Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/47

Rh he whispered fiercely. "Good Heavens!"

He removed the letter silently from Felicia's door,—he was reassured by seeing its white square before he reached it,—and crept to his own room. There a shadowy figure was curled up on the floor, and it was crying.

"Kirk! What's up!" Ken lifted him and held him rather close.

"You weren't here," Kirk sniffed; "I got sort of rather l-lonely, so I thought I'd come in with you—and the b-bed was perfectly empty, and I could n't find you. I t-thought you were teasing me."

"I was taking a little walk," Ken said. "Here, curl up in bed—you're frozen. No, I'm not going away again—never any more, ducky. It was nice in the garden," he added.

"The garden?" Kirk repeated, still clinging to him. "But you smell of—of—oh, rope, and sawdust, and—and, Ken, your face is wet!"

Mrs. Sturgis protested bitterly against going away. She felt quite able to stay at home. To be sure, she couldn't sleep at all, and her head ached all the time, and she couldn't help crying over almost everything—but it was