," Janet protested. "I'll run all the way and I'll be there in no time. I'll be down to see Roy to-morrow."
As soon as she was out of sight of the cottage she did run. It was quite chilly, and the salt wind in her face made her blood tingle, and all the worries of the day faded away with the last glow of the sunset. It was not until she was undressing for bed, several hours later, that she remembered her letter. Her time had been taken up thinking about the strange boy who had come so quickly to her aid. When she went to the pocket of her dress to look for it, it was not there.
CHAPTER THREE
: MRS. TODD INTERVENES
"What are you in such a hurry with your breakfast for, child?" Martha, her hands on her big hips, stood in the doorway between the dining-room and the kitchen, and looked at Janet with mild curiosity.
It was a gray, misty morning, with a salty taste and feel to everything. Janet looked up from her place where, with the assistance of Boru, she was finishing the last strip of bacon on her plate.
"I want to go over to the Waters' to see how Roy is," she explained only half truthfully, for her thoughts were almost entirely centered on the hope of finding the letter she had lost the night before.
"Well, dearie me, that's no reason for bolting your food," Martha protested, but she let the matter drop and went back into her kitchen.
Without waiting to stop at her grandmother's room, Janet hurried out of the house and started for the village. She kept her eyes on the road, but the Waters' cottage was reached without a sign of the missing white envelope.
Harry was lurking in the doorway of the barn, and Janet called a cheery greeting to him. There was no sign of the boy with the torn straw hat.
"How's my patient?" she asked.
"Ah, he's all right." Harry was a little resentful, for he was thinking of the snake. Janet had completely forgotten it.
Roy, at the sound of her voice, got up from his place in the hay and wagged his tail. Janet knelt and inspected the paw.
"It's a whole lot better, isn't it, old fellow?" she asked as she patted him. "Keep it clean and don't walk on it," she advised seriously.
Harry, watching her, laughed.
"You'd think Roy was a human being to hear you go on. He doesn't know what you're talking about," he said.
Janet did not reply, but she smiled into the dog's eyes, and Harry had an uncomfortable feeling that they were both laughing at him.
As she talked, Janet made a careful search for the letter, but it was nowhere to be seen, and with a sinking feeling at her heart she realized that someone must have found it. But whom? She knelt on the floor beside Roy, and the thought worried her brain. If Mrs. Waters had it she would, of course, take it to Mrs. Page and then -- she shrugged her shoulders. It was foolish to worry over it anyway, until something happened. It would be? a simple matter to write another, but somehow the spirit that had prompted her to revolt the day before was gone.
"What are you doing, anyway?" -- Harry interrupted her musings. She gave a characteristic little shrug and jumped up.
"Nothing much," she replied, laughing.
Harry had been doing some thinking himself for the last few minutes, and he had come to the decision that it never paid to get mad at Janet, for no matter how cross you acted she never even bothered to notice you. So it was with a very different tone of voice that he asked as she started for home:
"Do you care if I go along with you?"
"No, come on if you want to," Janet replied, and together they walked down the path.
"Let's stop at the post office," Janet suggested, her thoughts, in spite of her determination to forget it, still on the letter.
As they neared the little, low, red-brick building almost covered by dark green ivy that served as post office and general store for Old Chester, they noticed a horse and cart with bright yellow wheels drawn up at the curb. The harness was new and shining, and the horse, a beautiful sorrel with slender legs, tossed his head impatiently.
"Why, who does he belong to?" Janet exclaimed.
"Dunno," Harry was not particularly interested. "Guess it's Mrs. Todd's. I heard mother talking about her last night. She is visiting at the rectory, 'cause she's a cousin or something of Mrs. Blake's." The door of the post office opened and he lowered his voice. "Here she comes now."
Janet looked up