fat woman. So she is a race track follower, is she?" Then Amy giggled.
"I guess she wouldn't follow 'em far afoot! She isn't so lively in
moving about."

"But where do you suppose they took Bertha--if it was Henrietta's
cousin we saw carried off?"

"Now, dear child, I am neither a seventh daughter of a seventh
daughter nor----"

"Nor one of the Seven Sleepers," laughed Jessie. "So you cannot
prophesy, can you? We will go down to Dogtown this afternoon and see
if Mrs. Foley will let us bring Henrietta back to see Daddy."

"The child hasn't been up to see you at all, has she?" asked Amy.

"Why, no."

"Maybe the woman won't want her to come. Afraid somebody may take
little Hen away from her. Did you see the child's hands? They have
been well used to hard work. I have an idea she is a regular little
slave."

"Oh, I hope not. It doesn't seem to me as though anybody could treat
that child cruelly. And she doesn't seem to blame Mrs. Foley for her
condition."

"Well, Hen knows how to kill snakes, but maybe she is a poor judge of
character," laughed Amy. "I'll go with you and defend you if the Foley
tribe attack in force. But let's go down in the canoe. Then we can
steal the cheeld, if necessary. 'Once aboard the lugger!' you know,
'and the gal is mine'."

"To hear you, one would think you were a real pirate," scoffed
Jessie.

At lunch time Nell Stanley had an errand in the neighborhood, and she
dropped in at the Drew house. The three girls, Mrs. Drew being away,
had a gay little meal together, waited on by the Drew butler,
McTavish, who was a very grave and solemn man.

"Almost ecclesiastic, I'll say," chuckled Nell, when the old serving
man was out of the room. "He is a lot more ministerial looking than
the Reverend. I expect him, almost any time, to say grace before meat.
Fred convulsed us all at the table last evening. We take turns, you
know, giving thanks. And at dinner last evening it was the Reverend's
turn.

"'Say, Papa,' Fred asked afterward--he's such a solemn little tike you
have no idea what's coming--'Say, Papa, why is it you say a so-much
longer prayer than I do?'

"'Because you're not old enough to say a long one,' Reverend told
him.

"'Oh!' said Master Freddie, 'I thought maybe it was 'cause I wasn't
big enough to be as wicked as you and I didn't need so long a one.'
Now! What can you do with a young one like that?" she added, as the
girls went off into a gale of laughter.

But she had ot