Madame Dyce turned uneasily in her seat, and played with the almonds on her plate.  “I think we do best to reserve our judgments,” she said coolly.  “I don’t believe Phronsie has run away.”

“Of course she has,” asserted Mrs. Chatterton, in that positive way that made everybody hate her to begin with.  “She was all right this morning when I left home.  Where else is she, if she hasn’t run away, pray tell?”

Not being able to answer this, no one attempted it, and the meal ended in an uncomfortable silence.

Driving home a half-hour later, in a cab summoned for that purpose, Mrs. Chatterton threw off her things, angry not to find Hortense at her post in the dressing-room, where she had been told to finish a piece of sewing, and not caring to encounter any of the family in their present excitement, she determined to take herself off upstairs, where “I can kill two birds with one stone; get rid of everybody, and find my box myself, because of course that child ran away before she got it.”

So she mounted the stairs laboriously, counting herself lucky indeed in finding the upper part of the house quite deserted, and shutting the lumber-room door when she was well within it, she proceeded to open the door of the closet.

“Hortense didn’t tell me there was a spring lock on this door,” she exclaimed, with an impatient pull.  “Oh! good heavens.”  She had nearly stumbled over Phronsie Pepper’s little body, lying just where it fell when hope was lost.

“I have had nothing to do with it,” repeated Mrs. Chatterton to herself, following Mr. King and Jasper as they bore Phronsie downstairs, her yellow hair floating from the pallid little face.  “Goodness!  I haven’t had such a shock in years.  My heart is going quite wildly.  The child probably went up there for something else; I am not supposed to know anything about it.”

“Is she dead?” cried Dick, summoned with the rest of the household by Mrs. Chatterton’s loud screams, and quite beside himself, he clambered up the stairs to get in every one’s way.

Mrs. Chatterton, with an aimless thrust of her long jeweled hands, pushed him one side.  And Dick boiled over at that.

“What are you here for?” he cried savagely.  “You don’t love her.  You would better get out of the way.”  And no one thought to reprove him.

Polly was clinging to the post at the foot of the stairs.  “I shall die if Phronsie is dead,” she said.  Then she looked at Mother Fisher, waiting for her baby.

“Give her to me!” said Phronsie’s mother, holding out imperative arms.

“You would better let us carry her; well put her in your bed.  Only get the doctor.”  Mr. King was almost harsh as he endeavored to pass her.  But before the words were over his lips, the mother held her baby.

“Mamsie,” cried Polly, creeping over to her like a hurt little thing, “I don’t believe but that she’ll be all right.  God won’t let anything happen to our Phronsie.  He couldn’t, Mamsie.”