"Yes, and she's trying to put both shawls on at once," said Nancy.

"Oh, quick! See what Patricia is doing."

Completely out of patience with Arabella's wriggling, Patricia was taking a vigorous hand.

In a manner anything but gentle she was pulling the heavy shawls up around Arabella's head and shoulders.

Betty Chase said that she was "yanking" them, and the word, if not elegant, was truthfully descriptive.

"_Don't_ knock my hat off!" whimpered Arabella.

"I don't care what I do if only I get those old shawls onto you so you'll sit still!" declared Patricia.

When Arabella settled herself in her place she took a third more room than before, and looked like a little old woman rolled up in many blankets.

Arabella sat firm and immovable, staring through her spectacles. She did not turn to the right or the left, and one would say that she did not know that the girls were laughing at her.

"Don't you wish you had just one more shawl?" said Patricia.

"Not if I had to have you put it on," drawled Arabella. "You shoved my hat on one side of my head, and it's felt queer ever since."

"How do you know that the hat has felt queer?" Valerie asked, smothering a laugh.

"I guess you'd feel queer if Patricia Levine had once taken hold of you," was the quick response, and Valerie ceased teasing.

"Dorothy knows a jolly sleighing song," said Nancy.

"Sing it! Sing it!"

"Oh, please sing it, Dorothy," clamored eager voices.

"Sing it with me, Nancy," Dorothy said. "Your alto makes it fine."

Their voices blended sweetly, and the melody floated out on the crisp air, so that a tall, dark man left a wood road, and stood listening as the sleigh sped past.

"Over the ice and snow we fly, Oh, but our steeds have wings!

And their hoofs keep time With the glad bells chime, For sleigh bells are merry things, Never a thought or care have we, Lessons are laid aside, And we laugh and sing, Adding mirth and din To the joy of a winter's ride."

"Oh, don't stop!" cried an eager voice. "Isn't there another verse?"

"There are two other verses," said Dorothy "but--I've forgotten them."

"Then sing the one you do know. It's worth hearing again!"

Again she sang it, as gayly as before, but for some reason, Nancy's voice trembled, and Dorothy turned to glance at her.

She saw that Nancy's cheeks were white, and her eyes wide as if with fear. A moment before her cheeks had been rosy red where the sharp wind had kissed them.

"What is it, Nancy?" Dorothy whispered.

Nancy shook her head, but the hand that held Dorothy's tightened with a nervous grip.

When the girls were once more chattering together, Nancy, leaning toward Dorothy, whispered softly: "That dark man that stood near the woods watching us as we pa.s.sed,--did you see him?"

"Why, yes," whispered Dorothy, "but--" then she understood Nancy's fear.

"Why, Nancy dear, your old Uncle Steve, who stole you from us once, is not living. Don't you remember that, and besides, that man didn't look the least bit like him."

"That man looked just like Bonfanti!"

"Oh,--oo," burst softly from Dorothy's lips, then she tried to comfort Nancy. "But why should he be wandering through the woods here? You've always said that he was a busy man, and once you heard him say that he had never been out of New York City."

"I know I did," Nancy said, "but I s'pose he _could_ go somewhere else, and oh, Dorothy that man looked just like him!"

CHAPTER VI

THE LOST NECKLACE

Nancy strove to be as gay as before. She told herself that the man certainly looked just like the old ballet-master, Bonfanti, but that he might have been a very different person. She did not wish the other girls to know that she had been uneasy or frightened, and so busy had they been in watching people whom they pa.s.sed, laughing and talking, that Nancy's fright had pa.s.sed unnoticed by all save one, and that one was Patricia Levine, Patricia, who seemed to see everything. She delighted in seeing something not intended for her eyes, and then how she would run to tell some one all about it!

Patricia had noticed Nancy's cheeks when they suddenly went white, she had seen the look of fear in her eyes, and she was wild with curiosity to know what it meant.

When they had started out Nancy had thought that the ride could not last too long, but the sight of the tall, dark man at the edge of the forest had changed all that, and when Marcus drove in at the gateway of Glenmore, and drew up at the steps, Nancy was the first to spring out.

Without stopping in the hall to talk over the ride with the others who had enjoyed it, she bounded up the stairs, and soon was in her room.

Vera stopped Dorothy to ask if Nancy was ill.

"No, oh, no!" Dorothy answered, as she followed Nancy up the stairway.

Vera's question, and Dorothy's hasty reply reached Patricia's ears.

"I'd like to know what it's all about," she whispered, "and I mean to find out, no matter how long it takes me."

It was strange how eagerly interested Patricia always was in anything that did not concern her. She did not know that a newsmonger is never respected, nor did she know that no girl whose nature was refined would care to know other people's business. Nothing so delighted Patricia, as a bit of news that she could, by hook or crook obtain, and the added joy of running off to repeat it, especially if she knew it should not be repeated, was greater than she could have described.

Dorothy, when she reached their room, found Nancy sitting upon a low stool, her hands loosely clasped, her eyes downcast as if studying the pattern of the rug.

Dorothy closed the door, and then, tossing her wraps upon the couch, sat down, Turkish fashion, on the rug beside her.

"Now, Nancy," she said, "you're not to let that man you saw this afternoon make you so uneasy. It couldn't have been Professor Bonfanti who taught you to dance, and was so harsh with you. Why should he be out here, walking through the woods at Glenmore? And even if really it had been Bonfanti, why would you be so frightened? It was your old uncle who stole you from us, and made you dance at the theaters to earn money for him. Bonfanti just taught you because your old Uncle Steve hired him to."

"But Dorothy, you don't know how often he said, while he was training me: 'Oh, if I had you in my hands, I could make you earn twice as much as Ferris does!'

"When he said that he would look as eager as if he really _saw_ the heaps of money that he thought he could make me earn for him.