We knew _very_ well that she must have been queer to Harry again. He
would have been certain to walk home with her, if she would have let
him. But--"all through the town, and up the hill, in the daylight!
Or--stay to tea with _him_ there, and make him come, in the dark!--And
_if_ he imagined that I knew!" We were as sure as if she had said it,
that these were the things that were in her mind, and that these were
what she had run away from. How she had done it we did not know; we
had no doubt it had been something awful.
The next morning nobody called. Father came home to dinner and said
Mr. Goldthwaite had told him that Harry was under orders,--to the
"Katahdin."
In the afternoon Barbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Then
she put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting for
a week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to South
Hollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery.
"You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at those
vines," said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much in
these buzzes.
"I want the exercise," said Barbara, turning away her face that was at
once red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me." Then she
came back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away.
CHAPTER XII.
EMERGENCIES.
Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown." That is what she calls it; she made it
for a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bed
without hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach.
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