“Poor lamb!” Mrs. Anderson said, and her voice sounded like the song of a mother bird.  “Poor lamb; poor, blessed child!  It was a shame she was so frightened, but she is safe now.  Now go to sleep if you can, dear child; it will do you good.”

Charlotte smiled helplessly and gratefully, and after a happy stare around the room, with its scroll-work of green on the walls, reflecting green gloom from closed blinds, and another look of childish wonder into the loving eyes bent over her, she closed her own.  Presently Mrs. Anderson tiptoed out into the sitting-room, where Randolph was waiting, standing bolt-upright in the middle of the room staring at the bedroom door.  She beckoned him across the hall into the opposite room, the parlor.  The parlor had a musty smell which was not unpleasant; in fact, slightly aromatic.  There were wooden shutters which were tightly closed, all except one, through an opening in which a sunbeam came and transversed the room in a shaft of glittering motes.

“What scared her so?” demanded Mrs. Anderson.  She had upon her a new authority.  Anderson felt as if he had reverted to his childhood.  He explained.  “Well,” said his mother, “the poor child has had an awful shock, and she is lucky if she isn’t down sick with a fever.  I don’t like to see anybody look the way she did.  But I’m thankful the man didn’t see her.”

“He might have been harmless enough,” said Anderson.

Mrs. Anderson sniffed.  “I don’t see many harmless-looking ones round here,” said she.  “An awful-looking tramp came to the door this morning.  I shouldn’t wonder if it was the same one.  I guess she will be all right now.  She looked quieted down, but she had an awful shock, poor child.”

“I wonder when I ought to take her home,” said Anderson.

“Not for two hours,” said his mother, decidedly.  “She is going to stay here till she gets rested and is a little over it.”

“Perhaps she had better,” said Anderson; “her folks may have gone on a long drive, too.”

“Did you know her before?” asked his mother, suddenly, and a sharp expression came into her soft, blue eyes.

“I have seen her in the store,” replied Anderson, and he was conscious of coloring.

“She knew you, then?” said his mother.

“Yes.  She was in the store this morning.”

“It was lucky you were there.”

“Oh, as for that, she was in no danger,” said Anderson, coolly.  “The tramp had gone.”

“If you hadn’t been there, I believe that poor little thing would have fainted dead away and lain there, nobody knows how long.  It doesn’t do anybody any good to get such a fright, and she is a thin, delicate little thing.”

“Yes, she had quite a fright,” said Anderson, walking over to the window with the defective shutter.  “This shutter must be fixed,” said he.

“I think she is prettier than the one that got married, but it is a pity she belongs to such a family,” said Mrs. Anderson.  “Mrs. Ferguson was just in here, and she says it is awful, that they are owing everybody.”