Page:Dorothy's spy; a story of the first "fovrth of Jvly" celebration, New York, 1776.djvu/64

Rh Sarah suggested tearfully. "Oh this is dreadful, Dorothy! Let us go back to the living room!"

"But if Scip locked himself inside the house, why isn't he here now?" and Dorothy spoke sharply.

"He is hiding to frighten us, and it is very wicked for him to act in such a cruel manner," Sarah wailed, her grief becoming so violent that Dorothy was aroused to do what otherwise she would have shrank from.

"I will find him, and tell the wicked creature what he may expect when father comes home. Scip! Scip! Come out here this very moment, or you shall be soundly whipped on the morrow!"

There was no reply. No sound came either from the inside or the outside, and in Dorothy's trembling hands the candle flared and flickered in a fashion that caused the shadows to dance in a most horrible manner.

"Scip! Come here this instant!" and little Mistress Dorothy stamped her foot impatiently, shaking the latch of the parlor door. "I know you are hiding in this room, so come out at once!"

The door gave way under the feeble impulse of her trembling hands, and swung inward.

The tiny flame of the candle illumined a small square of the spotless floor; but it was in this square that the frightened girls saw a stranger