"Have you two been quarreling?" asked Hagar, noticing Maggie's flushed
cheeks. "Mr. Carrollton passed here twenty minutes or more ago,
looking mighty sober, and here you are with your face as red--What has
happened?"
"Nothing," answered Maggie, a little testily, "only he's the meanest
man! Wouldn't follow me when I leaped the gorge, and I know he could
if he had tried."
"Showed his good sense," interrupted Hagar, adding that Maggie mustn't
think every man was going to risk his neck for her.
"I don't think so, of course," returned Maggie; "but he might act
better--almost commanded me to come back and join him, as though I was
a little child; but I wouldn't do it. I told him I'd go down to the
long bridge and cross, expecting, of course, he'd meet me there; and
instead of that he has gone off home. How did he know what accident
would befall me?"
"Accident!" repeated Hagar; "accident befall you, who know every crook
and turn of these woods so much better than he does!"
"Well, anyway, he might have waited for me," returned Maggie. "I don't
believe he'd care if I were to get killed. I mean to scare him and
see;" and, springing from Gritty's back, she gave a peculiar whistling
sound, at which the pony bounded away towards home, while she followed
Hagar into the cottage, where a letter from Henry awaited her.
They were to sail for Cuba on the 15th of October, and he now wrote
asking if Maggie would go without her grandmother's consent.
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