Twilight Stories
out of my dress!" cried the old lady excitedly. "Here, I'll call the police; if you don't let go of me this instant! Stop, I say! Po-o-lice!" Viny gave one violent jerk that brought her up to her feet, and with eyes distended in terror, started in wild despair across the street. A pair of handsome bays were coming in their best step down from the Square, drawing a carriage full of people who seemed in the very best of spirits. "WHOA-A!" A click, a rapid pull-up with all Thomas's best strength, and the horses fell back on their haunches just in time for the little lithe figure to dart under their pawing hoofs and be saved! Everybody leaned out of the carriage for a glimpse of the child. "Why--why"--A young girl's face paled, while the gray eyes flashed, and with one spring she was out and rushing after the small flying figure who in her fright had turned to flee the other way. "Look out, Caryl!" called the others in the carriage after her. "Oh, she'll be killed," moaned a little girl leaning out as far as she dared over the wheels. "And then she can't ever get into the pretty new house," wailed another. "Oh, what shall we do! Come back, Bessie!" she cried, tugging at her sister's skirts. "Grandmama, make her come into the carriage, I can't hold her!" But a crowd of people surging up around them at this moment, took off all attention from Bessie and everybody else but the little fugitive and her kind pursuer. Caryl made her way through the crowd with flushed face, her little brown hat hanging by its strings around her neck, pantingly dragging after her the little black girl. "It's our Viny," she said, "and something is the matter with Aunt Sylvia! Oh, Madam Grant!" "My poor child," said a sweet-faced woman, reaching out a kind arm, while the children seized hold of Caryl at every available point, between them dragging her and her charge into shelter, "don't be troubled. Drive just as fast as you can, Thomas, to No. 27, you know," she commanded hurriedly. Then the first thing Caryl did was to turn upon Viny and unhook the precious brooch as a low sob came from her white lips. "If it had been lost!" A soft hand stole under the little brown cloak to clasp her own; but Madam Grant said never a word. She knew what the young girl's heart was too full for speech; that the mother's brooch would speak more tenderly than ever she could, of forgiveness to the little ignorant black girl. The children were all eyes at Viny and her costume, but they said never a word while she howled on steadily, only ejaculating in an occasional gust, "O Miss Sylvy--Miss Sylvy!" Caryl, white as a sheet, rushed out of the carriage and into the old lodging house the instant the horses paused by the broken gate. Maum Patty was singing in the little kitchen the refrain she never 
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