The Corner House Girls' Odd Find Part 29

Ruth turned like a flash on Neale again. "What do _you_ know about the money in the book? Isn't it good?" she demanded. "I believe you've found out."

"Well! what if I have?" and one would hardly recognize Neale O'Neil's pleasant voice in the snarling tone that now answered the oldest Corner House girl.

"Oh, Neale! is it?" cried Agnes.

But Neale gave her no reply. He was still glaring at Ruth whose expression of her doubt of his honesty had rasped the boy's temper till he fairly raged.

"If you want to find out anything about that stuff in the old book, you can do it yourself. I won't tell you. I'm through with the whole business," declared Neale.

"But-but where's the book?" asked Ruth, in rather a weak voice now.

"Oh, I brought it back," snapped Neale. "You'll find it outside on the porch-in my bag. That's all I carried in the old thing, anyway. You can have it."

He marched to the door and jerked it open. Agnes tried to call after him, but could not.

Neale banged to the door behind him and tramped down the hall. They heard him open the outer door and slam that. Then he thumped down the steps and made for the Willow Street gate.

"Oh, Ruth! what have you done?" gasped Agnes, wringing her hands. "Poor Neale!"

"I want that alb.u.m!" exclaimed Ruth, jumping up.

"It-it can't be worth anything-that money," murmured Agnes, but followed her sister.

"It _is_ good money. I'm sure of it!" snapped Ruth.

She hurried to the porch. There was Neale's old bag in the dark corner.

Ruth pounced upon it.

"Oh, Ruth!" cried Agnes. "It's never there."

"Yes, it is. He didn't stop when he went out. Of course it's here!"

Ruth had brought the satchel into the lighted hall and opened it. She turned it upside down and shook it.

But nothing shook out-not a thing. The bag was empty. The old alb.u.m Agnes had found in the garret, and which had caused all their worry and trouble, had disappeared from Neale's satchel.

CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT

The two youngest Corner House girls had heard nothing of this exciting discussion in the sitting room between Neale O'Neil and their two older sisters.

Tess and Dot had run to tell the rest of the family that Neale had arrived and that Sammy Pinkney was better. Mrs. MacCall, who had a soft spot in her heart for the white-haired boy, put down some supper to warm for him, sure that Neale would come into the kitchen before he went home.

Dot ran upstairs to Aunt Sarah Maltby's room to tell her of the boy's arrival, and Aunt Sarah actually expressed her satisfaction that he had reached home in safety. Neale was growing slowly in the brusk old lady's good graces.

Coming downstairs and through the dining room, where the gas-logs blazed cheerfully on the hearth, Dot found Sandyface, the "grandmother" cat, crouching close before the blaze, her forepaws tucked in, and expressing her satisfaction at the warmth and comfort in a manner very plain to be heard.

"Mercy me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the smallest Corner House girl. "Sandyface! you sound just as though you were beginning to boil! Oh!"

For just then the door from the rear hall opened quickly and startled her. The strange girl-the circus girl-who had so interested Dot and Tess, to say nothing of the rest of the family, popped in.

"Oh!" repeated Dot. "How you frightened me."

Barnabetta stood with her back against the door. One might have thought that the appearance of Dot, had been quite as unexpected and had frightened her.

She seemed breathless, too, as though she had been running. But of course she had not been running. Where should she have run to on such a cold night? And there was no snow on her shoes. Besides, she wore no wrap.

"Did-did I frighten you, little girl?" Barnabetta said. "I am sorry, I did not mean to."

She had both hands behind her and stood against the door in a most awkward position.

"I was afraid you had gone to bed," prattled on Dot, stroking Sandyface.

"Ruthie said she s'posed you had. But I'm glad you hadn't. I wanted to ask you something."

"Did-did you?" returned Barnabetta. She seemed to be listening all the time-as though something was going on in the hall that frightened her.

"Yes," Dot went on placidly. "You know, we've been to a circus once."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. And Tess and I was awful int'rested in it. We-we liked the ladies and gentlemans that rode on the horses around the ring, and was on the trapezers, too. And they looked _beau_-tiful in those spangles, and velvets, and all.

"I s'pose those were their best clo'es, weren't they-their real, Sunday-go-to-meeting frocks?"

"I-I guess they were," admitted Barnabetta.

"You wear _your_ best clo'es when you go up on the trapezers, don't you?"

"The fanciest I've got," admitted the circus girl.

"Well! Mustn't they look funny all going to church that way-the ladies in those short, fluffy skirts, and the gentlemans in such tight pants!

My!" gasped Dot. "Couldn't you tell us, please, what they do in circuses when they travel?"

"Why-yes," said Barnabetta. "I'll tell you."

"Will you sit right down here and tell us?"

"Why-yes."

"Oh, wait! I'll run and fetch Tess!" exclaimed the generous Dot. "I know she will want to hear, too," and she scampered out of the room so swiftly that she startled Sandyface, who flew through the door before her.

Barnabetta was left alone in the dining room. There was a closet with a small door right beside the fireplace. When Dot returned with Tess the circus girl was leaning her back against that closet door, instead of against the hall door.