Page:Bobbie, General Manager (1913).djvu/46

36 dancing-school; mathematics was a bugbear of the past; and our basket-ball team was a perfect winner.

I loved dancing-school. It came every Saturday night from eight to ten, and Juliet Adams used to call for me in her closed carriage and drop me afterwards at my door. I remember that on that last Saturday night I was particularly full of good-feeling, for I kissed Juliet good-bye—a thing I seldom do—and called back to her as I ran up the steps, "Good-night. See you at Church." I was never so unsuspecting in my life as I opened the front door. But the instant I got inside the house and looked into the sitting-room, I knew something was wrong. The entire family was all sitting about the room doing absolutely nothing. Father was not at his roll-top desk; the twins were not drawn up to the centre table studying by the student-lamp; Alec was not out making his Saturday night call; and, strangest of all, Ruthie was not in bed.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Take your things off and come in, Lucy," said Father.

I didn't stir. My heart stood dead still for an instant. I grabbed hold of the portière.

"Something has happened to Tom," I gasped, so sure I didn't even have to ask.

I suppose I must have looked horribly frightened, for one of the twins blurted out, in the twins' frank brutal way, "Oh, say, don't get so everlastingly excited. Tom's all right, for all we know. So's every one else. Do cool off."

Ruthie giggled. She always giggles at the twins, and I knew then that my sudden fear had been for