young man came walking toward the house. He turned in at the gate and approached the front steps.
“Is this Mr. Richard Phelps?” he asked, addressing himself to Dick.
“It is; what can I do for you?”
“Do you own a large black racing automobile?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Phelps.
“And were you out in it this afternoon,” continued the stranger, “driving rapidly between here and North Point?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Phelps again, wondering what was the intent of this peculiar interview.
“Then you’re the man I’m after,” declared the stranger, “and I’m obliged to tell you, sir, that you are under arrest.”
“For what offence?” enquired Mr. Phelps, rather amused at what he considered a good joke, and thinking that it must be a case of mistaken identity somehow.
“For kidnapping little Mary Brown,” was the astonishing reply.
“Why, we didn’t kidnap her at all!” exclaimed Patty, breaking into the conversation. “The idea, to think we would kidnap a baby! and anyway her name isn’t Mary, it’s Rosabel.”
“Then you know where the child is, Miss,” said the man, turning to Patty.
“Of course I do,” said Patty, “she’s upstairs asleep. But it isn’t Mary Brown at all. It’s Rosabel,—I don’t know what her last name is.”
Mr. Phelps began to be interested.
“What makes you think we kidnapped a baby, my friend?” he said to their visitor.
The man looked as if he had begun to think there must be a mistake somewhere. “Why, you see, sir,” he said, “Mrs. Brown, she’s just about crazy. Her little girl, Sarah, went out into the woods this afternoon, and took the baby, Mary, with her. The baby went to sleep, and Sarah left it lying on a blanket under a tree, while she roamed around the wood picking blueberries. Somehow she strayed away farther than she intended and lost her way. When she finally managed to get back to the place where she left the baby, the child was gone, and she says she could see a large automobile going swiftly away, and the lady who sat in the front seat was holding little Mary. Sarah screamed, and called after you, but the car only went on more and more rapidly, and was soon lost to sight. I’m a detective, sir, and I looked carefully at the wheel tracks in the dust, and I asked a few questions here and there, and I hit upon some several clues, and here I am. Now I’d like you to explain, sir, if you didn’t kidnap that child, what you do call it?”
“Why, it was a rescue,” cried Patty, indignantly, without giving Mr. Phelps time to reply. “The dear little baby was all alone in the wood, and anything might have happened to her. Her mother had no business to let her be taken care of by a sister that couldn’t take care of her any better than that! We waited for some time, and nobody appeared, so we picked up the child and brought her home, rather than leave her there alone. But I don’t believe it’s the child you’re after anyway, for the name Rosabel is embroidered on the blanket.”
“It is the same child, Miss,” said the man, who somehow seemed a little crestfallen because his kidnapping case proved to be only in his own imagination. “Mrs. Brown described to me the clothes the baby wore, and she said that blanket was given to her by a rich lady who had a little girl named Rosabel. The Browns are poor people, ma’am, and the mother is a hard-working woman, and she’s nearly crazed with grief about the baby.”
“I should think she would be,” said Patty, whose quick sympathies had already flown to the sorrowing mother. “She oughtn’t to have left an irresponsible child in charge of the little thing. But it’s dreadful to think how anxious she must be! Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do; Mr. Phelps, if you’ll get out your car, I’ll just bundle that child up and we’ll take her right straight back home to her mother. We’ll stop at the Ripleys’ for Papa and Nan, and we’ll all go over together. It’s a lovely moonlight night for a drive, anyway, and even if it were pitch dark, or pouring in torrents, I should want to get that baby back to her mother just as quickly as possible. I don’t wonder the poor woman is distracted.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Phelps, who would have driven his car to Kamschatka if Patty had asked him to, “and we’ll take this gentleman along with us, to direct us to Mrs. Brown’s.”
Mr. Phelps went for his car, and Patty flew to bundle up the baby. She did not dress the child, but wrapped her in a warm blanket, and then in a fur-lined cape of her own. Then making a bundle of the baby’s clothes, she presented herself at the door, just as Mr. Phelps drove up with his splendid great car shining in the moonlight.
A few moments’ pause was sufficient to gather in Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield, and away they all flew through the night, to Mrs. Brown’s humble cottage.
They found the poor woman not only grieving about the loss of her child, but angry and revengeful against the lady and gentleman in the motor-car, who, she thought, had stolen it.
And so when the car stopped in front of her door, she came running out followed by her husband and several children.
Little Sarah recognised the car, which was unusual in size and shape, and cried out, “That’s the one, that’s the one, mother! and those are the people who stole Mary!”
But the young detective, whose name was Mr. Faulks, sprang out of the car and began to explain matters to the astonished family. Then Patty handed out the baby, and the grief of the Browns was quickly turned to rejoicing, mingled with apologies.
Mr. Fairfield explained further to the somewhat bewildered mother, and leaving with her a substantial present of money as an evidence of good faith in the matter, he returned to his place in the car, and in a moment they were whizzing back toward home.
“I’m glad it all turned out right,” said Patty with a sigh, “but I do wish that pretty baby had been named Rosabel instead of Mary. It really would have suited her a great deal better.”
Chapter XX.
The Rolands
“There’s a new family in that house across the road,” said Mr. Fairfield one evening at dinner.
“The Fenwick house?” asked Nan.
“Yes; a man named Roland has taken it for August. I know a man who knows them, and he says they’re charming people. So, if you ladies want to be neighbourly, you might call on them.”
Nan and Patty went to call and found the Roland family very pleasant people, indeed. Mrs. Roland seemed to be an easy-going sort of lady who never took any trouble herself, and never expected anyone else to do so.
Miss Roland, Patty decided, was a rather inanimate young person, and showed a lack of energy so at variance with Patty’s tastes that she confided to Nan on the way home she certainly did not expect to cultivate any such lackadaisical girl as that.
As for young Mr. Roland, the son of the house, Patty had great ado to keep from laughing outright at him. He was of the foppish sort, and though young and rather callow, he assumed airs of great importance, and addressed Patty with a formal deference, as if she were a young lady in society, instead of a schoolgirl.
Patty was accustomed to frank, pleasant comradeship with the boys of her acquaintance; and the young men, such as Mr. Hepworth and Mr. Phelps, treated Patty as a little girl, and never seemed to imply anything like grown-up attentions.
But young Mr. Roland, with an affected drawl, and what were meant to be killing glances of admiration, so conducted himself that Patty’s sense of humour was stirred, and she mischievously led him on for the fun of seeing what he would do next.
The result was that young