Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/268



"Ah!" said the girl, "and how did you come? Not through the house surely?"

"I came under the fence," said Caroline, "the gates were locked. I was Marie Antoinette then, but I changed after she said she was."

"Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her face with slender, ringless hands.

"But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her—"honestly I would. Only you need a Bothwell for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's used to Marie Antoinette, prob'ly, and so you can't get her to change."

She nodded in the direction of the little lady, now far from them, white against the shrubbery.

The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as if she had been running.

"Y—yes," she assented, "she's used to being Marie Antoinette. Where is the hole you got through? Is it big enough for—for anybody?"

"Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, "but nobody knows about it but me and a few other k—prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-hole