“Your servant, ladies,” he said, making a low bow and placing his hand on his heart.
For some reason, the two girls felt more confidence in this shabby old dandy than in Miss Felicia Rivers. The amiability of his smile and a certain kindly gleam in his pale eyes made them more hopeful.
The lodging-house keeper explained the situation so rapidly and glibly that the young girls were startled by her sudden alertness.
“Now, Mr. Dinwiddie, what’s to be done? I’ve paid their cab fare and I now offer to give them supper and lodgings. A’n’t that ‘ospitality? And do you think they accept the invitation? Not they!”
Mr. Dinwiddie glanced at a clock on the mantel.
“It’s past eleven,” he said. “I think you had better do as the lady says. You’ll be safer here than you would be, lost out there in the storm, and we’ll turn in and find your friends in the morning.”
Past eleven o’clock! Who would have believed that all those hours had passed since they parted with their beloved friends at the station?
“We will stay, then,” said Billie, sighing miserably. “But we wish you would have helped us find our friends to-night.”
“We are willing to do w’ot we can, young woman,” said Miss Felicia Rivers emphatically. “But we awn’t willing to take the influenzy and the pneumonia for the sake of a pair of foolish girls who goes and gits lost.”
They tried to swallow down a cup of tea and eat a bit of toast, but they were too wretched and uneasy to feel the pangs of hunger now; and it was almost a relief presently to follow the slavey, carrying a lighted candle, to the upper regions of the house, preceded by the vast bulk of Miss Felicia Rivers.
The stairs leading to the upper floors were not carpeted and their footsteps resounded on the bare boards with a dismal hollow sound.
The fourth-floor-middle was not such a miserable place, however, as they had expected. In the dimness of one flickering candle they could see that it was fairly well furnished with a big double bed, a rickety chest of drawers, a table and two chairs.
“Good night, my dears, sleep well,” said Miss Felicia Rivers. “You won’t be sorry in the morning that you accepted Felicia Rivers’ ‘ospitality.”
Then the great creature removed herself into the hall and Billie quickly locked and bolted the door. There was another door in the room already locked, but from which side it was impossible to say. At any rate there was no key in the keyhole. After taking the precaution to look through, and seeing nothing whatever, Billie went over and placed her hands on Nancy’s shoulders.