that poor girl didn't think it was funny."

"Of course, they had some right to her," Amy declared.

"How do you know they did? They did not act so," returned the more
thoughtful Jessie. "If they had really the right to make the poor girl
go with them, they would not have acted in such haste nor answered me
the way they did."

"Well, of course, it wasn't any of our business either to ask
questions or to interfere," Amy declared.

"I don't know about that, Amy," rejoined her chum. "I wish your
brother had been here, or somebody."

"Darry!" scoffed Amy.

"Or maybe Burd Alling," and Jessie's eyes twinkled.

"Well," considered Amy demurely, "I suppose the boys might have known
better what to do."

"Oh," said Jessie, promptly, "I knew what to do, all right; only I
couldn't do it."

"What is that?"

"Stopped the women and made them explain before we allowed them to
take the girl away. And I wonder where she was going. When and where
did she run away from the women? Did you hear her beg us not to let
them take her back--back----"

"Back where?"

"That is it, exactly," sighed Jessie, as the two walked on toward
town. "She did not tell us where."

"Some institution, maybe. An orphan asylum," suggested Amy.

"Did you think she looked like an orphan?"

"How does an orphan look?" giggled Amy. "I don't know any except the
_Molly Mickford_ kind in the movies, and they are always too appealing
for words!"

"Somehow, she didn't look like that," admitted Jessie.

"She fought hard. I believe I would have scratched that fat woman's
face myself, if I'd been her. Anyway, she wasn't in any uniform. Don't
they always put orphans in blue denim?"

"Not always. And that girl would have looked awful in blue. She was
too dark. She wasn't very well dressed, but her clothes and their
colors were tasteful."

"Aren't you the observing thing," agreed Amy. "She was dressed nicely.
And those women were never guards from an institution."

"Oh, no!"

"It was a private kidnaping party, I guess," said Amy.

"And we let it go on right under our noses and did not stop it,"
sighed Jessie Norwood. "I'm going to tell my father about it."

Amy grinned elfishly. "He will tell you that you had a right, under
the law, to stop those women and make them explain."

"Ye-es. I suppose so. But a right to do a thing and the ability to do
it, he will likewise tell me, are two very different things."

"Wisdom from the young owl!" laughed Amy.