u and everything. And I
don't know yet what you did after you ran away from the boat. We can't
do a thing here to help. Let's go to Papa, there and you tell us the
whole story. He took a lot of trouble to find you and paid a lot of
money to men to seek you, and he looks awful tired and--and disgusted. I
guess he wishes he'd just brought Auntie and me and not bothered himself
with you and Miss Greatorex. And that's my fault, too. If I hadn't asked
him to do it he would never have thought of it. Seems if things never do
go just as you plan them, do they?"

Under other circumstances Dorothy might have replied to her friend's
unflattering frankness by some reproaches of her own, but not now. She
realized the truth but was too humble to resent it. So she merely
glanced once more through the door of the little stateroom at Miss
Greatorex stretched upon the bed and Mrs. Hungerford with the stewardess
attending her, and followed Molly.

The Judge met them with an encouraging smile and the command:

"Shorten up your countenances, little maids! This is a holiday, did you
know? Folks don't go holiday-ing with faces as long as your arm. Here,
cuddle down beside me and watch the sights. Tell me too, Miss Dorothy,
all that befell you after you disappeared. I'm as curious as Molly is,
and she's 'just suffering' to know. Don't worry about Miss Greatorex,
either. She's simply over-exerted herself and allowed herself to get too
anxious about this one small girl. The idea! What's one small girl more
or less, when the world's chock full of them?"

But the affectionate squeeze he gave to the "girl's" shoulders as she
sat down beside him, while Molly sat herself upon his knee, told her
that he had already forgiven any annoyance she had caused him. He was
too warm hearted to hold a grudge against anybody; least of all against
as penitent a child as Dorothy.

She related her adventures and the Judge laughed heartily over her
mimicry of Larry McCarthy, the "new policeman." Nor did he make any
criticisms when the story was ended. She had been sufficiently punished,
he considered, for any lapses from prudence and the lessons her
experience had taught would be far more valuable than any word of his.
So he merely called their attention to the scenery before them.

"This beautiful, green spot that we are passing is Blackwell's Island,
where the city's criminals and other unfortunates are sent. Doesn't seem
as if wicked people could be hidden b