Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/46

 26  "Oh!" gasped Marjory. "Wouldn't it be perfectly dreadful if he had!"

It seemed to the little girls, torn between doubt and expectation, that Mr. Black was strangely indifferent to the calls of hunger that night. Was he never going home to dinner? Was he never coming?

"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "he has gone out of town."

"Or forgotten us," said Marjory.

"Or died," said Mabel, dolefully.

"No-no," cried Bettie. "There he is; he's coming around the corner now—I can see him. Let's run to meet him."

The girls scampered down the street. Bettie seized one hand, Mabel the other, Marjory and Jean danced along ahead of him and everybody talked at once. Thus escorted, Mr. Black approached the cottage lot.

"Well, I declare," said Mr. Black. "You haven't left so much as a blade of grass. Do you think you could sow some