"Nobody'll git anythin' outen me," said the old man with a chuckle. "I'll be as dumb as an oyster."
"He don't know what I'm talkin' about," Daniella explained. "You needn't min' him, jest keep up the fiah an' see that he doesn't fool with hit."
"If we're going, we must start at once," said Polly, "so you can get back to-night, Nan," to which remark Nan heartily agreed.
The glory of the red jacket and new shoes did not fill Daniella's thoughts, for now that her fears were aroused, she was more and more anxious about her mother, and she climbed up into the carriage with no just appreciation of the situation.
At the last moment, Polly came back. "It seems perfectly dreadful to leave you here with that silly old man, Nan," she said. "I shall not have an easy moment till I know you are safe at home."
"Oh, don't bother about me," Nan replied. "I shall do very well, but I do hope Daniella will get back before night."
So they drove off and the last thing that Nan saw of them was the gleam of the red jacket as the carriage disappeared behind the trees down the longer and less steep road by which it had come. She wondered what she would do with herself during the hours which must intervene before she could be released. But here her habit of dreaming came in well, and she was presently building air-castles while the old man dozed, or muttered to himself in the corner.
It was many an hour before Nan was relieved of her self-imposed task of keeping house for old Daniel Boggs, and in the meantime Daniella was going through such experiences as her wildest dreams had never suggested to her.
Polly drove directly home to consult her parents about the best way to set to work to look for Mrs. Boggs, but she found neither her father nor mother at the house, though her brother Tom happened to be in, and volunteered to go down-town to make inquiries.
"If anything has happened to her in town, they will know at the police station or the hospital," he said. "I'll go to the station first, for it is right on my way. If I hear anything there, I'll follow it up."
Polly led Daniella, conscious of new shoes and jacket, into the house where she sat stiffly on the edge of a chair, refusing to move or to speak, lost in wonderment. Never before had she been in such a room as that into which Polly took her, although it was but the plainly furnished sitting-room of an ordinary house. Never before had Daniella seen pictures in gilt frames, books in colored bindings, carpeted floors or curtained windows. She sat as if in a dream, staring around in amazement. She was too proud to ask questions, too shy to leave her chair, too embarrassed to speak.